Consumer research: will it tell you all?
Recent consumer and market research, with the debates they foster, reminded me to be careful when looking at and using research findings. There are two quotes that are worth keeping in mind when looking at research data and reports; both are currently relevant to the legal services market.
Research that is well planned and uses a wide and large sample size can provide valuable tools for you to use in planning how you run your business.
Henry Ford is reported to have said: ‘If I’d have asked the customers, they’d have asked for a faster horse.’
The legal services market is changing with a driving force that is from the supply side. This is a distinction I have covered in previous articles but is worth repeating. The consumers of legal services are not asking for change and in general know little about it. What they do want is a solution to their legal problem.
To prosper in the new legal services market you need to tell the consumer what they can have. Good consumer research indicates how and why the consumer buys legal services. You can use that to see how your firm can change its services and promotions to meet that demand.
On the demand side, the buying behaviour of legal services consumers in the runup to alternative business structures has changed very little so far. The ‘faster horse’ versus a car fits with the choice your firm has: ‘Do we continue in the traditional manner or attempt to reinvent ourselves.’ I’d suggest you need to consider both approaches, depending on which set of clients you want to provide services for in the future.
If the clients want a faster horse or a new way of getting from point A to point B, it’s up to you to tell them the benefits of using your firm’s services in comparison to the alternative they can find.
How to use consumer research in your firm leads on to the second quote. David Ogilvy provides a good starting point. He is reported to have said: ‘Research, they use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post – for support, rather than for illumination.’
Much of the debate around research falls into a discussion polarised between ‘this supports our position’ to the ‘this is rubbish and we should ignore it’. But this doesn’t help you plan you business. Illumination is the key point for me: ‘What is it that our future clients want from us?’ As we head into the potentially darker days of increased competition and changing market needs, we can use reliable research to reveal a way forward.
What is it that our clients want from us or our competitors? Since this is a brave new world anything is possible, but can we use the research to plan for a profitable business?
If the research comes from an independent source with a large sample size and well-designed questions, it will provide that valuable illumination to make business decision by.
The discussions within your firm need to focus on the changing expectations or requirements of clients and how your services meet those needs alongside the alternative a consumer has to choose from.
I would suggest that the only wrong conclusion, as David Ogilvy suggests, is a ‘continue as we are’ strategy. The market on both supply and demand sides will continue to change rapidly – innovation and development must be seen as a continuous process, informed by good research evidence.
We should not dismiss other research information, but it’s worth looking closely at how the questions are worded and the sample size to understand any bias that might have crept in.
You may run your own client surveys that provide useful feedback on your services, but that is not consumer research since the sample is small and already biased towards the firm.
Both Henry Ford and David Ogilvy had a view of their business’s future and built profitable businesses on that by satisfying customer needs profitably. You know your current clients but where will the future clients come from if your services do not match their needs?
Comments
Consumer Research: Your Universe of One
A well rounded article Alastair,
You are absolutely right to challenge the rigour placed around the construction and interpretation of any published research. This is never truer than when the consumer of that research is risk averse and/or looking for arguments to support iterative change – a bit like David Ogilvy’s drunkard!
For the more creative business strategist, those looking for true market differentiation; I believe that the real insight does not necessarily come from the detail of the reported data but from within the very questions that are asked. If time allows I advocate reviewing whatever research you can lay your hands on. By understanding the questions that are being asked, rather than the results, we can challenge our own thought processes, facilitating the development of a hypothesis that we can then challenge possibly using the rigour afforded by well structured research.
As the famed strategist Kenichi Ohmae stated “... we forget that the world looks to us the way it does because we have become used to seeing it that way through a particular set of lenses. Today, however, we need new lenses. And we need to throw the old ones away."
Indeed, before reaching for your mouse and the plethora of white papers etc on the net, just consider some of the key drivers that have been witnessed in most every other UK market over the last few years, ones that we cannot afford to ignore, ones that have been driven by consumers, your consumers e.g. increased competition, service commoditisation and the 24/7/365 economy.
I recently checked (I dare not mention the “researched” word!) on the 24/7 availability of a (fairly) random sample of 510 solicitors. Just 4% provided live cover out-of-hours. The sample may not be robust, it may be skewed, I tried my best… but whatever way you look at it, it isn’t a big number.
Was the exercise a waste of time? Surely we all know that solicitors typically work restricted hours? Could I have made an intuitive claim? If I had surely it would have been challenged? In fact, in the time that we’ve asked these questions, scratched our heads, furrowed our brows or commissioned something more rigorous any one of us could have just picked up the phone and set up a 247 Telephone Answering Service.
Remember when HSBC broke ranks with their low cost, 24/7/365 brand first direct… they changed the face of UK banking forever & the public have never looked back! Did I really need to "research" this?
So, in summary, would you allocate your hard earned marketing budget to researching whether the public want 24/7 access to providers of legal services or would you reference your Universe of One (You), make a decision and then do something about it?
Research can deliver great insight, but referencing back to Kenichi Ohmae, a myopic obsession with the detail may slow your decision making and possibly put you at a disadvantage.
Engagement Rings
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