We also wonder, if they did do research, how could their research partner have blown it so bad?

One such case hit our inboxes recently. TurboTax, a subsidiary of Intuit and by far the number one DIY tax software, made a series of changes to its product offerings. Clearly trying to generate up sell, they no longer provided certain forms in their most popular packages. Meaning customers had to pay more to download necessary forms, in addition to the cost of using the service. It did not go over well.

They offered a lackluster explanation and a few remedies. How did these go over? Well here are couple of selections from the recent email they sent to customers:

“We recently tried to explain the changes made to our TurboTax desktop software and apologized for the impact it had on you. Many responded and let us know our apology and rationale were not acceptable.”

“I understand our actions have caused anger and frustration, and our response has been far too slow.”

Ouch. Did they research this change?

If not – imagine the value impactful research and strategic insight could have provided them. Trust is a brand’s most valuable commodity and it should always be treated as such.

If they did research it, well…they didn’t do it with The Pert Group!

For more information please contact us or visit www.thepertgroup.com.

Cleaning Candy

The bright purple and orange color of the Tide PODS makes it look like an edible candy or a child’s teething toy. The Journal of Pediatrics uncovered over 17,000 incidents caused by the ingestion of laundry detergent capsules between 2012 and 2013. While only 4.4% of those cases required hospitalization, this is a staggering figure that has been addressed by the American Cleaning Institute’s (ACI) KEY Pledge :

Keep single-load liquid laundry packets out of the reach of children
Educate your family and friends about the safe use and storage of these new laundry products
You serve a key role in laundry safety

A survey conducted by the ACI found that while 70% of parents keep household cleaners and dishwashing detergent secured safely away from children, only 34% of parents keep laundry detergent secured safely away.

The ACI is making monumental movement with the KEY Pledge, but legislation is moving forward to regulate these products. European regulators will soon enforce legislation regarding labeling, child-proof packaging and formulation changes to prevent poisoning.
Companies must keep these legislation changes in mind and quickly adapt their products.

Concentrated Packaging Focused on the Environment

The water soluble single-serve laundry detergent packets themselves are environmentally friendly and pre-measured so consumers use less per load. This has led to a competitor push to use less plastic and an industry-wide movement to change packaging designs.

A common practice for companies offering single-serve packets is to offer foil refill packets. While most consumers buy the refill packets to replenish their large plastic containers, the foil refill packets themselves are not environmentally recyclable.

Competitors that do not offer single-serve options have focused on decreasing the amount of plastic packaging, changes that have been rewarded by a push from big-box stores to increase the amount of space on store shelves.

The industry as a whole is making huge strides towards sustainability and innovation, but further consumer research is needed to stay ahead of regulations.

The Pert Group is a global innovation expert and has helped brands grow through consumer insights. For more information please contact us or visit www.thepertgroup.com.

Sources:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/detergent-packets-called-a-poison-risk-1415595663

http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/keypledge/

http://www.cleaninginstitute.org/survey_focused_on_liquid_laundry_packets/

Aside from some turbulence on the flight, the rest of the week went by smoothly and ended in a night of dancing and karaoke. While our performance of Total Eclipse of the Heart is better forgotten, I will remember the connections and topics discussed during the week’s presentations and industry sessions.

One important topic of conversation this year was innovation. The liquid laundry packet is a great example of recent industry innovation. Consumers love the convenience and design of this product but safety issues could hinder full adoption. Accidental ingestion was a major point of conversation during the Global Industry Update where multiple delegates spoke of their country’s response to the issue.

Companies are faced with a challenge: How do you incorporate industry regulations knowing the consumer need for differentiation?

Fisk Johnson, SC Johnson chairman and CEO, promoted the value of market research during a fantastic Breakfast Presentation: “The Future of Consumer Trust.” Throughout his speech, industry statistics supported the need for honest and truthful products. One fact I found interesting was that consumers actually indicate a fear towards chemicals.

How can companies combat this growing fear? The Pert Group is an expert at helping brands grow through consumer insights. For more information please contact us or visit www.thepertgroup.com

With main offices in Hartford, Connecticut, Pittsburgh, and London, and Sales & Service locations in San Francisco, Chicago Metro, Kansas City, Miami, and NYC Metro, The Pert Group is a global research-based consulting leader providing service to clients worldwide for more than 35 years. Whether you work with a team based in our London office or our US offices, you work with experienced international researchers.

