By Becky Clark, Marketing Manager

I was brought up on Consumer Reports.  The first question my father would ask when I made a major purchase was “Did you consult Consumer Reports?”  Many conversations would go a lot like this:  Dad, I just got a new vacuum cleaner – did you consult Consumer Reports?  Dad, we’re looking at buying a Volvo – what did Consumer Reports say about it compared to a Honda?  I sort of grew to resent the publication when I was younger, but now that I’m older and wiser, I fully appreciate it. 

I don’t know if it’s the fact that my father is a mechanical engineer and is all about precision and quality, but we all can certainly appreciate a quality product...and the fact that you really do get what you pay for.    

So how do we know when we’re getting a quality product or service?  Like everything else, the quality indicators have changed over time.  Looking at a single source is highly unusual.  Social networking, product reviews, brand loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing all supplement sources like Consumer Reports.  On the other hand, some strictly look at price for a quality indicator, thinking the highest priced item has to be the best.  And some just don’t care.        

Now-a-days, with the power of social media and word-of-mouth, quality really boils down to the customer and the experience he or she has with a product/service – as well as the experience with the company behind the product.  Everyone has their own definition of quality, which at one time was:  did it meet or exceed my expectations?  But in this day and age, we must take quality a step further.  According to 10 Tips for Building Customer Loyalty by Chintan Bharwada, “What is new is that the bar for what customers expect in the way of service is higher today.  Being good isn’t good enough to get customers talking about you.  Outstanding is the new good.” 

We all know customer service is on the decline across all industries.  Exceed expectations – make it really easy for your customers to rave about you. 

by David Butler, Vice President 

Grocery shopping has become an increasingly complicated task.  Sure, we can scoop up things that look good on the shelf and fill our cart with items that sound great – but are these things good for us?  And with new products hitting the shelves every day, there are so many choices.  Choice is definitely good, but it can be very overwhelming. 

It’s funny, but somehow shopping for obscure items on my grocery list inspires me to think.  The other day, while contemplating the vast selection of groceries in my high-end neighborhood store, I suddenly wondered whether some of our clients have a similar experience when shopping for research.  Much like we should be a bit wary of buying food that is “too far from the source” or contains too many ingredients we can’t pronounce and don’t understand, research buyers should be wary of buying solutions that are littered with jargon and take the data too far away from its original source.

Understanding where your food comes is analogous to understanding your sample in research.  Where does it come from?  It isn’t that your sample can come from a “right” place or a “wrong” place – it’s just a question of knowing how it was compiled and whether it is truly representative, because the quality of your sample has a direct impact on your ability to make a fully informed decision.   With landline abandonment increasing every day, a random sample in the historical context that we all knew it may no longer exist.  So understanding the ingredients in and source of your sample is critically important.

Knowing exactly what’s in your food is equally important and translates into research as understanding exactly what is in the product or solution you are buying.  Do you understand their analysis enough that you can connect the dots and agree with their conclusions?  Does your review and analysis result in findings similar to theirs?  Imagine your research provider as the chef and you as the diner.  You should be able to recognize the food you ordered, and it should smell and taste good to you.  If not, you will no doubt be finding a new place to dine. 

The moral of this story… order your food and your research wisely.  Bon Appétit!

by Robyn Burns, Fieldwork Manager

“Give me what I want when I want it” has become a staple attitude in our society.  But do we let this attitude of immediate gratification affect the quality of our work in the market research field?  

Read my article in the latest issue of MRA’s Alert! Magazine to find out. 

by Jennifer Ervin, Research Manager 

I recently flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico and purchased a car.  I know that sounds crazy, but I promise you it was a good buy.  After visiting with friends, I set off on my 18+ hour journey across Interstate 40 through Amarillo, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, and finally home to Nashville.

Leaving New Mexico and crossing through Texas was my favorite part of the drive.  While I love the hills of Tennessee, it was refreshing to literally see for miles and miles ahead, beside and behind me.  And I must admit, it was quite exciting to speed down the very straight, very open lanes of the highway in my “new” used car.

The distance between cities is much greater out West than here in the South and there’s not much in between one city and the next.  While I feel bombarded by billboards here in Nashville, I found myself eagerly awaiting that next billboard on my drive home.  Being in unfamiliar territory, with no connection to the Internet, I became reliant on billboards to help guide me through my journey. 

While I expected the vast distance between cities, I did not expect this distance between billboards.  Being that this was my only source for food, gas, and a place to rest my head for the night, I was baffled as to why this information was shared so sparingly.  It’s not like there was a shortage of gas stations, restaurants, and hotels in these cities.  So why was no one communicating this to me?

