It’s so easy to assume we know our customers, our competitors and what our stakeholders value from us most. Leaders who have been managing teams in their industries for years know their businesses better than anyone, but are we always the best gauge of how our customers are feeling, thinking and making their buying decisions? Are we always on top of what our competitors are doing to add value and position themselves in the marketplace to get ahead of us?
We’ve worked with more than 20 companies over the years — from start-ups to multi-billion dollar organizations — and while all of them are great at what they do, all of them benefit from a fresh, objective view of their competitive landscape and a real-time gauge from time to time of what’s on the minds of their customers. Customer groups have shifting habits, perceptions, feelings and connections to a brand, product or service. If you don’t check the “voice of the customer” periodically, you could be missing a key insight that can drive your branding, marketing and sales strategy.
We had the opportunity recently to work with a business-to-business telecom company that approached us for a competitor analysis and voice of the customer insights program to validate their marketing strategy. Through this project, we were able to provide the client with insights into competitor marketing campaigns, key messages, audience segmentation, investments and business dynamics. The gold mine of insights were in the voice of the customer interviews, where we discovered some counter-intuitive insights, such as the fact that business customers don’t want to be beholden to bundled packages, they only want the services they need at a fair price. We also uncovered that the client’s competitor base has grown to include ‘retail’ cloud-based storage providers in the small-to-medium-sized business category.
The data was so compelling that the leadership team is leveraging the insights from the analyses beyond its marketing strategy. The main insight we were able to identify is confidential, but will be a game-changer for the company’s value proposition and business model for the next 12-24 months.
“The team at Connective Agency delivered insights for a business-to-business telecom client that provided critical competitor and customer insights that will set our marketing strategy for 2017. Because it was so impactful and actionable, it will also help prioritize the company’s business focus. The client said that they’ve had many consultants through its doors over the years with several versions of business intelligence and that the research we provided was the best they had seen.”
–Marie, Principal, BREW Agency (lead agency of record for client cited here)
When was the last time you did a deep-dive on your competitors? When was the last time you listened to your customers through an objective voice of the customer analysis? If it’s been more than a year, it might be time to take a fresh look. With today’s rapidly evolving business environment, product life cycle and customer dynamics, if you don’t take a fresh look at least every year you might be missing a key insight or two that will help drive your business forward.
If you want to chat about our research process, drop me a NOTE.
