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Understand your customer in developing countries
The document outlines a seminar focused on understanding customers in developing countries, emphasizing the importance of defining decision-making units and employing effective research techniques. It provides a structured approach to building market knowledge through interviews, persona development, and immersive research practices. Key takeaways include the value of primary market research and the necessity of face-to-face interactions for deeper insights.
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Understand your customer in developing countries
- 1. Legatum Center Seminar andWorkshop Understand YOUR customer in developing countries October 30, 2015 Elaine Chen
- 2. Today’s agenda • Whatdo we need to understand? • How do we build this knowledge? 2
- 3. Part 1: What dowe need to understand? 3
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- 9. Points to ponder •What is the problem to be solved? • What are some possible solutions? • Who should have been involved in decision making? • What else should they have thought about? • How could they have built knowledge about all of the above? 9
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- 12. 1st step tounderstanding your customer: Map the decision making unit • Economic buyer • Champions • Influencers • Veto powers • End users 12
- 13. In class exercise •Based on what you know, map your Decision Making Unit (DMU) • Make a list of hypotheses to be validated in the field • Write a hypothetical customer profile for one of the people in your DMU. You will be playing this person in a simulation exercise in the second half of the seminar. 13
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- 15. Part 2: How dowe build this knowledge? 15
- 16. You don’t knowwhat you don’t know 16
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- 20. On personas andinterviews 20
- 21. Persona Example 2013 Revenue: $4.2B Headcount: 362,000 BUHeadcount: 700 Jim’s team 300 Behaviors • Reports to the BU General Manager • Manages the software organization (all aspects) and the associated budget • Technically the best guy on staff • Makes all key decisions on tools and systems for developers in his business unit Demographics • 48 years old • Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT • Has been managing teams for 15 years. Hands on. Still writes code every day. • Married with high school children • Drives a Toyota Prius • Carries a Samsung Note Needs and goals • He wants his team to turn out the very best code and is willing to pay a premium price for the best tools to support himself and his people
- 22. 7 steps tocreating a great persona 1. Write a research plan 2. Sketch up a hypothetical persona 3. Develop a recruitment questionnaire 4. Develop a discussion guide 5. Recruit subject 6. Interview 20 research candidates 7. Digest results, create persona 22
- 23. Interview technique cheatsheet • Clarify research goals • Establish rapport before you begin • Ask short, open ended questions. – “Tell me about the last time…”, “Tell me the story of…” • Use active listening techniques – “I think you said XXX. Is that right? Can you say more about that? “, “Tell me more about XXX”, “Why?” “Why not?” • Let the subject lead the conversation • Talk very little. Success = they talk 95% of the time. 23
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- 26. PMR for Procterand Gamble • Long (months) • Expensive (Millions of dollars not uncommon) • 20-30 long sessions per market segment • Multiple segments • Multiple cities / multiple countries • Subjects are paid an incentive for their time • Often involves external research firms => High quality insights at a high price 26
- 27. PMR for studentprojects • Better be fast! (days) • Entirely free • 20-30 short sessions per research project • Start with 1 segment • Remove coverage via video chat • Subjects are unpaid • DIY => Quick and dirty insights to cheaply iterate to the right problems and right solutions 27
- 28. PMR for socialenterprises • Do as much prep work as possible remotely, via skype interviews, google search, reading up on reports, interviewing people who know people who know people… • Then go there and live there for a while and practice ethnography for marketing. => You need to immerse yourself in the target community to really understand how things work and figure out what you don’t know. 28
- 29. Summary • Primary marketresearch is a science and an art • Primary market research is learnable • Primary market research saves time & $ - do it! • Plan your research before talking to anybody • Talk to humans face to face if possible •Get out of the building!
- 30. Handouts • “Talking toHumans” E-book • PMR Primer • Templates and samples – Research protocol template – Sample discussion guide – Sample recruitment questionnaire – Sample photo release form – Interview notes template – Persona template – Example persona project – “The Science of Clean” (15.S16, 2H 2012) 30
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