February - Finding Gaps, understanding them and how insights will help close them….

In the research environment, we always need to be considering the relevancy and timeliness of insights. ?In the month since our last newsletter, much has happened that will impact us all, in our domestic and business environments. Looking at the insights we have collected through a business and domestic lens we see the obvious and not so obvious Gaps that have been created and how they can be addressed. ?

The cost of living has increased and according to forecasts will continue to rise. As of January 2022, the CPI rate in the UK was 5.5%. This means the overall basket of goods cost 5.5% more than it did a year ago.

We asked a Nationally Representative sample of consumers - In the past 3 months have you noticed prices increasing or decreasing??

The majority have noticed price rises over the past 3 months. 86% have seen rises in food and 80% have seen rises in Fuel and Energy. Energy bills will increase further after the price cap lift by ￡693 a year.

The cap will apply from 1st April to 31st September and is increasing by 54% to ￡1,971 a year. These rises are already impacting over 80% of households, with young consumers more impacted.?

We went on to ask - Have your finances been impacted by rising prices?

These price rises have already had an extreme impact on 29% of consumers, with 59% saying they were slightly impacted. Extreme impact (38%) is most noticeable amongst younger 18–34-year-olds, whereas for older age groups its 20%.

What is the Gap we see, other than than income and outgoings? At least some of your employees will be impacted as the results show, they are your greatest asset – how can you help?

What is the Gap to consider? – Employee wellbeing

An engaged, healthy, and happy workforce needs nurturing and looking after. Many employees have already been through a very challenging 2 years, we are seeing and hearing every day about employees, friends and colleagues that are still going through difficulties, suffering from financial hardship, mental health problems and burn out.

Organisations large and small are doing great things to support their people. Some organisations are able to provide internal or external counselling, wellbeing support and mental health guidance.

Others are able to support with money management guidance or financial support in times of hardship. Small business can ensure staff are provided with a friendly ear or communicate the contact numbers of professional services like Citizens Advice or Mind.

It really doesn’t take long when talking with someone to recognise something isn't quite right, you might be the first to hear, the only one to listen or offer to help.??

What support can businesses provide customers?

In 2020/21 approximately 2.5 million people used?a foodbank in the United Kingdom, over 600 thousand more than the previous year.

Already many Supermarkets are making great contributions to FareShare, Trussell Trust and local charities. Along with these initiatives, some additional observations we have gathered are:

• Promoting value-based products to raise awareness of lower cost
• Increasing the range of value based products
• Bundling products to create better value deals for families
• Loyalty based offers to achieve reduced prices
• The ever popular “wonky veg box”

What is the Gap? – Understanding what your customers expect from your organisation and how well you deliver against them?

In these difficult times, understanding how emotionally connected consumers are to your solutions, products, services and brand is a great method of using insight to change future purchase behaviour and reducing loyalty being won by another organisation?

What do consumers feel about Energy providers?

To gain insight around what people are feeling about energy providers, we tapped into our panel and asked a Nationally Representative sample of respondents a small number of questions.

We asked if they had been affected at all by any of the energy companies ceasing to trade.

29% of respondents said they had been affected. The region of the UK affected most is the South East.

Of those who had been affected we asked them to describe their payment situation, which shows a concerning picture that 55% who had been moved to another energy provider were paying more for their energy.

The same respondents were asked how they felt about how the situation, was managed when their energy provider ceased trading?

69% were happy about the management of their move, whereas 31% were not.?We then followed up, seeking understanding of what could have gone better with how the situation was handled.

Communication and energy price information were raised as being the most important requirements.

What is the Gap? – The Communication Gap

Organisations who take the opportunity to really listen and hear what their customers expect will be able to communicate more openly, effectively and create better relationships with their employees, customers and stakeholders.?

Whilst service and account transition between suppliers hasn’t been as smooth as possible a more pressing issue of trust exists, we asked – Which statement best describes your level of trust with companies in the Energy/Utilities sector?

Over a third of energy users, do not trust any energy suppliers. A sector which is facing some really challenging times needs to improve how people feel to re-build confidence.

In summary, there are 3 very specific Gaps highlighted from some work undertaken in the last 3 or 4 weeks.

Employee wellbeing Gap – A healthy, engaged workforce will consistently deliver great experiences for your customers. If you don’t know where this Gap exists or other engagement Gaps in your organisation, we can help you understand, how big it is, what is causing it and how to fix it. Our behavioural science based visual semiotics approach, removes the challenges of respondents writing why and how or responding with numbers, delivering a much richer view of employees.

Customer needs Gap - Understanding what your customers expect from your organisation in these difficult times. Now, more than ever customers can be won over by your support, by tapping into their emotional connections with your brand you can ensure the way you help them and find solutions to meet their needs will have a greater impact on future loyalty and recommendation.

Customer trust Gap - We help many organisations understand how customers feel about their suppliers and which attributes of service and value creates trust, driver reputation and what can be done to enhance these drivers of relationship.?

The benefits of Maru/ approach to Gap Analysis:

Traditional research requires lengthy and expensive qualitative and quantitative studies to identify the ideal and quantify the extent of importance and actual delivery.

Through our behavioural science-based approach we can combine these into one timely and interactive online solution, enabling all aspects to be addressed in one research sitting of approximately 10 minutes.

Our approach is highly insightful and cost effective, applying our leading software and technology capability the solutions described above are built into our Maru/HUB solution, making deployment, analysis and reporting a seamless process.

March newsletter will be full of more insights we have collected through our Omnibus study and how we use behavioural science in employee experience/engagement research.

If you would like to understand more about how we can help you identify and close Gaps in your Employee, Customer or Stakeholder environments do reach out on:

Email us @ - [email protected]

Call our reception team on - 01489 772920