Just like we need a GPS to take us from point A to Point B, businesses need to intuitively map their customer’s journey to ensure they are moving through the process. But instead of plotting it physically on a map, brands need to use technology to visualize each touchpoint the customers interact with when they engage with them. 

Today, customers interact with brands multiple times on various platforms, and brands need to funnel them to continue moving forward. 

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What is customer journey mapping?

A customer journey map is a visual plotting or representation of customers’ experiences and touchpoints with a brand. It tells the complete story of a brand’s relationship with a customer, starting with the first engagement and moving toward a path to purchase and becoming a loyal customer. 

Journey mapping is not a single instance or solution; it is a process that integrates every facet of an organization, from marketing to sales to customer service.

Why Customer Journey Mapping is Invaluable for Brands

Today, customers expect a lot from each interaction with a given brand. Personalization, consistency at each touchpoint, and relevance are not just “good to have” anymore; they are necessary to drive conversions and brand loyalty. 

Customer Journey Mapping is beneficial not only for sales and marketing but also for the creative team. Armed with this information, content creators can develop timely, relevant, personalized copy and speaks to the customer at each touchpoint. Designers can derive context from this information and design an elevated customer experience. 

Customer Journey Mapping is helpful for many reasons, and it primarily helps with the following three steps:

1. Identify all touchpoints to understand the customer experience better.

Customer Journey Mapping helps you construct a seamless and intuitive customer experience through every touchpoint. This is often missed by quantitative research.

For instance, a journey map may uncover a tremendous amount of online research in the discovery phase of a particular product or service. This would lead a brand to question how it appears on search engines and the content customers find when researching the product online. 

2. Get in tune with your customers at every step of the way.

Customer Journey Maps are visual aids that help understand the customers better at each touchpoint. It visually reveals patterns in customer behavior and emotions, and once these are identified, brands have an account of the steps that are working and those with gaps.

3. Identify gaps in your CX and lead your customers intuitively through the funnel.

Customer Journey Mapping aims to understand each touchpoint and ensure measurement tools are in place to help monitor each customer interaction. 

For instance, for a travel website, a customer’s journey starts when they search for airline tickets and cover all the steps through research, queries, finding tickets, booking them, making a payment, and receiving confirmations and other travel-related information. It includes signing up for a newsletter, recommendations to book hotels, prompting the user to check-in, and offering additional information. In a retail setting, Customer Journey Mapping would include the signage, lighting, store layout, temperature, smell, comfort, and other physical elements in addition to interactions with the employees. 

Customer Journey Mapping helps you fill gaps and focus on areas that need improvement for an intuitive and seamless customer experience. 

How to Get the Most out of Your Customer Journey Map

The ultimate goal of a Customer Journey Map is to improve the customer journey and move prospects through the funnel. This is because inefficient systems and interactions cause frustration amongst users and prospects, impeding conversions and sales. 

Below are a few tips to keep in mind when researching your customer journey.

  • Some brands do a great job acquiring customers but are not good at activating. Therefore, brands should include every touchpoint, like packaging, labels, messaging and ads, and social voice.
  • A Customer Journey Map should be a combination of analytics and customer feedback. Therefore, brands must gather quantitative data from multiple sources, including call center and CRM software, QR codes scanned, website and social media analytics, and other metrics.
  • It is essential to include post-purchase components into the Customer Journey Map. The relationship with the customer continues long after they purchase something. This helps you get repeat business, loyal customers, favorable reviews, and raving fans who will refer the product or service to others. 

How Market Research can help brands build Customer Journey Maps

So how do you use market research to help improve the customer experience? 

Let’s examine this with the example of a retail shoe store. You identified the salesperson as a critical touchpoint. You can use a focus group to experience the store just as they would if shopping for shoes. 

Ask them to identify the experiential element of each touchpoint, including what they see, smell, hear, and feel. The focus group will then prioritize what parts of the journey need improvement. They will provide insights on how easy it was to find what they were looking for, the annoying details, how the store stacks up to a competitor, and the customer satisfaction score. The brand can then build an action plan to improve the customer experience at their store. 

