COURSE OUTLINE
DAY ONE
Session I:
Where Customer Visits Fit
in the Market Research Toolbox
-
An
overview of the benefits of ad hoc vs. programmatic
customer visits
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Programmatic customer visits are qualitative market research -
learn about their unique advantages relative to other
qualitative tools like focus groups
-
Discover the different kind of information that can be obtained
from customer visits versus surveys (and why)
-
Understand the importance and value of completing customer
visits early in the decision cycle and their use in paving the
way for subsequent research
Session II:
Planning a Program of Customer Visits
-
Developing a time line for implementing a program of visits –
identify key target dates
-
Learn
how to articulate and define the decision problem that requires
customer visits
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EXERCISE: Participants
will define their own research objectives and receive feedback
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How
to organize your customer visit team for success – understanding
the power of a cross-functional approach
-
Gaining organizational buy-in and support – how to work
successfully with account management and other stakeholders
-
Preparing for international customer visits – managing cultural
differences
Session III:
Selecting Which Customers to Visit
-
Strategies for identifying relevant customer segments
-
Rules
of thumb for sizing the sample – how to calculate the number of
visits needed
-
How
to balance market coverage against the costs and time associated
with larger samples – when is a larger sample really necessary?
-
Selecting the right job functions to interview within customer
organizations – which functions are critical to involve?
-
EXERCISE: Participants
will develop sample plans in the seminar and will
provide/receive feedback from other participants and the
instructor
Session IV:
Designing a Discussion Guide
-
How
to identify the right topics to discuss and determine the proper
sequencing of those topics to maximize learning
-
Gain
a better understanding of the negative
effects of poorly defined topics on the quality (and quantity)
of customer data collected
-
EXERCISE:
Participants will develop a discussion guide and
will provide/receive feedback from other participants and the
instructor
DAY TWO
Session V:
The Art of Constructing Good Questions
-
How
to create questions that will yield good insights and gain a
better understanding of unmet customer needs
-
Identify strategies that help customers to vocalize needs that
they don’t know they have
-
Key
steps to determining the economic value (from your customer’s
perspective) of a proposed product solution
-
An
overview of the key criteria for identifying good questions
-
EXERCISE:
Participants will construct sample questions and will
provide/receive feedback from other participants and the course
instructor
Session VI:
Honing Your Interview Skills
-
Setting and managing customer expectations from the outset
-
Proven techniques and tips to establish rapport with
interviewees
-
How
to probe effectively and not bias responses or lead interviewees
in a specific direction
-
An
overview of common mistakes novice interviewers can make and how
to avoid them
-
How
to manage difficult circumstances that can arise in customer
visits – examples and potential solutions are discussed
Session VII:
Analyzing Customer Visit Data
-
Now
that you’ve captured the data, how do you analyze and interpret
it - practical procedures for organizing, summarizing and
communicating the output of customer visits
-
A
review of available analytical tools- matrices, process maps and
conceptual tables that can be used to extract the key learnings
from the customer data -understand when to use which tools and
why
-
How
to use data collected from customer visits to drive product
design and new product decisions
Session VIII:
Wrap-up and Action Items
-
Protocol for reporting customer visit programs – who to inform
and in what format
-
How
to maintain customer visit results – where to store them and how
to make use of the data later on
-
Review: Key challenges to successfully implementing customer
visits and how to overcome them
-
Organizational issues you may confront
-
Action plans: How to get started at your organization – applying
what you’ve learned and outlining implementation steps at your
organization.
-
After
the visits: When does it make sense to engage in follow-up
research to build on data from customer visits?
-
Summary of key workshop learnings
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