What makes your current customers...current?

ShapardResearch can help you better understand why you enjoy your current customer base through various methods. One method includes an attrition study that involves surveying current and declining customers to gain insight into what the company is doing right and what the company is doing wrong. Another method involves an intercept study that could include optical-scan paper surveys or touch-sensitive kiosks to gather opinions of customers while actually using your product or service.

Further study tools that ShapardResearch can facilitate could include an exit survey to understand specific reasons customers are leaving as well as a customer loyalty program. Simply having a large amount of customers may not add much value to your company’s bottom line if those customers are not loyal customers. Loyal customers, depending on the business model and/or product, will make repeat purchases, will build a long-term relationship with your company, will become external sales people because they will want to promote your business and/or product and, above all, are your biggest fans. If your company is full of stagnant customers then these customers still have the potential to become a different kind of customer...your current customers can also be your potential customers!

Also remember that potential customers are not always paying customers. Sometimes it takes supporters of an idea, initiative, brand, movement or even legislation to develop a new product or service, to overcome roadblocks in your business model or to gain acceptance of a unique concept. ShapardResearch has extensive experience with public opinion polling, business executive interviews and community leader focus groups.

How can you lure customers from your competitor(s)?

ShapardResearch conducts competitive analysis studies for many clients to develop in-depth clarity into exactly who your competitors are, which is often not who a company has identified as their primary competitor(s), how they are treating their customers and which customers you could serve better. Some examples that ShapardResearch performs are exit surveys of your current customers to see which competitor they are switching to and for what reasons as well as B2B studies that involve random-digit-dial (RDD) of purchasers of several competitors in your marketplace to gather information on products that are available, satisfaction differences and even conjoint analysis.

What customers are not being served by your company or your competitor(s)?

ShapardResearch greatly values market segmentation because it is often the first step in any attempt to gain new customers. If you do not know your target customers you cannot identify your true competition, you cannot create a satisfactory product that meets the needs and desires of such customers and, most importantly, you cannot discover potential customers.

ShapardResearch frequently incorporates market segmentation into varying studies to understand how preferences, satisfaction, loyalty levels, attrition, attribute importance and answers to other survey questions differ among different markets. Markets can differ by demographics, consumption, geography, psychographics and so much more. You should demand your researcher to explain how potentially profitable customers think rather than simply a sample of general customers...