This is how the brand identifies gaps, determines development priorities, builds a plan to remedy the issues and bottlenecks, and allocates funds to optimize sales and Return on Investment (ROI). 

Customer Journey Mapping should be a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. 

Market research and building Customer Journey Maps allow brands to compare what they believe the customer journey looks like and what it is like in reality. When you combine the metrics and data with sensory components, you can experience the journey through your customer’s eyes. This “outside looking in” approach will significantly improve the customer experience and revenues.

How is your product received by consumers or business decision-makers? What are the pros and cons of a change in an existing product feature or new varieties of your current big-sellers? Why is a product failing to perform? You want to tweak a formulation, messaging or packaging to cut costs or reach new audiences – but will that scupper or supercharge your sales? The answers to all these questions can be found in product testing research.

What is product testing?

With product testing, we’re not looking to establish general consumer attitudes or behaviours. Nor is this about standing up a new concept or looking for gaps in the market. The primary job of product testing is to tell us how people respond to an actual product – including how they use it and what they think its qualities are – allowing brands to decide whether and how to market it.

When should I do product testing research?

Let’s look at the natural marketing life-cycle to explain how product testing research can support the emergence, and successful exploitation, of a product – and place it in the context of a wider field of market research:

  • Ideation – dreaming up an idea worth pursuing. Research helps identify unmet consumer needs, value-chain opportunities, potential applications of innovation and new markets.
  • Screening – a rigorous approach to deciding which ideas are worth pursuing, again drawing on research and feasibility work, and assessing potential audiences.
  • Concept testing – seeing how the manifestation of ideas might work in the market, leading to additional screening out of less viable concepts.
  • Prototyping – designing products to prove mass production feasibility, form factors and feature sets.
  • Early product testing – evaluating consumer attitudes to the product itself, either in controlled settings, in the field or in everyday contexts; typically unbranded or with highly simplified packaging.
  • Late product testing – which might include feedback from earlier tests to refine messaging, packaging and final form factor.
  • Testing iterations of a product to forecast the impact (on sales and usage) of changes to features, formulations, targeting and marketing – often in response to changes in sales patterns or negative customer feedback.

In other words, product testing is distinct from concept testing. It’s all about refining the delivery of something that is (or soon will be) a finished product. This might include changes to feature sets, the marketing pitch, pricing, ideal target audience and other details. It’s not so much whether the product works – it’s how the product will work best.

Use cases for product testing research

In summary, then, you can apply product testing to:

  • Find out how a close-to-final version of a new product might perform.
  • Tweak that product to optimise its performance on launch.
  • See how a new product is performing post-launch.
  • Test the effect of changes to product design or presentation.
  • Evaluate or explore how a product is marketed.
  • See how well consumers in a new market will accept an existing product.
  • Undertake ‘penalty analysis’ to see which qualities, when changed, alter consumer options about a product.

Product testing in action – a case study

One way to think about the value of product testing is as a way to optimise the introduction or evolution of a particular product. A good example is work we’ve done with a beverage brand to launch a new range of iced teas. The client wasn’t launching a brand-new product – they had worked up some new flavours and wanted to know which they could launch successfully, how these might affect brand perception and what consumers made of them.

There were eight formulations to be tested. We added in an established variant to act as a benchmark, giving us a way to test the relative strength of the products. We measured various metrics with consumers to provide comparable scores as a key insights.

The product isn’t necessarily going to change in this case. It’s a chance for the client to check which variants might work best, to optimise the roll-out and then make minor refinements if the research delivers consistent feedback on particular elements. How research subjects describe the teas might also help shape marketing and packaging for instance.

In other cases, clients might test out product names and straplines on consumers while they’re testing the product to create a range of possibilities, not just on the branding and marketing, but also on likely target audiences and even pricing. Does the product live up to a premium positioning? Or will it chime with more down-to-earth messaging?

