MARKET RESEARCH

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MARKET RESEARCH CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
MANAGEMENT

• Knowing Your Market
• Who and Where Are Your Customers? What Do They
  Really Want?
• Author Lorraine Allen, Ellen Silverman, Ed
  Kurocka
• SBDC _at_ The College of New Jersey

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Market Research Definition

• Marketing research is the systematic gathering,
  recording and analyzing of data about problems
  relating to the marketing of goods and services.

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Market Research Answers 2 Basic Questions

• Your Customers B2C B2B
• Who are they now? Who are your future targets?
• What kind of people are they? (age, progressive,
  educated)
• Where do they live? (demographics)
• Can and will they buy? (income or sales level,
  trends)
• When do they buy?
• How do they buy?
• Where do they buy?
• What are the hot buttons that motivate them to
  buy? (emotion, not reason)
• Why do/will they buy from YOU?
• What do they think of my business? (do they know
  enough about you, how do you know)

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Market Research

• Your Business
• How does your customer profile measure against
  your products/services and your marketing
  strategies?
• Are you offering the kinds of goods services
  they want?
• At the best place, time, amounts?
• Are you priced consistent with your products
  perceived value? (would they pay more or want
  less)
• Compare pros/cons with your competitors?
• SWOT Analysis

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Benefits of Market ResearchFocuses and organizes
timely information

• Reduces business risks
• Reveals key market trends
• Helps you spot current and upcoming problems in
  the market
• Identifies sales opportunities
• Guides the development of your plans of action
• Determines market size

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Reasons for Market Research

• Gather facts and opinions in an orderly way to
  find out what people want to buy, not just what
  you want to sell them!

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Reasons for Market Research

• Gather facts and opinions in an orderly way to
  find out what people want to buy, not just what
  you want to sell them!
• Attempts to understand why your target markets
  buy a particular service or product.

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Reasons for Market Research

• Gather facts and opinions in an orderly way to
  find out what people want to buy, not just what
  you want to sell them!
• Attempts to understand why your target markets
  buy a particular service or product.
• Helps test your strategies for new products or
  services, or when trying to develop new markets.

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Reasons for Market Research

• Gather facts and opinions in an orderly way to
  find out what people want to buy, not just what
  you want to sell them!
• Attempts to understand why your target markets
  buy a particular service or product.
• Helps test your strategies for new products or
  services, or when trying to develop mew markets.
• Identifies new and better ways of communicating
  your message to your consumer about your brand.

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Reasons for Market Research

• Gather facts and opinions in an orderly way to
  find out what people want to buy, not just what
  you want to sell them!
• Attempts to understand why your target markets
  buy a particular service or product.
• Helps test your strategies for new products or
  services, or when trying to develop mew markets.
• Identifies new and better ways of communicating
  your message to your consumer about your brand.
• Identifies decision making tools for service or
  product development, new packaging, positioning,
  promotions, pricing, etc.

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Types of Market Research

• Two types of research
• Primary
• Secondary
• Four core areas of investigation
• Consumer
• Commercial
• Social
• International

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Primary Market Research

• Original Grassroots Information
• Initiated and secured by you/your company for a
  specific purpose.
• SIMPLE
• asking customers or suppliers how they feel about
  your business
• COMPLEX
• surveys conducted by professional marketing
  research firms.

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Primary Market Research

• Common forms/examples of original information
  include
• Direct mail questionnaires, telephone surveys,
  e-mail surveys, experiments, panel studies, test
  marketing, behavior observation.
• Currently held information, such as, receipts,
  sales records, customer demographic/purchase data
• Customer feedback how do you follow up?
• Employees are an excellent source of original
  information

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Secondary Market Research

• Pre-existing Information
• Already exists somewhere
• Magazines, reports, articles
• Usually faster and less expensive to obtain than
  primary research
• May be as simple as making a trip to your local
  library or biz center or browsing the internet

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Secondary Market Research

• Sources of secondary material
• Trade and business publications, newspapers
• Trade associations and government agencies
• Library Access to sites and databases such as Dow
  Jones Interactive, Hoovers Online, Lexis/Nexis,
  FISonline, Value Line, Investext, SPs Industry
  Surveys, GALES Directory
• NJ Knowledge Initiative
• njki.org (bonus for NJ businesses)
• Others

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Areas of Investigation

• Consumer
• assessing and measuring reaction to pricing,
  packaging, post-sales service
• Commercial
• products and services purchased for use within
  the industry, i.e., business to business.
• Social
• focuses on peoples views of social, economic or
  political concerns
• International
• challenges based on culture, language, political
  and social structures and values

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Collecting, Organizing and Analyzing the Data

• Look for information that speaks to your
  immediate market needs.
• Analyze for denominators compare the results.
• Compare market demographics from local outlets
  with your survey results.
• Quantify the results.

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Using Your Research Findings

• Integrate Leverage your valuable data
• Organize Synthesize results into a plan
• Familiarize company employees with results
• Monitor and provide feedback on plan progress

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Customer Relationship Management(CRM)

• The art and science of managing all interactions
  and business with customers
• A high level strategy/mechanism for creating and
  maintaining lasting relationships with your
  customers
• A holistic process and philosophy that places the
  emphasis on the customer
• The importance of customer service
  understanding customer needs/wants

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Customer Relationship Management

• CRM is not just technology
• Change occurs gradually
• Policy and process changes must be implemented at
  all levels
• Employee training is a priority
• Emphasis on front line customer service
• Information technology management
• Process enables businesses to acquire, service,
  increase value to, retain and make specific
  determinations of customers.

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Instituting an Effective CRM

• Identify customer success factors (how they
  define quality)
• Identify and create a customer based culture and
  individually designed service strategy.
• Develop a beginning to end customer process
• Institute customer problem solving training
  programs
• Reward desired outcomes/behaviors
• Walk the Talk

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Building a Solid CRM Program

• Automate three specific areas
• of business operations
• marketing
• sales
• support processes

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Building a Solid CRM Program

• Automate Enterprise Marketing
• Examine the bigger picture to take into account
• Competition
• Business Environment
• Customer Trends
• Use of Internet

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Building a Solid CRM Program

• Automate Sales Force
• Tracking and follow up systems for lead and
  contact management, quote management, customer
  preferences, buying habits, demographics, company
  executives, key personnel, etc.

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Building a Solid CRM Program

• Upgrade Customer Service/Support,
  Problem/Complaint Management
• Provide fast, user-friendly mechanisms to
• Registering all complaints
• Handling and resolving all complaints
• Correcting service deficiencies
• Managing and scheduling maintenance, repair,
  on-going service/support
• Consider automating requests/inquiries and
  instituting help desk

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Building a Solid CRM Program

• Analysis
• continuing evaluation of customer behavior,
  using technology for business intelligence

• Communication
• coordination so all sources and types of contact
  are included and all users of the system see the
  same view of the customer