The Pert Group’s immersion in global studies translates into a holistic global view for clients allowing us to be truly consultative. Our team is familiar with the challenges and trends impacting a multitude of industries. We partner with the best of the best as part of our global network with affiliates in over 30 countries worldwide.

Click here to see a map of our global experience!

Whether you’re headquartered internationally or want to conduct research abroad, we’re the company for you! For more information on The Pert Group’s global research-based consultancy please contact us or visit www.thepertgroup.com.

These recent events prove that consumers are ahead of the curve. We predict mobile payment to be the next online/in-store trend. The Pert Group conducted a quick hit mobile study and found lots to think about.

Click here to see a great infographic of what we found!

For more information, or if you’re interested in learning how The Pert Group can help you, please contact us, we’d love to talk to you!

Clients are always coming to us for comprehensive research plans to fully understand the role seasonality and occasionality play in purchasing behaviors.   As we are all gearing up for the upcoming holiday season, I thought I would highlight one of my favorite holiday projects I have been a part of.

Last year, a leading alcohol beverage provider came to us wanting to understand the emotional role alcohol plays in the holiday season.  So we put our heads together and decided the best plan would be in-home ethnographies with a follow up shop-along at the store in which they typically purchase alcohol.  Combining these two methodologies allowed us to not only gain a thorough understanding of the emotions around the holidays, but also allowed us to see how consumers purchase alcohol both in-store and in-real time.

During the ethnographies, I was fascinated with consumers’ intense emotional connections with the holiday season, including their connections with specific alcohol brands.  I had no idea how connected specific brands can be with raw, holiday emotions!  I was amazed by the stories consumers told when asking about a certain brand:  everything from intense memories of their late father drinking a certain brand of beer every Christmas to waiting in line with friends to get that special whiskey that only comes out once every year.  These seemingly “every day” experiences take on a completely new and emotional meaning around the holiday season!

Being able to lead research studies like the one mentioned above is one of the many reasons I love ethnographies, especially for special occasions such as the holiday season.  Nothing can come close to the robust insights gathered by just simply experiencing a “day in the life” with consumers as they prepare for the season.

If you’re interested in learning more about our proven methodologies and how The Pert Group can help you gain a better understanding of purchase behaviors and the role emotions play during any specific time of the year, please contact us, we’d love to talk to you!

During this holiday season we thought it would be a great idea to share all of the reasons why we love working in market research and particularly at The Pert Group!

In the spirit of Instagram’s original #100HappyDays, we are excited to announce that we will be kicking off our own social media challenge: #100HappyMRXDays. We will be sharing all sorts of different things about our jobs, our company, our employees, and things that just make us happy working in market research.

Let’s be honest, not every day is happy in market research, but on most days we can still appreciate our jobs and enjoy the many faces of market research while trying to have some fun along the way!

We are inviting all of you fellow market researchers – the moderators, quant gurus, analysts, recruiters, those on the client side, and everyone else in the insight industry – to join us on social media in#100HappyMRXDays. The challenge begins on Monday, December 1^st as we take the initiative to pause once a day to show our appreciation of the everyday joys we experience on the job.

Please join us in spreading the joy around the #MRX community starting Monday, December 1^st by following our #100HappyMRXDays and by posting your ownon Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.  Let’s spread joy around the #MRX community and some happiness along the way!

And if you’re not following us yet, it’s not too late!

Follow on

Twitter: @thepertgroup           

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepertgroup      

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-pert-group

It’s nice, every once in a while, to get a new perspective. We advise our clients to do this, so why not us?

Consultant-field vendor relationships are seldom-thought-of cogs in a very big Market Research wheel. When it comes right down to it, choosing vendors to field our projects determines how good or bad our results will be. There are literally dozens of vendors to choose from for each methodology, so the question then becomes: How do we choose?