The role of product testing guidelines

We work with many clients that have well-established product testing guidelines – a set of standards that enable them to better evaluate products over time and give them clearer benchmarks for making decisions. For large corporates in particular, the product testing research project is an exercise in generating fairly standardised numbers – data that fits a well-established, almost algorithmic approach to evaluating potential product performance.

When this isn’t the case – or if the guidelines are relatively basic – it’s a good idea to establish some clear ground rules at the start of a project to ensure it delivers insights that will shape client decisions. You might need to agree:

  • How the product should be stored, prepared, presented and used.
  • The audience it should be tested with, and how to recruit them.
  • Where to conduct tests with participants (see below).
  • What metrics to record.
  • How to record their experiences – and other feedback.
  • The research methodologies that will work best.
  • Whether to use a control product for comparative purposes.

Introducing a framework helps everyone understand what success looks like for a product: for it to go forward, what will the research need to show? Is it being on par with an existing or rival product on overall performance? Does it need to be statistically stronger on key metrics?

In some ways, it’s akin to a science experiment: you outline the aim (proving it’s better than the existing product) based on your prediction (the product design); we provide a sound, rigorous methodology to test that assumption (the research); and the result gives conclusive result to tell you how to proceed.

How does product testing work? Where and how to test

Different objectives of product testing will suit different methodologies. A lot depends on what brands already know about the product and the way it’s perceived; on what they want to learn from the tests (see below); and the type of product under review.

There are broadly three environments to conduct product tests. Let’s look at the use-cases and the pros and cons.

1. Central Location Testing (CLT)

This is where participants are invited to a facility to undertake the test. This is ideal for evaluating products in controlled conditions, especially when testing a variety of use cases. It’s also suited to products that won’t be used as much in the home – especially in food outlets, for instance.

A good example would be a new foamless cappuccino we tested. To get comparable results, the same machine was used in different central testing centres, with the client providing an expert barista to produce the same product every time.

CLT is ideal for evaluating products under controlled conditions – testing different fragrances, say, is hard if the conditions allow for cross-contamination of scents. But it’s also very useful where confidentiality is important. We set up a CLT in a hotel, for example, so that a new tech product could be tested by invited consumers without the design leaking. Non-disclosure agreements might be a feature of any product test, but for this kind of commercially or technologically sensitive research, the controlled setting can be helpful too.

The other advantage of CLT is liability management. Some products – foodstuff and cosmetics, in particular – might cause adverse reactions with test subjects, and it’s easier to screen and monitor them on-site.

You can find out more about central location testing in our guide.

2. Street Intercept Testing (SIT)

This is literally grabbing participants in an ambient setting for a few minutes to get them to try something and test their reactions. This works well for relatively simple research – the questionnaire will need to be relatively quick in a supermarket or street setting – and for targeting particular participants. Testing a new cheese at the deli counter in a supermarket would be one application.

It’s also ideal for capturing insights within specific use locations – when a central facility would be a little abstract. We worked with a sports beverage brand to test a special protein-rich drink. The use-case is post-exercise, so intercepts with the target market in a gym setting yielded much more insights than a central location could have.

3. In-Home Testing (IHT)

For many products, the consumer’s home (or, in some cases, their workplace) will be the usual usage location. Getting the products into the home for a period of use, then running online, telephone or face-to-face follow-up questionnaires is a great way to see how they work ‘as intended’.

In-home testing tends to be ideal for more sustained testing. The taste of a new iced tea or reformulated cheese can be tested fairly immediately. But a toothpaste, cleaning product, in-home device or even lightbulb, will only reveal itself properly over a few days’ use. Out of the control conditions, we can learn more about how good instructions for use are; we can see how consumers might use the product in their daily lives or in combination with other products; and we can monitor evolving opinions about the product as they get used to it.

Obviously in-home testing has been popular during Covid-19 lockdowns – not least because many products are now being consumed or used in the home that might otherwise have been ambient products; but also because centralised or street intercept tests have been harder to run for biosecurity reasons.

