Making the Most of Remote Research, Focus Groups
A finance client came to us wanting to connect directly with their customers to help guide marketing efforts for the future. Although they are repeatedly praised for their customer service, they wanted to get a better understanding of how their entire footprint felt about services, messaging and methods of communicating new products.
We proposed a three-step process to gain greater insight into their current and potential future customers. We conducted exhaustive research in 2020 on anonymous non-customers and current customers through online surveys.
As with many businesses in 2020, COVID inhibited our ability to conduct in-person focus groups, so we adjusted, conducting a total of nine different focus groups of current customers from diverse geographic locations and personal backgrounds over Zoom.
The primary goal of the three-pronged approach was to gather insight as to the financial motivations of people who are not yet their customers and the people that are currently their customers. Through this research we were able to identify key areas of improvement, areas of success and preferred method of communicating new offerings and services.
Our online surveys indicated prospective customers wanted many of the same things as current customers. However, there were specific things they valued more: technology, convenience and innovation.
Our survey of existing customers indicated a strong loyalty to the company’s staff and respondents were very complimentary of the customer service experience. We learned that existing customers were less inclined to shop around. They valued relationships over pricing.
The focus groups gave us an opportunity to speak directly to current customers on the key learnings from the online survey, putting those short answers into context that helped ultimately drive marketing decisions for the company.
Gathering this feedback has helped our client gain insight into who their customer is, what their expectations are as a customer, and how to increase their market share with messaging that communicates the key advantages of their brand.
