The Consumer Insights Challenge

Today a lot of businesses are going towards the D2C route but they are also being faced by traditional businesses that are directly talking with customers and effectively harnessing the insights that they have gathered over the years to be able to better position themselves. We are at a point in time where a lot of consumer studies have been done and documented and shared with the world and it has effectively changed the landscape of the market and also how communication with the consumer is happening.

A lot of consumer insights data are easy to collect and there are a variety of sources but they come their own sets of challenges and noise.

SOURCE OF DATA AND CONSUMER BIAS

The reality is pretty much knocking down the doors that a lot of sources of our data are polluted and are not free from noise and a lot of consumer bias. We are coming to terms with the fact that the consumer today is secretive as well as knowledgeable to understand what is truly happening on the ground and protects his or her data with a lot of personal attention.

LOW VALUE AND HIGH RISK DATA

As I look at the data that has been generated over the years it is increasingly clear that we have a tonne of low value and high-risk data which has to be cleaned to be able to use it in any legitimate format. To give you an example, when one looks at data that is generated by retail and purchases made by consumers during COVID for hand sanitizers and health foods. If one too decisions based in the data of that time period then it would have been a bad financial bet.

The demand for a product like hand sanitizers and healthy foods peaked and breached a lot of levels during COVID but ended up falling down drastically in the aftermath and a lot of brands who had decided to release hand sanitizers under their own names have vacated that space and moved on to their core business.

DIGITAL FIRST NOT AN INDICATOR OF DEMAND

One real thing that has come out in the post COVID space is that a digital first approach is a good barometer to test the market but is not a great indicator of demand in the long run. While the digital first approach cannot be ignored it is also evident that other approaches need to be explored and a proper mix has to be deployed to reach maximum number of customers.

OMNICHANNEL AND DATA CLEANSING

It’s a reality that businesses today have to deal with the challenge of omnichannel and the different structures of data that they bring along. Once you have the data you have to effectively clean the data for it to be useful in any manner. Omnichannel has been a challenge and social media has only increased the pain. Hence, any kind of consumer insights has to take into consideration the omnichannel and solve that before having any kind of usable data across the board. It is also evident this approach is never off the shelf and is highly personalized to each business and also personalized to individual businesses within a single industry. There is an increasing sense of defeat when it comes to the data and information overload that is brought about by omnichannel and not having a coherent strategy to deal with it in a comprehensive manner for the long term.

?THE SMARTER CONSUMER

The digital revolution on one hand has made consumer insights easy to gather and access but it has also made the consumer smarter, agile and nimble. The consumer today protects his or her data and there is also an expectation that businesses come to them knowing beforehand what consumer preferences and expectations are. The consumer is aware that there are enough studies done in the market to be able to come to the conclusion with a fair mount of certainty about what they're thinking. Many businesses are going up against this new kind of challenge with a smarter consumer. The new smart consumers are aware about pricing and psychological approaches used by businesses and therefore the consumer is increasingly shifting the goal post by choosing not to play or engage with brands or businesses when it needed the most.

THE BOMBARDED CONSUMER

The consumer today is what is called a bombarded consumer the increased amount of screen time on phones and the decreasing attention spans are no longer a good thing. Brands and businesses that want to have a long shelf life have to differentiate themselves faster and better to compete in this crowded marketplace. We are also seeing the older or established brands able to take on the newer incumbents on the basis of their financial strength; buying them out and extinguishing them from the marketplace when they are threatened with market displacement.

SURVEYS AND FEATURES

There is a certain tiredness that is actually coming in to consumer insights and consumers are induced to share their knowledge. This is not exactly viable in the long run because we have to accept the fact that all inducements can only go a certain length and any information shared, if it does not lead to improvement in our service or product or addition of a feature, is very clearly noted by the consumer.

Also there ends up being a divergence when any kind of new features incorporated on the basis of consumer feedback and insights and highlighting and marketing of the same is targeted towards wrong customer segments effectively causing more damage.

There is a very real need to look at and streamline existing studies on consumers and also look at the data that is already been collected. This is easier said than done and we are moving towards a point where a lot of this old data is eventually going to be purged without analysis and the new set of data that highlights new behaviours is already becoming a mountain of data but the very same challenges remain as before.