Note also that IHT allows for different research methodologies. As well as post-use surveys, we can get consumers to keep diaries of use, highlighting a wider variety of situations and providing more qualitative inputs.

Woman scanning food in her fridge with her phone

How to do product testing

Where to start

For many companies, product testing isn’t the start of their journey with us. This kind of research is often part of a much bigger engagement process around a brand or product line; or it might be commissioned by a brand we already do different kinds of work with. So the starting point is rarely a cold introduction to a product.

But even with some engagement beforehand, the first step in product testing is to look at the product and the client’s requirements, and then design an approach that will answer their key questions.

For some, those questions will be extremely precise. For example, one detergent brand asked us to test out a new toilet cleaning product. They knew exactly what segment they wanted to target – ABC1 consumers in their 30s and 40s who were already familiar with the brand – and even the methodology they wanted (in-home testing).

That’s largely a logistical challenge – getting the product and a control cleaner into their homes, in plain packaging, so they can be tested side-by-side; then running an online survey to generate some quantitative data and some qualitative feedback comparing the product to a known comparator.

Another example might be a commercial-kitchen mayonnaise we tested. The client was keen to assess not just how the product performed against other formulations of mayo, but also what professional chefs thought of it in different applications. Will it be at least on par with the existing product? What recipes or dishes did it suit? And how did it compare commercially?

One thing to bear in mind is that you should be testing for things you might change as a result of the insights we generate. Knowing what can change (from packaging and marketing, to cosmetic attributes or even key design features) as a result of the research findings – and what you definitely can’t alter – will ensure the tests are focused and useful.

Methodology reflections

We find that CLT is generally better for ‘sequential monadic’ testing. ‘Monadic’ means the consumer is evaluating a single product, and this is obviously possible in any environment. Even ‘paired comparison’ testing – head-to-head – can be done in-home. But sequencing the comparisons scientifically (standalone, then in head-to-head, for example) often generates more reliable data.

In terms of participant recruitment, clearly targeting the audience accurately – whether in the field, via lists of consumers, or panels – is key. They are often motivated because they receive free products. But in some cases, especially with the more in-depth or time-consuming studies, the chance to earn money is also a motivator.

Hard and soft questions

Product testing can answer a lot of questions. For seasoned clients, they’re often very precise ones – they’re seeking standardised data on usage and performance that will help them contextualise the product within a portfolio.

A good example of a ‘hard’ question might be pricing. Using techniques such as the Gabor–Granger method (to understand price elasticity) or the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (which creates an optimal price point for a given audience), research can reveal a lot about the economics of a product.

Hard questions like that are often central, even when we’re working with smaller companies that are looking to take a product from prototype to production and need to calculate the risk/rewards involved.

Smaller companies, however, are more likely to be asking ‘soft’ questions, too, where quantitative surveys are augmented with qualitative insights. They might be trying to learn more about consumer attitudes to the category as well as the product; or develop a deeper understanding either to tweak the product being researched – or inform future innovations.

A good market research agency can really help with this part of the process. For example, in some companies there might not be rigid product testing guidelines in place. But by explaining what they need to know to market the product, what they might be able to change about it and what they’re not sure about, we can help companies come up with fieldwork that will deliver clear metrics and provide answers to their key questions.

What’s the outcome?

A well-planned, well-run product testing project is rarely just looking for a blunt ‘go/no-go’ answer to a product roll-out or adjustment. Although many big brands have a well-established formula for conducting product tests – designed to plug data into their tried-and-tested algorithms – even these clients will often use the test as an opportunity to learn more about the product in different dimensions.

Sometimes that’s just a by-product of a sufficiently expert and thoughtful product test. As market research professionals, we learn a lot more about products during tests than the raw data suggests. Often it’s the degree of flexibility the market research team brings to the product test that makes it most valuable.