In order to best achieve our clients’ research objectives, we choose the best vendor for a project, often regardless of comparable price, and try and pinch pennies elsewhere to make it work.  We are often dealing with a set budget on our client’s side, so if all things are equal, then great! Decision made. We can go with the cheapest option. In this age of Market Research, though, no project is ever that simple. More often, there are many factors to take into account that doesn’t make “just go with the cheapest option” possible. Factors such as feasibility, number of respondents needed per market, quotas, number of waves, sample saturation, AND price all matter equally.

The relationships we develop with our vendors are extremely important to us. Some are very old relationships (in our case, decades old), while some are brand new. All are important to us in one way or another because every vendor has different strengths.

Pick your cliché: “Treat others the way you want to be treated,” or “You catch more bees with honey”…they’re both true.

Being a good research partner is a two-way street. How can we expect the best from our vendors if we don’t treat them as equal partners in our success? Our most trusted partners are truly our partners: they help us win business by making suggestions to improve our proposed methodology, or offer us preferred pricing (or lunch, or Munchkins…). We provide the vendors with every bit of information we can in the bidding phase: project objectives, quotas, incidence, qualifiers, etc., then they in turn can provide us with an accurate picture of what we can expect from them. End result? We aren’t surprised, and our end client is happy.

And about that survey…how did we do? We were pleasantly surprised to discover that our vendors are not only happy to work with us, but also impressed with the level of care we put into maintaining successful relationships.

 “Hands down, Pert is simply the best.  Everyone that comes across your bid sheets and processes, are simply impressed.” 

“First of all, this is a first.  We have never had a request to provide feedback to one of our clients to make our partnership more efficient and valuable to you and your clients.  I commend your team on doing this.  It only helps you, your clients and partners, and it will show through in your commissioned projects.  We appreciate this, and would value the same feedback in areas we can grow as well.”

– M.M., 20/20 Research

We take pride in our vendor relationships and work hard to build partnerships that allow us to consistently deliver strong strategic insights for our clients. If you are interested in learning more about The Pert Group or working with us in the future, please contact us.

So far, I’ve only been reading about the phenomenon and actively moderating groups where it has taken place, but I, myself, never experienced that feeling until this past week at the Qualitative Research Consultants Association conference.  Before attending the conference, I had never met anyone (other than my own awesome colleagues at The Pert Group) who does the kind of work that I do.  I mean, sure, I’ve met the occasional researcher or marketer while traveling, but never before a group of qualitative moderators (or “my people” as I fondly refer to them).  The experience was all at once liberating and completely comforting.

Throughout the conference, the fellow “qualies” I met soon became my good friends (is anyone shocked that a bunch of qualitative researchers would become instant friends?). We shared everything from stories of interesting participants whose memories are forever etched in our minds to best practices for explaining qualitative findings to clients.  Specifically, I remember one moment listening to a seasoned industry veteran talk about how she sometimes finds being a qualitative researcher difficult. She wasn’t talking about the job itself, rather the spill over into her personal life, because it is so hard to turn off the research part of her brain.

In that moment, I could feel exactly what some of my participants felt:  There was someone else out there who, like me, was experiencing the same emotions and feelings.

The wise C.S. Lewis once said “Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another:  ‘What!  You too?  I thought that no one but myself…’”  I’d like to think that this relationship can extend to not only to the participants we talk to as moderators, but also to other moderators like ourselves.

I’d also like to extend a big “Thank You” to everyone who made it possible for me to attend the QRCA conference this year.  I’m looking forward to having more healing moments in the coming years!

The QRCA is the leading not-for-profit association of researchers who are involved in the design and implementation of qualitative research.   They awarded 15 grants to outstanding research professionals under the age of 35, each of whom are invited to attend the QRCA Annual Conference in New Orleans in October, free of charge.  Applicants were chosen based on their professional role in qualitative research and a personal statement about why they qualify for the award.

I’ve been at The Pert Group for over 2 years now (read my story here!) It is an exceptional research consultancy that not only advises clients on how to solve their specific business issues (a very exciting role to play), but has also proven to be a home that has nurtured my interests and continually enhanced my skill set. I’m grateful to The Pert Group for being a part of making this award possible.

I am incredibly excited and honored to be one of fifteen skilled researchers who will be attending the QRCA conference this October.  Stay tuned for more blog posts about my week. If you are attending the conference, don’t hesitate to reach out!