Voices: the CMB Blog

It’s been accepted wisdom, for the past 10 years, that customer experiences should align with a company’s brand value proposition. Simply put, operations should focus on making sure the brand promises, implicitly (or explicitly) conveyed in market communication, are actually delivered.I recently stumbled across an entire industry that not only isn’t taking this view of brand-experience alignment, it doesn’t seem to realize that experience matters at all. It's not that they don’t care about their customers’ experience once they are customers (they care very much), but they seem completely blind to the importance of experience in the purchase process. Indeed the disregard for this type of experience is so commonplace that I didn’t notice it until I heard about a glaring exception.

I’m talking about higher education. This past spring, I toured many colleges in the Northeast with my 18 year-old son as he went through the selection and application process. Each of these colleges clearly spent a lot of money on sales and marketing. They all had very strong collateral, high quality mailings, hosted events designed to attract students, and I’m sure had a lot of other marketing activities as well. But when it came to delivering a pivotal experience—the guided campus tour, they all completely blundered.

The first tour at a highly regarded small liberal arts school in Maine was typical. It was conducted by an intelligent, friendly student. It would have been a great tour if my son had been primarily interested in how easy it is to make friends, how many good friends the guide has, how she found her art major and the greatness of the creative arts facilities. Of course she talked about other things, but these subjects were where her passion came through.

At another small college in upstate New York, the tour would have been great if my son loved playing Frisbee and wanted to know about all the wacky stuff the kids do to have a fun social life without a Greek system.

These tours weren’t bad, but they didn’t click with my son. He liked both colleges, but the tours did nothing to further his progress along the “journey” to becoming a student.

I didn’t think much of this until I had a conversation with a colleague whose daughter was also visiting colleges, and he told me about their visit to Elon University. He described how great the tour was. The student guide made everyone feel at ease, asked questions, and made sure the tour and conversations catered to everyone's interests and needs. She wasn’t salesy, she took a genuine interest in her charges and apparently tailored tour content on the fly.

My colleague mentioned that on the drive home (after seeing seven colleges) he asked his daughter which schools most interested her. Elon University was one of the three she mentioned. This surprised him because, while a very good school, it didn’t seem to be a particularly good fit academically or socially. His daughter soon came to the same conclusion and dismissed Elon from consideration. It struck him that the tour experience was central to creating such a strong impression. Imagine if Elon had offered a more fitting academic and social environment for my colleague’s daughter, it’s very likely that the tour would have sealed the deal.

So that brings me to my conclusion and recommendation. From my small convenience sample, it seems that most colleges and universities are ignorant of, or are just ignoring, the power of personal experience in the buying process. They spend a lot of time and money moving candidates through the purchase funnel, and then when they’re at the bottom and literally knocking on the door (to mix a metaphor); they fail to give that final little push.

I don’t know anything about how student tour guides are selected or trained. But surely it would be very easy to select the most outgoing, flexible, appealing work-study students, and then give them basic sales training on how to make people feel comfortable, ask the right questions and then tailor their approach to their customers’ needs and interests. Of course they wouldn’t call it sales training.  It could be a short seminar called “The Need for Understanding and Flexibility in Human interaction, 101.”

Rich is Senior VP and Chief Methodologist at CMB, he's the proud father of a brand new college freshman.

Join Tauck's Jeremy Palmer, CMB's Judy Melanson and South Street Strategy Group's Mark Carr on September 12th at noon (EDT) for a webinar: Focused Innovation: Creating New Value for a Legacy Brand

A lot of time and money is wasted on segmentation studies. Here’s why, and what to do about it.

Last November I partnered with a banking client for a conference presentation on a segmentation study we conducted to help guide his organization towards greater customer-centricity. The study provided market insight to help transition from a product-based to a customer-centric organization by identifying need, attitude, and behavior-based segments.  The results helped them develop value propositions customized for each segment, which addressed products, messaging and customer experiences. 

The study was a great success. It’s used by our client in many ways, and was “actionable” in every sense of the word.  But rather than dwelling on our very great success, it got me thinking about why segmentation studies are often not acted upon.  In my 25 years of market research experience, I have found that segmentation studies are often found “interesting” but not “actionable.”  And it’s often not a function of the quality of research.  Poorly executed studies are never actionable.  But even well executed studies may not be actionable.  (And, by the way, when a client finds a study “interesting,” for me, that’s code for “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you failed.”)

Back to the conference presentation…at the start of our talk I asked the audience how many had worked on  well-executed segmentation studies (either as a supplier or a client) that were ultimately deemed “not useful.”  I knew the situation was bad, but I was shocked when about four-fifths of the audience raised their hand. So, here are a number of things we at CMB have learned over years about how to make segmentation actionable.  Note they don’t have anything to do with the mechanics of execution.

1. It’s the process, stupid (apologies to James Carville)
   While any good market research firm can write a decent questionnaire, structure a sound sample, and use state-of-the art analysis techniques, it’s the process that usually determines the project’s fate.  Simply soliciting client input, executing the study and presenting results is not enough.  The study will be a success if the process involves making information-users partners by capturing their definition of success, upcoming decisions and hypotheses, and then including these partners in selection the final segmentation solution.

2. Articulate and agree on business decisions
   Our experience shows that while, many research consumers are good at listing information needs, few actually identify the decisions they intend to make with this information.  Most seem to believe that if they have enough information they will find insights to help make as yet undetermined decisions.  This problem is especially acute in segmentation studies, because different types of decisions (product development vs. messaging vs. targeting) require different type questions and measurement techniques.

3. Many options, but no silver bullet
   Over many years and many studies I have never had an engagement where one segmentation solution worked equally well for all decisions.  For example, solutions that are stronger for targeting will typically be weaker for messaging.   At CMB, our process involves examining and rejecting up to 50 solutions, and then presenting four or five really good ones to our client. This is where management art blends with science.  By understanding competing decisions at the start, we make rational tradeoffs to select the best solution.

4. Real work begins when the study ends
   A segmentation study is typically treated as a discrete project with a beginning and end date.  If the final presentation is well-received the supplier and client may have celebratory drinks or dinner, if not the supplier quietly slinks off to the airport.  But the reality is that no matter how positive the initial reaction, segmentation studies can die on the vine if planning for implementation doesn’t occur before the final presentation.  In successful segmentation engagements, the final presentation is not “the end,” but rather “the end of the beginning.”  Segmentation often requires managers to think differently about the market, and this can’t occur without a process to support and reinforce this way of thinking.  We typically use a set of cross-functional workshops in which participants work with the information and participate in exercises to develop plans with input and support from the group

If you can internalize and act on these principles you’ll never have to slink back to airport after a final presentation. 

Rich is Senior VP and Chief Methodologist at CMB, he also knows the secrets of raising chickens, and the lost art of ski ballet.

You didn’t think we’d give away all our secrets did you? Join us this Wednesday the 27^th at noon to learn more secrets to successful segmentation.