That’s true whether the primary objective is standardised data on product attributes – or semi-quantitative work with a healthy dose of qualitative inputs to shape decisions. By making sure the parameters for the product’s adaptation are clear and the questions about it well framed, we can ensure the right blend of methodology and insights meet the client needs.

A good example of that would be taste tests for a new formulation at a chocolate brand. ‘Super tasters’ working at the client will arrive at some finely calibrated formulation, created to be aligned to brand values and differentiate the product. But it’s ordinary consumers whose verdict will shape its ultimate success.

Looking to embark on product testing research?

With experience in product testing research, we can combine the inputs and recommend robust methodologies to make sure the product hits the sweet spot in the market. Find out more about our product testing capabilities or get in touch to discuss with our team.

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Kadence Boston, in partnership with 2020 Research, has been running an online community to understand the impact COVID-19 is having on US consumers. Before we launched this community one month ago, we thought long and hard about whether this was the right thing to do. We didn’t want this research to be perceived as taking advantage of the situation for our own marketing purposes. In the end, we decided to go for it, because we are market researchers and our job is to study, and help our clients understand, consumers. As expected, we are learning a lot, but what we didn’t anticipate was just how much our participants would also benefit from this community.

Participants in our COVID Community have been exceptional, in terms of the level of effort they put into their responses, as well as the time they have put into reading and responding in thoughtful, considerate ways to other participants’ posts. We expected participation in the community to be slightly more active than normal, given how many Americans are out of work and staying home due to COVID-19, but we’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of commitment and involvement we’ve seen.

After nearly everyone enthusiastically accepted our invite to extend the community into a third week, we decided to ask what they like about being part of this community. Their responses verify many of the benefits of communities and other online qualitative research methods, not only for researchers but also for research participants.

  • Expressing thoughts and feelings in writing requires greater introspection and thought, which fosters deeper levels of insight.

“By recording how I’m feeling or what I did today, I’m able to see patterns of behavior and thought in myself. I also like having questions that make me think of months ahead since that’s been tough to really visualize lately.” 

– Abby, NYC
  • Being remote and not knowing other participants provides enough anonymity where people feel they can be more open and honest than they might be with their usual circle of friends and family.

“Feel a bit freer to speak my mind on some subjects more honestly. With family or friends, it can be more difficult if they are having a hard time now or have very strong opinions that vary from mine.”

– Ralph, LA
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  • It can be difficult to navigate COVID-19 conversations with friends and family without venturing into polarizing issues, like politics. In highly emotional times like now, communities can provide a therapeutic outlet for consumers to express their thoughts and feelings without fear of damaging relationships. This would also be the case when researching a sensitive, personal topic.

“It’s therapeutic to share [my opinion] without having to hear an argument about why I may be wrong.”

– Patrick, LA
  • Like our obsession with reality TV, we enjoy sneaking a peek into the daily lives of others. Through the community, consumers can see how others are living and coping through COVID-19, which can be reassuring, inspiring, helpful, even entertaining.

“It’s also been so helpful reading everyone else’s responses, tips, tricks and stories. You can really get stuck in a pattern talking to the same types of people in your life.”

– Abby, NYC
  • Similarly, consumers are curious to hear first-hand accounts of others’ feelings and perspectives around the country. Exposure to other community members’ written and video responses each day can elicit feelings of connection and empathy. Realizing your similarities, and better understanding your differences, can bring about feelings of comradery and hope.

“It’s also good to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Everyone has a different perspective. They look at things from different angles and looking through the responses, you see the different fears. Their different beliefs, the different struggles that people have in how they’re dealing with them.”

– Michael, Chicago

“I was surprised to see that I have more in common with other people in this group than I thought.” 

– Diego, Houston

Especially now, at a time when we are craving human connection more than ever, online communities and other online qualitative methods are ideal for understanding consumers’ thoughts, feelings, behaviors, needs, expectations and for exploring new ideas.

If you are interested in learning more about these methods, tune into our webinar on April 15th at midday EDT. It’s not too late to register, just click here.

