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Malliavin Marketing Sciences for briefs about customers
When data modelling can link customer experience to the bottom line, every argument is a silver bullet, so every recommendation you make in your debrief is pure gold.
There is no point in driving up average customer experience ratings for the sake of it.
Meaningful research must be hardwired to return actionable decisions. One way to do this is by demonstrating the causal link between KPIs of experience and business success - and if you can't, you know that you are measuring the wrong things.
One thing is clear: a customer journey is not a funnel. There is no funnel. There was no funnel. Except if your client sells funnels. Don't fall into the trap just because funnels are easy to draw in PowerPoint.
Customer journeys are haphazard. We switch from passive to active engagement in an always-on and never-ending cycle of influence and experience - but because we don't do so at random, a researcher's job is to isolate the bottlenecks where their client's competition are making inroads, and lever the touchpoints that make the most difference. If your brief reads...
The goal is to maximise ROI by landing the most effective touchpoints at the right times.
Demographics, attitudes, needs, and behaviours do not swim together in a digital world. This means that no segmentation can summarise customers into neatly defined groups that explain everything. This is not an analytical challenge - this is a function of common sense. In denial, many segmentation consultants try to strike a balance between these things. Its a compromise which guarentees that, no matter the sophistication of the approach, the solution will be loathed, regretted and forgotten.
"I know who you are and therefore I know you think and behave" held true for marketers decades ago. It is not true today. Rather, it's wholly offensive.
You've seen this compromise play out so many times before. The result is that every crosstab is flat as a pancake. You spend days and days desperately trying to sell in a compromised solution.
We know that a segmentation's elegance and artistry lies how it manages to summarise reality. But to have a chance to do so, it must first be based in reality.
Segmentations are just too damn mission critical to be left to denial and wishful thinking.
We believe that the most successful and celebrated segmentations are always the most simplest. These segmentations make your client money. They are pragmatic, and live long in the business. It's the kind of project that you and your client will be proud of.
Or, you know... make the compromise again, deny reality, pretend its the 70s. Brush it under the carpet and loose your client's trust.
