Case Studies

Helping a Technology Company Gain Insight Into Customer Issues and Causes

Facing the Known-Unknowns
A large international technology company wanted to improve their service by understanding the technical issues their customers faced. A significant minority of customers hit technical problems with the service every month and a sophisticated understanding of the issues and causes would be necessary to improve customer satisfaction.

We would need to gather and analyse data across international markets and build a complete picture of the problems that customers faced.

Highly Efficient Data Capture and Analysis
I designed a survey that was extensive but as lean and precise as possible, holding the respondent’s attention and ensuring high completion rates.

As a result, 1000 customers in 10 different markets responded to the survey, providing us with a huge database of information.

I was able to test over 50 hypotheses, identifying causes of tech problems and environmental factors affecting future product development.

The results were used by multiple departments and on various future projects, making it cost effective and a valuable resource for decision making time and again.

Marketing Concept Validation On A Startup Budget

Getting to Market-Message Fit
A young start up company with a small research budget was looking to be lean with their communications and get it right the first time.

They wanted to finalise their marketing messages and explanation of their service for promotional print materials. Rather than wasting investment in iterating their message over multiple print runs, they wanted confidence that their communication was clear and compelling from the outset.

Cutting to the Essence in Just 3 Questions
To get all of the information we needed to optimise the marketing messaging in a short time frame, I simplified the research scope to just 3 questions.

When working with startups, it’s important to focus on precisely the key objectives at hand and get all of the information needed in as few steps as possible.

Addressing a large sample, we gauged interest in the service and got a line by line evaluation of the text, with reasoning. The responses drew out the most motivating factors for prospects and gave more information on how to enhance those benefits, while also catching language that triggered resistance.

UK Government Gauges Public Opinion Before Rolling Out Controversial New Service

Early Stakeholder Backlash
Government planning proposals for a new service initiative had become known, and the email inboxes of civil servants were flooded with negative emails from civil liberties groups.

Fearing that the new service would be too controversial to launch based on the initial response, it seemed likely that the programme would have to be changed or scrapped.

However, relying on limited qualitative data alone can present a misleading view of the true situation across the population.

We needed to design a simple quantitative study to determine public reaction to the new initiative before making any further planning decisions.

Gaining Validation and Confidence To Proceed
We wanted to get actionable data, quickly, so that the client could make a firm decision in good time.

I designed a simple one question survey and distributed it to a nationally representative sample of 2,000 people.

This showed that 93% supported the new service. The government had nearly parked a wholly viable and very popular project!

The client was so surprised that they asked us to repeat the research to ensure it wasn’t a fluke.

However, by designing the initial sample size correctly, I was able to avoid the need for a repeat study. With such a large sample it was only likely to vary by ±3%, meaning the client could move forward with confidence.