In the recent weeks we’ve been inundated with announcements by what seems like every company in America, large and small, announcing their approach to the COVID-19 pandemic. With much of the country at home, following the news, shopping online, viewing content and using social media more than before, American consumers are paying close attention to how brands are making them feel. Social media is swarming with consumer commentary on corporations’ responses. Brands have never been more in the spotlight and under such scrutiny. Now is a key moment for brands to define their identity and core values to consumers through their response.

As part of our COVID-19 qualitative market research study with 2020 Research, we asked our community of 30 Americans from Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and New York City to weigh in with their thoughts on how brands have responded to this pandemic.

Here are 10 key insights from our community for companies to consider as they strategize their ongoing response and communication in this new reality.

HOW SHOULD BRANDS COMMUNICATE TO CONSUMERS?

1. Avoid Email Overload

Early emails communication was appreciated but by mid-March consumers quickly became annoyed as corporate communication routinely flooded their inboxes day after day. Consumers have stopped reading them all because many seem to include a “blanket response”, explaining that companies are following CDC guidelines. Companies who sent their first email late into the crisis risk getting noticed for the wrong reasons. They come across as a disingenuous, “purely PR” response.

“I’ve been up to my navel in ‘response’ emails, seems like it’s anyone I’ve ever ordered from or used. I was fine with them at first but they’re getting a bit irritating as they continue to try to keep you updated.” – Boomer, Houston

Consumers do appreciate emails that personally affect them, like updates from local grocery stores and restaurants notifying customers of their closing, shopping hours, new safety measures and sales notifications for needed items.

2. Actions speak louder than ads

Brands that have made a memorable, positive impression on consumers have responded by taking real action and implementing change, not through passive communication. Consumers recall hearing about companies’ positive actions in the news, social media, radio, or podcasts. They find secondary reports more credible than hearing about a company’s response through ads or direct marketing communications. However, consumers’ first-hand experience with brands, in store or online, can completely derail or reinforce their perceptions of a company’s response.

HOW SHOULD BRANDS RESPOND TO COVID-19?

Consumers expect companies to be aware of how this pandemic is impacting our lives and empathetic to how this crisis is making us feel. They appreciate brands that have responded in ways that align with their prioritized values, putting people first and contributing in helpful ways.

3. DO: Prioritize people over profit

Above all else, consumers appreciate company leaders that have shown they care about their employees, like paying them though the shutdown, distributing executive salaries, giving raises to front-line workers, providing protective gear to staff.

“Patagonia and other retailers are continuing to pay employees while stores are closed…I think Patagonia’s response to COVID-19 will continue to motivate me to shop there more and support their brand.” – Millennial, Chicago

4. DON’T: Put business first

In contrast, consumers have negative perceptions of companies that put off closing or implementing equipment and efforts to protect the health of their employees and customers.

“[One shipping company] have kept regular all day business hours, they are not providing their front line staff that deals with the public proper cleaning or safety gear…They haven’t implemented any social distancing rules and at any moment it gets crowded.” – Gen X, Chicago

Consumers are especially critical of major corporations that, despite rising stock prices, are not increasing compensation for their over-extended employees, or paying employees for extended time off due to COVID-19. Some even go out of their way to investigate workers’ perspectives and will write off companies for not treating employees right.

“I’m frustrated that many lower wage workers are getting screwed over when they need the most protection. It’s difficult to see [some delivery] companies … rising in the stock markets.” – Gen Z, NYC

5. DO: Contribute to the solution

Companies and wealthy individuals that have donated generous resources to support the greater goal of saving lives have made a very positive impression on consumers, stimulating feelings of optimism, hope and American pride.

Consumers are most impressed by company leaders that are repurposing their operations to produce or acquire much-needed medical supplies, like Microsoft, Tesla, Apple, GM, Dyson, Medtronic, MyPillow.com and Gap.

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“Corsair turned their gin bottling process into making hand sanitizer … I love the ingenuity, creativity, and response in a time of need. I had never tried their liquor products before, I went straight out and bought a bottle of their gin and one of their whiskey products.” – Millennial, LA

They also admire brands in hard-hit industries, like Hotels.com, that are proactively supporting the greater cause despite their losses.

