Customer Business Outcome Evaluation

Evaluation of business outcomes is not easy. For a corporate customer, products are purchased to deliver positive business outcomes. So it is very important for the selling company to come up with a product that significantly and quantifiably brings positive business outcomes for its customer or their business. It is therefore necessary to identify quantifiable, positive business outcomes that the product can provide, to develop the sales value proposition.

A quantifiable outcome represents the tangible value of the offering to the customer. This value is typically expressed in numbers, percentages, and timeframes. In addition to this, there are also intangible outcomes. E.g. Opportunity Cost. Opportunity cost is the loss that is incurred when one option is chosen over the other. It is something that must be identified and considered in establishing the sales value proposition.

The information that the company gathers after evaluation helps it to understand the desired attributes of the offerings according to market segments. The customer business outcome evaluation documents business outcomes based on these attributes.

Another way of doing customer business outcome evaluation is by interviewing existing customers. Customers being the user of the product validate the evaluation process by their practical experience. Interviews can be conducted across different areas and positions in the customer organization to determine the impact of the offering. New, desired, business outcomes may emerge and existing business outcomes can be validated.

Internal analysis is another way to do customer evaluation. The collective sapience combined with experience of the company holds a broad overview of business outcomes from a customer’s perspective. However internal analysis must be validated by customers to escape the risk factors associated in it. Direct input provided by the customers is typically more valuable and reliable input when determining customers’ business outcomes.

Strategists evaluate investments and actions in terms of likely cost and benefit outcomes. The product offering must draw substantial improvements in client’s business in terms of customer satisfaction, service delivery etc. The seller must narrow down its focus and align sales and marketing activities around its customer. The segment specific sales attempt combined with customized offering helps develop sales value proposition.

"To learn more about Customer Business Outcome Evaluation and related analytics, visit “SMstudy.com”.

Various types of Primary Data in the context of Marketing Research

When a researcher collects new data for a specific research project, the data is considered primary data. On the other hand if the data is already available in house i.e. historical data or data received from some other external sources (e.g. industry reports, internet searches, government published reports etc.), the data is considered as secondary data. 

The research requirements will vary from project to project, with many research projects requiring both primary and secondary data to solve the research problem. Some research projects can be solved with the sole use of existing secondary data, while in other cases no secondary data exists and the research project can only be solved with the use of primary data.

As a rule, a researcher should always try to collect and analyze secondary data before moving to the collection and analysis of comparatively costly and time-consuming primary data. In some cases secondary data may be inadequate or unusable. When the needed data do not exist or are outdated, inaccurate, incomplete, or unreliable, the researcher needs to collect primary data.

Let’s take an example to illustrate the need of collecting primary data. It is a common HR practice to keep the employees satisfied for most of the medium to big sized companies as studies show that engaged employees are more productive and are better contributors to their employer’s goals and objectives. Employee satisfaction surveys (popularly known as “ESAT survey”) are done to evaluate the satisfaction of employees on key parameters such as satisfaction with senior management, immediate managers, company policies, work environment, hygiene factors and other facilities, training and development, opportunities for personal growth etc. In this case collecting primary data is a must as it is meaningless to use past ESAT survey data for the current workforce.

There are various forms of primary data. Some common types are illustrated as follows:

Demographic Data—Demographic data are related to characteristics such as the gender, age, income, education, occupation, marital status, ethnicity, and social status of the target group. Demographic primary data categorize the target market into different customer segments each having some common attributes which help marketers to focus on a specific segment or create segment specific marketing strategies. For example a fast food (e.g. pizza, burgers etc.) brand may find that preferences of people in the 20–30 age group are different from the preferences of people in the 30–40 age group.

Psychographics and Lifestyle Data—This kind of data is related to personality traits, interests, lifestyle, values, and opinions of the target respondents. Marketers often combine psychographics and lifestyle information with demographic information to obtain an important perspective of the target market.

Intentions—Intentions refer to the anticipated future behaviors of an individual. This is a subject of interest to marketers who want to solve a research problem related to future consumption rate or demand.

Attitudes—Attitudes refer to a person’s feelings, convictions, or beliefs toward an object, idea, or an individual. Since attitude impacts behavior, it is of great importance to marketers.

Awareness/Knowledge—This data refers to what subjects do or do not know about an object of investigation. Information influences behavior and marketers often want to know how the behavior of customers changes with their level of awareness regarding a particular product, brand, object, or industry.

Motivations—A person’s actions are the reflection of his or her inner state. Marketers often want to know the motives that direct specific consumer behavior. Motivations can include users’ category, brand-purchasing motives, value systems, and perceptions among others.

Behaviors—Behaviors are the actions taken by respondents. Questions regarding respondents’ behaviors toward a particular situation can be asked to them directly and can be included in a survey. However, the responses may not represent the actual behavior of the respondents. Observation techniques are more often used to understand the actual behavior of respondents. Purchase behavior is also an important factor; when considering purchase behavior, marketers might categorize consumers as non-users, potential users, first-time users, regular users, or former users.

To know more about primary data, visit “SMstudy”.