Many surveys include positive brand attributes. By shifting survey focus instead to customer pain points, research provides guidance to enhance trial and usage of goods and services.
Three measures are the basis for assessing pain points and problems for their potential to increase trial of a product if it solves those problems:
- How frequently consumers experience them
- How bothersome they are when they do occur
- Whether or not the marketplace already offers a satisfactory product solution (Y/N) OR a rating of current products for solving the problem (including “no product solution”)
Both MaxDiff and rating-scale sorting techniques are suggested as part of the questionnaire design – a rating-scale sort for quantifying “frequency” (which is important to measure in the absolute), and MaxDiff for quantifying “bothersome-ness” (which is better measured relatively, is a more logical context for consumers, plus it avoids the potential bias of all problems being highly bothersome).
Both approaches encourage discrimination and are engaging game-like activities.
Which Pain Points require attention/present opportunity for action?
- In this example, the focus on bees offers the strongest opportunity since it is a frequent problem that is highly bothersome and current products do not address the problem satisfactorily.
- Using all 3 dimensions also offers the opportunity to form segments for micro-targeting products.