6. DON’T: Be passive

Consumers are critical of major corporations and moguls that have not donated money or resources towards sourcing medical supplies, judging them as greedy, unethical, and reassessing their relationship with these brands.

Similarly, many are angered by brands that are not taking any action or trivializing the pandemic.

“One specific company that I buy from weekly did not say anything about it. I had to ask via Instagram comments. The owner finally did answer after many comments…called it a “virus scare” which was annoying and turned me off from her company. I felt like she was downplaying what is actually a pandemic.” – Gen Z, LA

7. DO: Adapt to customer needs

Consumers applaud companies that quickly recognized people’s changing needs and adapted to meet these needs in creative and thoughtful ways. These businesses have revamped their operations processes to protect customers and employees and created innovative new services and solutions to help customers. While other companies are adopting these trends, the early adopters and innovators made a memorable impression.   

“With contactless shopping services.  I’ve always enjoyed shopping at CVS over Walgreens but this move that they’ve made has made me take another look at them.” – Gen X, Chicago

8. DO: Support non-customers

Brands that are also extending their services and offers to non-customers are bringing in more potential customers and improving their overall brand image. Consumers view these companies as caring, generous, thoughtful and report intentions to support them in the future.

“CorePower Yoga made a number of their on-demand videos free for anyone so people who do boutique classes can still keep active. I usually can’t even afford yoga normally in NYC, but I’ve been using it! It makes me want to invest in them in the future when I can!” – Gen Z, NYC

9. DON’T: Disregard customer needs

Consumers are put off by companies that have been insensitive to their needs. Grocery stores and retailers that were slow to follow the changes and safety measures taken by their competitors are seen as uncaring and profit-driven. Large retailers that have increased prices in the wake of COVID-19 anger consumers who now view them as greedy and profit-driven. Communication that is irrelevant or insensitive to consumers’ feelings and needs in this new reality negatively affects consumers’ perceptions of the brand. 

“I have received a few emails about “you need to schedule an appointment for us to upgrade/install new HVAC” to protect your air quality.  I found this unprofessional and unethical…trying to play on people’s fears to earn some extra bucks is wrong.”  – Gen X, Chicago

10. Remember, we’re all human.

While consumers recognize that companies are run by people who, like all of us, have never experienced this amount of change and uncertainty; in a matter of weeks, we set expectations for how brands should and should not respond during this unprecedented crisis. Now, more than ever, consumers crave connection and they are connecting most with companies that have shown they care more about people than profit, through their actions, not just their words.

In this highly emotional time, consumers are likely to remember brands that really stood out through their response, both positively and negatively. How brands are responding to COVID-19 is influencing consumers’ perceptions, awareness, consideration, usage, loyalty, and their future intentions with brands.

But it’s not too late to take action to improve brand perceptions. It is critical that companies stay aware of what consumers are currently feeling, thinking, needing and expecting from them right now. Play offense and engage in conversations with consumers. When companies care enough to respond directly to critical consumer feedback in places like social media, perceptions can shift. Connect at the human level in ways that demonstrate empathy, care and support, not just for your customers, but for everyone in the country, for humans around the world.  

For additional insights by industry, or additional information on our community or capabilities, reach out to [email protected].

Disclaimer:  Quotations from community participants have not been fact-checked and are not necessarily representative of the views of Kadence International.

At a time when there is concern that news outlets are feeding coronavirus panic and confusion, it may have been easy to miss some of the more positive news stories emerging in the last few weeks.

Chief among them is the impact that digital technology has had across Asia, as parts of China in particular have gone into lockdown, and the implications of this.

Across China, as The Economist reported earlier this week, subscriptions to digital health services have increased exponentially – a shift in consumer behavior that previously had been expected to take five whole years. Similarly, we have seen reports that mobile, social media and streaming services are experiencing a strong uptick in usage whilst people are stuck indoors. Schooling has also moved online, with students taking classes through grade-specific TV channels, and the internet.

