True North Innovation Market and Customer Research

True North Innovation 2011©

Understanding Your Market and Your CustomerRowan Norrie


Agenda

• Understanding your market– The business environment– Search tips

• Understanding your customers– Who are your stakeholders– Voice of the Customer (VOC)


Macro environment

Industry(or sector)

Internal environment

(organisation)

Layers of business environment

Eco

nom

ic

TechnologicalSociocultural

Pol

itica

l

LegalE

nvironmental

Suppliers

Competitors Regulatory

Customers


Using Google effectively

� Exact phrase “immune deficiency” or

immune.deficiency

� Exclude words e.g. Rome –hotel

� Site specific e.g. dancing site:youtube

� File specific e.g. travel filetype:pdf

� Similes words ~clinical.studies will return

clinical.trials as well

� Images and videos (but careful about

copyright)


Other good general sources

• Wikipedia

• Slideshare

• Google Scholar (for academic articles)

• Google books

• LinkedIn

• Docstoc

• Google books

• Espacenet (for patents)


Agenda

• Understanding your market– The business environment– Search tips

• Understanding your customers– Who are your stakeholders– Voice of the Customer (VOC)


“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse .”

Henry Ford


Who is your customer?

How do you find them?

What do they value?


Who Are the Customers?

• External: Individuals or organisations outside of your business who are usually associated with paying money for your products and service

• Internal: Colleagues involved in your product / service – e.g. Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, Marketing

• Others: Stakeholders who have an impact / are impacted by your product, e.g. Regulatory, Suppliers, Collaborators


Customers define “Quality ”

You must understand what the customers care about, what they

VALUE!Easeof Use

EaseEase

of Useof UseAestheticsAestheticsAesthetics

TimelinessTimelinessTimeliness AccuracyAccuracyAccuracy

Flexibility& Options

FlexibilityFlexibility

& Options& Options

Price & Cost

Price Price

& Cost& Cost

CustomerCustomerCustomer


Performance need categories

QualityQualityQuality

CostCostCost

SpeedSpeedSpeed

Serviceand Safety

ServiceServiceand Safetyand Safety

CorporateResponsibility

CorporateCorporateResponsibilityResponsibility

Ethical Business Conduct, Business Risk Management, Health Safety and Environment Policy, Code of Conduct

QualityQualityQuality

CostCostCost

SpeedSpeedSpeed

Serviceand Safety

ServiceServiceand Safetyand Safety

CorporateResponsibility

CorporateCorporateResponsibilityResponsibility

Process Cost Efficiency, Prices to Consumer (Initial Plus Life Cycle), Repair Costs, Purchase Price, Financing Terms, Depreciation, Residual Value, Raw Material, Energy Efficiency

Lead Times, Delivery Times, Turnaround Times, Setup Times, Delays, Up Time, Equipment Availability, Rolling Speed, Flexibility

Health, Safety and Environment Policy, Service Requirements, After-Purchase Reliability, Parts Availability, Service, Warranties, Maintainability, Customer-Required Maintenance, Product Liability, Product/Service Safety, Recordable Injuries, Lost Time, Environmental Incidents

Product or Service Features, Attributes, Dimensions, Characteristics Relating to the Function of the Product or Service, Reliability, Availability, Effectiveness, Recovery, Customer Returns, Defects, Rework or Scrap

What are the priorities?


Voice of Customer

• Step 1: Segment your market

• Step 2: Communicate

• Step 3: Analyse

• Step 4: Feed VOC into design process

• Step 5: Maintain dialogue


Slide 13

Step 1: Segment your market

1. Group by:-

• Geography

• Demographics (age, gender, occupation, income)

• Psychographics (lifestyle, social class, personality)

• Behaviour

2. Identify most attractive segment

• Size and growth

• Competition

• Company objectives / resources• Access to segment


Step 2: Communicate with your customers

• Online / telephone surveys

• Focus groups

• Interviews

• Observation

• Comment cards

• Complaints

• Sales reports

• Communities of interest


Interviews

• Types – informal; general guide approach; standardised open-ended; standardised closed

• Topics – behaviours, opinions/values, feelings, knowledge, sensory, background / demographics

• Structure – fact-based and present / past questions first to ease in, before asking about emotions and future


Observation

• People do their work or go about their day

• Establish informal dialogue with user

• Observe and listen to actual behaviours

• Identify what works / what doesn’t work


Focus groups

• Plan well in advance

• Send out invites and then telephone reminders

• Provide food and drink to help create relaxed atmosphere

• No more than 8-10 participants

• No more than 6-8 questions

• Relaxed, but professional style

• Prompt, play devil’s advocate and encourage discussion to get below surface


Voice of Customer

• Step 1: Segment your market

• Step 2: Communicate

• Step 3: Analyse

• Step 4: Feed VOC into design process

• Step 5: Maintain dialogue


Collate data gathered

• Online / telephone surveys

• Focus groups

• Interviews

• Observation

• Comment cards

• Complaints

• Sales reports

• Communities of interest


Affinity Diagrams

• Gather ideas from interview transcripts, surveys, etc.

• Generate customer need statements on cards or sticky notes

• Group the cards to find the “affinity”

• Label the groups of cards

Theme 1

NeedNeed

NeedNeed

Theme 2

NeedNeed

Need

Need

Need


Customer Input to Key Issues

Actual Customer Statements and

Comments

The Real Customer Concerns, Values or

Expectations

The Specific, Precise and Measurable

Characteristic

•“This mower should be easy to start”

•“The cord shouldn’t be too hard to pull”

•Wants the mower to start quickly and painlessly

•Mower starts within two pulls on the cord

•Mower starts with a 5kg pull on the cord

•“I want to talk to the right person and don’t want to wait on hold too long”

•Wants to talk to the right person quickly

•No additional menu items on voice system

•Customer reaches correct person the first time within 30 seconds

•“The vehicles are always breaking down”

•Low availability Vehicle Availability > 95% during 7am - 7pm

Critical To Quality Requirement

Critical To Quality Critical To Quality RequirementRequirementKey Customer IssueKey Customer IssueKey Customer IssueVoice of Customer InputVoice of Customer InputVoice of Customer Input


Key Issues to Critical Quality Requirement

Actual Customer Statements and

Comments

The Real Customer Concerns, Values or

Expectations

The Specific, Precise and Measurable

Characteristic

•“This mower should be easy to start”

•“The cord shouldn’t be too hard to pull”

•Wants the mower to start quickly and painlessly

•Mower starts within two pulls on the cord

•Mower starts with a 5kg pull on the cord

•“I don’t want to wait too long for an appointment”

•“I don’t want my appointments to be cancelled last minute”

•Wants an efficient appointment booking service

•Appointment within 5 days

•No cancellations on part of hospital

•Reminder sent day before

•“The vehicles are always breaking down”

•Low availability Vehicle Availability > 95% during 7am - 7pm

Critical To Quality Requirement

Critical To Quality Critical To Quality RequirementRequirementKey Customer IssueKey Customer IssueKey Customer IssueVoice of Customer InputVoice of Customer InputVoice of Customer Input


Step 5: Maintain dialogue

• Customer advisory groups

• Email/newsletters

• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, ScoopIt, Google+)


Summary

• Carry out continuous market scanning

• Customers – what do they value?

• Voice of the Customer:1. Segment your market

2. Communicate3. Analyse

4. Feed into design process

5. Maintain dialogue

True North Innovation Market and Customer Research

Business

dialoguetrue north innovation

patentstrue north innovation

futuretrue north innovation

market step

voice of customer step

design process step

product service

customer returns