Know your business, know your customer
The fenestration, construction, and building products industries have faced a range of challenges in recent years, from the skills crisis to rising inflation. Kirsty Winter, general Manager of Insight Data, explores how a deep understanding of customers can help overcome such obstacles.
Many industry leaders know that understanding customers is crucial, but they struggle to put this knowledge into action.
A recent McKinsey poll highlights this issue. While 84% of respondents recognise the importance of customer understanding for growth, a whopping 94% said they were frustrated with their organisation’s efforts in this regard.
At Insight Data, we’ve identified a disconcerting trend that helps give reason to such incongruence.
Businesses, courtesy of the big data revolution, ostensibly possess more knowledge about their customers than ever before. However, as leaders in market intelligence, Insight Data know that knowing about customers does not equate to knowing customers.
Customer characteristics, product attributes and technological trends, while undoubtedly pivotal, pale in comparison to the significance of context. Understanding the circumstances surrounding consumer behaviour can be seen as a window of opportunity for successful innovation.
But how? An example of this can be seen through our work with leading brand hardware, tools, and consumables company Window Ware.
Following the pandemic’s home improvement boom, Window Ware contacted Insight Data to help identify their customers’ wants, needs, and priorities to ensure their sales and operation strategies were executed perfectly.
Utilising our team of dedicated, industry specific researchers, Insight Data conducted a comprehensive market research campaign on behalf of Window Ware. Hundreds of their customers provided key qualitative and quantitative data that helped them better understand shifting consumer trends as well as assess market demand for a range of new products.
We believe that knowledge without application is futile. That’s why we deliver detailed reports upon completion of our research, providing Window Ware and businesses alike with actionable recommendations to inform sales and marketing strategies.
Armed with this information, businesses can better anticipate customer needs, tailor their offerings, and stay ahead of the competition.
Cutting-edge technologies and digital advancements make research campaigns seem like a relic of the past. However, in the current landscape of data short-sightedness, where businesses are inundated with an excess of information but lack true understanding, these campaigns exist as innovative means of better understanding your customers.
Sometimes, the most revolutionary step a business can take is to draw inspiration from the past and resurrect techniques that have been long forgotten in our digitally focused world. Research campaigns, though not a novel concept, represent a return to the roots of understanding customer needs.
At Insight Data, our expert team of researchers can take the stress away and manage your research campaign from start to finish. If your business lacks effective innovation performance, contact us today.