Above all, we’ve seen people using digital resources to overcome the loneliness of isolation. Gyms are offering sessions via WeChat, clubs are hosting club nights online, and gamers are congregating online to play together in increasing numbers, with Tencent’s Honor of Kings game reaching a peak in average daily users.

So will there be in any digital silver linings for the market research industry?

Non face-to-face methodologies are hardly new in our industry, but a shift towards online – particularly when it comes to qualitative research – now feels unavoidable. Where once a traditional focus group or face-to-face interviews may have sufficed, we’ll undoubtedly see digital techniques coming in to play more and more.

But herein lies a word of caution: because not all digital techniques are created equally, and not all solutions are suitable for certain projects: the most appropriate methodology will always depend on a study’s objectives.

There are plenty of digital options available to researchers: online focus groups, skype depth interviews, mobile diaries, and online communities to name but a few, but how do you work out which methodology is best suited to your study?

First of all, it’s important to start your thinking with your objectives, not your methodology. Just because you might have once used focus groups or face-to-face depth interviews in the past, doesn’t necessarily mean an online focus group or skype interview are the best ways to meet your objectives using digital tools. Start by asking:

  • Are you looking for breadth, or depth of insight?
  • Who are you looking to influence with your findings? What kinds of asset are most likely to have impact and support real change across your organization? How quickly do your stakeholders need access to your insights?
  • How important is it to observe discussion and interaction between respondents – are you looking to compare different points of view?

How you answer these questions will heavily impact the methodology that’s right for you.

For instance, say you are conducting a concept or product test. Typically, you’d use a focus group setting so your product and design team could observe respondent reactions, and make on-the-spot changes to your product.

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If you’re looking for breadth, speedy insights, and discussion between respondents to understand how views differ, you might automatically think that an online focus group session, with respondents and stakeholders logging in from separate locations is your answer. However, while online focus group technology mimics the experience of a focus group setting, in practice, it is much harder for respondents to communicate with one anyone other than the moderator – you’re unlikely to meet your ‘discussion between respondents’ objective.

Instead, an online community would allow you to hit the nail on the head of all three of your objectives and then some. The key difference versus an online focus group is your ability to nurture and observe conversations between respondents in the community in a much more natural environment.

You can even use the platform to segment different audiences together, or keep the community broad to observe discussions across the whole group. Stakeholders are able to log on at any time they choose, to observe conversations, and input suggestions for additional questions to the moderators. And say you have one or two topics you’d like to explore in more depth? You can always set up private questions, to conduct one-to-one research as part of the community. And when it comes to final assets, online communities are really unrivalled when it comes to video and photo content that can be used to help land insights with your stakeholders.

If, however, observing interaction between respondents really isn’t a key necessity, and you’re looking for depth of insight, you may want to consider depth Skype interviews instead of your traditional focus group. Digital depth interviews work beautifully for concept and product testing as part of a staged program of research, especially when you meld multiple touch-points together. You could consider following an initial Skype interview with a selfie-style filmed product review in-home for example, to really dig into consumer views.

Ultimately, while all of these methodologies have been around for some time, it’s likely that a reduction in face-to-face research will see us being far more creative with the digital options available to us. It will be fascinating to see whether or not these changes result in a long-term shift towards digital methodologies. Back in 2014 during London’s tube strikes, commuters were forced to find alternative routes to get travel around the city. Following the strikes, Transport for London reported that one in 20 commuters actually stuck with the new route they’d discovered. Will the research industry see a similar permanent shift? Time will tell.

Kadence has a wealth of experience in using digital research methodologies to help answer critical questions for brands and businesses. If you’re looking for support to help you find the best approach to meet your business objectives, please get in touch.  

Our kids media experts Bianca Abulafia and Sarah Serbun shared their top tips at Qual 360 of how to conduct qual research with kids and the cultural considerations to bar in mind in each market.

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