Customer insights - understanding what to do, and what to do more off

Project: An up and coming consulting firm, with a blue chip client base, is experiencing rapid growth, based on a very focused service offering and a great commitment to customer intimacy. Our job was to extract as much valuable information as possible around the companies' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats through in-depth, personal interviews with their key clients.

Getting into the detail - our first objective was to have a very clear understanding of the company, the clients and the detail of the work that is being conducted. Having a clear grasp on the issues was important for two reasons; our performance would reflect on our clients brand and with time poor senior executives we had to get to the point, quickly.

The interviews were conducted one-on-one in fourty minute time slots at the clients offices to be as time efficient as possible. Digitally recording made it possible to have the interviews emailed and transcribed rapidly for future analysis.

To make sure we covered all aspects of the relationship and to make the interviews "flow", we followed the chronological path of engagement: from the first contact, through the sales process, the project development, the project delivery and the on-going account management.

A key strategy of the interview was to ask the interviewees not just how the company fared, but how they fared against competitors. The answers framed in this perspective provide a much more realistic picture of where our client stood.

Value delivered

The results of the interviews provided a number of key insights:

• The strong niche focus was highly valued and significant point of differentiation from competitors. The interviewees felt that the level of expertise, commitment and focus contributed greatly to the level of customer intimacy out client enjoyed
• We uncovered significant weaknesses in our clients' competitors strategy which we can now exploit
• Most clients loved the work, the people and the brand, but were unaware of additional services that were offered
• We uncovered additional opportunities within the relationships

The success of this project means that our client now engages us on an ongoing basis to provide this service. If you would like to know how this service can assist you, please contact us now via email or telephone.

back to  top