Field visits and Interviews

I used these tools, field visits and interviews, to determine our previously created target groups. We wanted to know whether our assumptions of the groups were correct or incorrect. We also wanted to know which groups would be the most important to target.

Field visits are superb tools as researches see customers in the correct context. This helps build knowledge of customer behaviour on the customers' terms. In other research tools the study is often dictated and no spontaneous behaviour or unanticipated action is allowed. The key in field visits is to adapt to the situation and observe, then further inquiries about the observed behaviour can be conducted.

Out own interview questions were with emphasis on depth and to discover the underlying motives of customer behaviour. With further "why" kind of questions we could find out reasons to customers' behaviours without leading them to answers or without them making up answers on the go.

By combining these two tools we planned to reach results. This was in fact reached and the tools worked splendidly. We actually got some unexpected results and had to adjust our customer groups accordingly. We also started to segment the groups even more strictly as we took in additional theories (mostly about tribes) but also due to results gained in these researches. One of the most important results was that we realized which groups to focus on as we due to the field visits noticed that the already loyal customers are truly loyal and do not need attention.

// Otto