Reflecting on my travels, I realized just how many missed opportunities there were for a company to entice me to try their product or service.  If I would have known about Crazy Larry’s BBQ joint in Amarillo or The Peabody in Little Rock, I probably would have visited both.  Or at least I would have been more inclined to do so than not knowing about them at all! 

What missed opportunities exist in your business?  Is there an audience you’re not trying to reach?  Is there a market you’re overlooking?  Is there a demand for a new product that you’re not listening to?  As marketers and as researchers, we all owe it to ourselves - and to our organizations - to take a step back from time to time and look at the big picture with a fresh eye.  You never know what missed opportunities may come to light.

by Karen Stone, Director of Marketing

I’m amazed at what people will say in public these days.  Self-restraint and political correctness seem to be a thing of the past.  The filters are off!  People have found their voice, and they’re not afraid to use it.  Is it the rise of social media?  Reality TV?  Whatever it is, people feel more empowered than ever before to let their opinions be known, and they have more options than ever before to make sure their voice is heard. 

We’re all aware of the tremendous power of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, but websites like www.ripoffreport.com, www.pissedconsumer.com, and www.complaints.com are also proliferating at a rapid pace.  And new players are entering the scene like www.foursquare.com – a powerful social networking cybergame designed to drive traffic to restaurants, bars and other nightspots through user-generated content.

A little scary?  Yes.  Life as we know it has changed forever, and if you are a marketer listening to the constant chatter out there, you have to be asking yourself – what does all this mean for me and my company?  And if you aren’t listening… YIKES!  Folks, we’re raising up a whole generation of customer evangelists, and if you aren’t attending their church, you better start soon!  Do I hear an amen! 

I ran across a YouTube video the other day that offered incredible perspective on just how radically different our world has become in the last 20 years.  Makes me wonder what the next 20 will bring.  Take a look and see what you think: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyZRS0BnpAI     

by Becky Clark, Marketing Manager

On my lunch break, I usually run a few errands around town.  Today, I had to stop in at a salon to get my husband his hair “product” and then run by a children’s boutique in search of a diaper cover for my two year old daughter.  Yes, my husband uses “product”.

While I tend to shop BabyGap and OshKosh more than children’s boutiques, I’ve visited one boutique in particular a few times.  And I’ve had the same experience each time.  So today, I walked through the door and was eventually greeted.  I looked around to see if I could find the diaper covers myself, but no luck, so I asked for help.  The sales associate said they were in the back, brought them out and the phone rang.  She left the basket in front of me and answered the phone.  From overhearing the conversation, it was an associate from their other store with a computer issue.  I waited around about five minutes and left – without my diaper cover, and with the sales associate still on the phone.  Don’t customers trump other sales associates, by the way?  So I am back to square one, no diaper cover, plus now, I feel very under-valued as a customer of this retailer. 

As I was getting in my car, I wondered how many other customers leave feeling this way.  Do they not want me to come back and shop with them again?  Because, believe me, I will not return.  They did not meet my needs and expectations, so this would definitely fall under the ‘really bad’ customer experience category.  If only they knew what I was thinking… or do they even care?  I know my experience is not what they built their business around, yet why has it happened on more than one occasion? 

In an article by Barre Blake, The Customer Lens: An Approach to Customer Touch-Point Analysis, he talks about looking at your own company through the lens of your customer, which is a tough undertaking.  One might think that a customer satisfaction survey would suffice, but it simply is not enough, no matter how thorough the survey is.  What really matters is your customer’s interaction with your brand over time – at various touch points.  He says “value may be built through a series of positive experiences, but it is maintained through consistently meeting the needs and expectations of your customers throughout the customer lifecycle.” 

So in applying the customer touch point analysis to my experience with this particular retailer, let’s just say that the customer lifecycle has ended – and will resume elsewhere. 

Have you ever been part of a bad customer experience?   Which side of the experience were you on?  How would you analyze the customer touch points? 

Looking through the lens of the customer is invaluable, every organization should try it.          

Do your customers value you?  The answer to that question may be the difference between whether your business is growing or dying.

What is value?  Can you put a price tag on it?  Think about the things you value the most – how much are they worth?  Chances are if you truly value it, you’ll have a hard time attaching a price.  Price makes it a commodity.  And thanks to big box retailers like Walmart, the lines between value and price are blurred.

Based on my experience as a business owner and a researcher, I believe true value flows out of the customer experience – the sum total of a customer’s interaction with a business.  It’s not whether they are satisfied or even loyal, although that’s a part of the equation.  The customer experience encompasses every touch point and every action, both positive and negative.  An article I ran across the other day illustrates this point very well - http://www.customerthink.com/blog/right_way_measure_customer_experience

Think about your favorite coffee shop, whether it’s a local café or Starbucks.  You’ve probably visited the establishment at least a dozen times, and each time, they’ve had the opportunity to influence your experience as a customer, even when you’re not physically in the shop.  From advertising to community reputation to employee interaction and engagement, samples and in-store displays, all of these factors tie into the total experience a customer has with your brand.  If most or all of these experiences are positive, the value of your brand increases in the minds of your customers which leads to brand advocacy and growth. 

