Congress 2016: Quick Connections, Big Insights

By Stephanie Alaimo

To follow Monday’s theme of empathy, Tuesday brought a talk from Annelies Verhaeghe, InSites Consulting (Romania), David van Dongen, SkyTeam International Airline Alliance (Netherlands), Farrell Styers, InSites Consulting (Belgium) and Pieter De Vuyst, InSites Consulting (Belgium). The talk, titled “Research as a Customer Service: How SkyTeam is creating truly consumer-centric research” noted how it is customers, not products or brands that must be at the center of any company.

Their aim in their new program was to create a program that truly placed customers at the center of their research – this would reflect not only their business goals, but would also refocus their approach to research.

One of the most interesting findings presented was that in simply asking customers how their experience had been, they felt more valued. Maybe they felt that SkyTeam was empathizing with them? Maybe they even felt empathy for SkyTeam? However they experienced it, customers feet that the brand was talking directly with them, caring about what they had experienced, and cared about any issues they might have had. This effect was even more pronounced, since every customer was asked to respond to research that indicated that their journey had been considered, and taken into account. Since customers could tell that their itinerary had been noted and considered, the research must have felt even more personal – the exact details of their experience were important. This was another finding – people feel most valued not just when they are being asked to participate in research, but when it is clear that their needs and patterns have been noted. Finally, when they are being directly addressed and engaged by a company or brand, they feel that they are actually having a conversation, that their opinion is important, and that they are truly valued.

The research also demonstrated that pictures and stories made the research more usable, more relatable, and more inspiring. Not only was it that having direct communication with consumers made consumers feel more valued, but the brands could also appreciate, and empathize, with customers much more easily when that communication was not only direct, but also visual and contextualized. In essence this research program was a true collaboration between the consumers, the researchers, and the SkyTeam brand. This three way conversation allowed for all parties to feel inspired, and of course, inspiration leads to innovation.

Also in consumer-centric research was a paper presented by Alison Poole and Stacie Haber, both of Mercer (Australia). Opening their talk with the reminder that small insights can make a huge difference, told the story of how Australians were habitually leaving multiple employment-linked retirement accounts open, and as a result paying multiple fees, and missing out on compound interest.  They were also frequently losing track of the accounts, since every new job caused a new account to be generated. This amounted to 3 millions of lost account, and 17 billion dollars, all simply because  Australians had lost track of their accounts. At first, it seemed obvious that Australians would want to merge all of their accounts into a single account with Mercer. The financial benefits were so very obvious. But, for some reason, they were not consolidating their accounts.

They needed a few small insights in order to figure out why this might be. Not surprisingly, their research revealed that the process of consolidating accounts was tedious and difficult. It required people to have all of their account data, which they obviously did not have. Research also revealed that Australians would be most likely to consolidate accounts in the first 90 days of opening an initial account with Mercer. These two “small” insights led Mercer to give Australians an option : Mercer could hunt down all of their accounts, and consolidate them, if only they had permission. They also began sending reminder emails two weeks after the initial account was opened. With these two changes Australians rushed to combine their accounts with Mercer. The program was a huge success, because the real stumbling block had been removed, and a timely and convenient reminder was sent.

With these two great results, it is no wonder that market research is growing. However, it is also true that budgets for market research are decreasing. Ray Poynter presented “10 Things You Need to Know About Global Research: Key learnings from the ESOMAR 2016 Global Prices and Global Market Research Studies”. But what exactly does it mean for the industry, if research is increasing, while budgets are falling? Poynter found that newer technologies are driving research, lowering costs, and providing more adaptable ways to conduct research. The result then, is not that profit margins for research are shrinking, but rather that research is becoming less expensive to conduct, and that more and more companies globally are seeing the value in conducting market research. What a relief!

Stephanie Alaimo is one of the official RWC bloggers for Congress 2016.