Gathering Real-Time Insights from Customers Results in Abundant Benefits

As marketers, our greatest aspiration is to understand consumers; subsequently, we aim to create ways for them to engage with brands while shopping — ultimately, during product usage. When consumers have a positive experience with a brand, they are more likely to become loyal consumers who make repeat purchases and share the brand with their friends.

Getting inside a consumer’s head is the first step to being able to market to a brand’s target audience. To accomplish this task, it is imperative to gain insight on how consumers interact with the brand’s product, both at retail and at home.

There are many methods of gathering this consumer and shopper insight; however, few methods target consumers at their most revealing point: the point of influence.

The Power of the Point of Influence

The point of influence is the exact moment when a consumer is interacting with a product or when a shopper is influenced to make a purchase. Whether it is during a test drive of a new vehicle or the initial moment of walking into a store at the mall, the point of influence is the best opportunity for a brand to make a positive impact on a customer.

Creative brands make the most of these points of influence by winning over consumers’ senses. Here are a few examples of how successful brands influence their consumers:

1. Smell: Starbucks ensures visitors are welcomed with a rich, enchanting aroma of ground coffee beans while they shop.

2. Sound: Bose arranges surround sound rooms to help potential customers experience the power of its products’ sound capabilities.

3. Touch: Apple stores have mastered the influence of touch by providing a unique, hands-on environment for consumers to interact with products.

In each of these examples, the brands are creating points of influence for their potential consumers.

Traditional Research Methods Fall Short

Although brands invest heavily in creating a great sensory experience for consumers, they often fall short on gathering real-time consumer data, collecting it weeks after the customer’s interaction with the brand’s product. Even if a consumer has had a great experience with a brand, the time lapse between the initial interaction and the evaluation of that interaction can breed a loss of recall about the experience.

Historically, two of the most common methods for gathering intelligence on the consumer experience have been surveys and focus groups. Unfortunately, both of these methods rely heavily upon consumers’ memories, which commonly are quite different from their original feelings at the point of influence. In hindsight, the most common methods of gathering consumer opinion have proven to be inefficient in the following ways:

• Memories negate unique details of the consumer’s experience. After a few weeks post-brand interaction, no consumer is going to recall all of the minute details that made a difference during the point of influence.

  Memories do not accurately characterize the raw emotion felt at the point of influence. Subsequently, it is highly unlikely a survey or focus group study will be able to capture the true emotional connection a consumer experienced with a brand.

  Surveys and focus groups are highly structured events, often providing cookie-cutter options for consumers to choose among. These methods generally cause brands to miss out on a consumer’s candor.

• Memories negate unique details of the consumer’s experience. After a few weeks post-brand interaction, no consumer is going to recall all of the minute details that made a difference during the point of influence.

  Memories do not accurately characterize the raw emotion felt at the point of influence. Subsequently, it is highly unlikely a survey or focus group study will be able to capture the true emotional connection a consumer experienced with a brand.

  Surveys and focus groups are highly structured events, often providing cookie-cutter options for consumers to choose among. These methods generally cause brands to miss out on a consumer’s candor.