The marketing community is responding to this premise in a big way.  Interest in experiential marketing is growing at light speed, not only here in the US, but around the world.  In fact, a recent survey predicts it will be one of the largest marketing growth areas in the next five years with 80% of respondents saying experience-based activities will account for about 1/3 of their marketing budget.  http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=178594  Another survey underscores that point, indicating that 44% of marketers planned to up their spend on experiential marketing even in a down economy.  http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS107393+23-Jun-2009+PRN20090623

Heightened interest in experiential marketing is also driving change in the business of marketing research.  Over the past two years, we have seen a huge shift in focus from research on features and benefits to measurement of the emotional bonds customers have with the brands they use.  We’re no longer “just” measuring customer satisfaction and loyalty but trying to more accurately measure (and interpret) the actual experiences that customers have at various touch points, in person and online– and we’re illustrating the effect those experiences have on brand value in powerful new ways.

As a result, we’re testing and introducing several new tools and techniques that can bring the voice of the customer into the board room with much more impact than the bar chart alone can do.

For example, we’re now able to ask people who have a laptop equipped with a webcam to answer key questions in our online surveys by responding in their own words to a question like “why would you or would you not recommend this brand?”  The result?  Rich, often emotional “video clips” rather than just a short text response.  We’re going on site to ShopAlong with customers and capturing the intersection of the customer with the brand. We’re equipping customers with mobile webcams to get a real world view of the way they are interacting with brands in their homes and businesses, and we’re measuring customer’s online experiences through our Mobile WebLab.  We’re finding that these research techniques help executives “connect” better with real customers and their actual experiences – which sets the stage for meaningful dialogue and action.

Do you know what types of experiences your customers are having and whether those experiences are helping or hurting your brand value?  Ask.  You might be surprised.       

During tough economic times, the marketing budget is often first on the chopping block.  While there may be plenty of reasons to start cutting, many experts say there are even more reasons not to do it.  According to Wharton Marketing professor Peter Fader, companies that slash advertising in a downturn leave empty space in consumers' minds for aggressive marketers to make strong inroads.  When consumers are bombarded with fewer brand messages, they tend to pay closer attention to the messages they do see.  Carefully crafted, research-based communications can be vitally important and effective during this time.  http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2101

Xerox CEO Anne Mulcahy believes there is no more important time for an investment in research than in times like these.  Mulcahy never cut research out of her budget, even as the company was on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000's.  During that time, research generated new products and services, which greatly contributed to Xerox's bottom line years later.  Today, Mulcahy estimates about two thirds of the company's revenue comes from products and services conceived during the rocky years, demonstrating the powerful effects of leaving the marketing research budget intact.  http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1318

So before you start slicing and dicing, now may be the time to do a budget re-evaluation.  Be sure you are not sacrificing service, value and innovation to fear and uncertainty.  Make it your business to engage your customers, learn what they want and need, and bring them into the development process.  If you aren't listening to your customers during this time, someone else will!

It's tough to turn on the news or look at anything online these days without being beat about the head with the news that the world as we know it - at least the financial and investment world - is in the middle of a spectacular implosion that will forever change the course of history.  It reminds me of Spiro Agnew's great quote about the press, calling them "nattering nabobs of negativism that have formed their own 4-H club - hopeless, hysterical, hypochondriacs of history."

In my own little effort to create a bit of positive karma, I'm intentionally trying to push out some good news.  Here's our good news:

• We are having a great year - our best ever in both revenue and profit - and this quarter, amidst all of the economic turmoil, will likely end up as our best quarter ever.
• We are setting ambitious, not timid, goals for 2009.
• We have added two staff to our team this year, and they are exceptional people that are off to great starts.
• Our entire staff is energized and excited and ready for an even better year in 2009.
• After years - decades, really - of having far too many research intiatives where the methodology was confined to the same old tools and processes, clients and prospects are more interested than ever in pursuing unique and innovative research solutions.
• Our local football teams are playing great.  The Tennessee Titans are 6-0 and Vanderbilt is 5-2. 
• My family is happy and healthy.  I took a one month vacation with my family this summer that turned out to be the most exciting, fun, relaxing, interesting and adventurous thing we have ever done - five countries, two continents and an unbelievable experience for all four of us.

So, to those nattering nabobs of negativism, I say "take that!"