In tough economic times, brand managers tend to draw up into two camps: cut costs in order to ride it out, or, spend in order to generate demand. We propose a third option - one that is actually available all the time, and makes a lot of sense, regardless of the market ups and downs. Learn more about your customer.
It is based on a core tenet of design thinking: make sure you understand your user (or in the case of brand, your customer). This means listening to them in order to learn their motivations and desires, observing them to see how they currently try to accomplish tasks and understand why they take the approaches they do. And on an ongoing basis, it is one step in fostering a sustainable culture of innovation that has a strong return on investment.
It is also a great tool for brand managers because it is a low-cost yet effective way to keep your brand healthy. Why is it beneficial?
It can show you what others might not tell you
Frank conversations with customers can quickly surface issues that may be known within your organization but are seen as low-priority, or don't have effective channels for advocacy that can help overcome inertia or questions of ownership/responsibility. Often you find that there are issues that customers have with your product or service that can easily be fixed. For instance, in one study we conducted, executives at a software company were concerned about the effect on perceived value of the brand if they stopped including a hard-copy user manual with their products. In speaking with customers, we found that not only did it not make a difference (it was included digitally) but in some cases, customers had documented mistakes in the manual and actually found third party books a better source of information.
It can help you keep ahead of the curve
Design research can also help us understand how a market or its customers are changing, what is guiding those changes into the future, and what brands can do to meet these emerging needs. It can be extremely valuable to talk with "extreme users" - those who might fall outside of the current target market - to better understand the adjacent behaviors shaping their product/service choices today and into the future. Since their needs are more extreme and exaggerated than the broader percentage of general users, they tend to shed light on the leading edge of a particular category. An example of this for the home cleaning care market, might include speaking with commercial janitors or even a hospital cleaning staff. Speaking to extreme users will generally yield insights that can be used for future development of new products or service offerings, which might land more in the disruptive innovation space, rather than the early example of low hanging fruit or incremental innovation.
You can make a positive connection
People like it when you listen to them. If you give them a voice, it empowers them and strengthens your relationship. Relationships that function when times are tough can turn into high-value relationships when things get better.
It can be done economically
These conversations don't need to be part of a large market research effort. In fact, it's often more productive to do these a periodic check-ins to help you understand how your brand is functioning in your customer's mind. There are a variety of low cost research techniques that can be used to better understand your users needs, motivations and desires in order to help close this gap. Identifying the specific customers that will give you the best bang for your research buck is a critical decision and one that needs to be tied directly back to the goals and objectives of the research.
And best of all you can get started fairly easily. All it requires is identifying research objectives and developing the appropriate research protocol, a way to recruit customers, and a small, agile team that can objectively conduct and analyze the results. In many cases the results can be used by multiple audiences within the organization.
