InSites Blog

Last week, I attended the 22nd Vlerick Alumni Colloquium, entitled “Kiss Me”, in de Handelsbeurs in Ghent. The theme of the colloquium was ‘The Kingdom of Customer Experience’.

It was a fascinating day, filled with inspiring presentations, and of course good food, drinks and a couple of special surprises which made it truly an experience. All of the keynote speakers had a unique and interesting story to tell, but these were my favorites:

The day started with a presentation from Bernd Schmitt, Professor of International Business at Columbia Business School in New York, who presented a theoretical framework on experiential marketing. Using several examples from well-known companies and from his own market research, he showed the audience how to create an experience platform, design a brand experience, structure the customer interface and align the internal experience.

Another inspiring presentation was given by Tom Grymonprez, Commercial Director of STUDIO 100. He talked about the value of meaningful stories, about retelling stories over and over again, and about Studio 100’s 24/7 strategy. In the end, he moved the whole audience by showing a preview of a 3D remake of a classic cartoon that we all know and love, because it takes us back to our own childhood… If you want to know which cartoon I am talking about, you’ll have to wait a bit, because we won’t see it on TV until 2011!

After lunch, Michel Smit, the founder of Cultural Development, presented the story of the first sustainable dance club – Club Watt – in Rotterdam. Not only is the concept behind this club truly inspiring, but I also really liked their ideas on how to make a visit to this club a very unique experience. The Sustainable Dance Floor is the first dance floor that captures the energy of dancing. The energy produced by movement is converted into electricity that is used to make the dance floor react to the dancer in an interactive way and to power the music and lighting of the club. A big battery is projected on the wall, allowing the clubbers to really see the amount of energy they are producing. This way, the dancers are literally “dancing for a better future”.

The day ended with a presentation from Jean-Paul Teyssen, the CEO of Carglass. As we all know, Carglass is a true success story when it comes to customer experience. Jean-Paul Teyssen explained the audience how they manage to achieve customer delight, and as a market researcher, it was of course very interesting for me to hear how they measure the experience on all levels, and use those results to improve continuously.

Christophe Vergult, Director Customer Experience Research InSites Consulting is one of the keynote speakers at the next Vlerick Marketing Informal on Thursday 28 January 2010.

Christophe will present The Relationship Monitor revealing the answer for 8 industries based on an in-depth study in 8 countries. The answer lies in compelling experiences tapping into underlying consumer needs, consistent with the brand promise over all touch points.

Christophe Vergult is Managing Partner and Director Customer Experience at InSites Consulting.

What’s a new ‘buzz’ word in your domain? What does it mean and what do we do with it?

‘Referral value’, as many customers share their experiences with a company with others. And that matters. Positive recommendations generate new customers (referrals) and bring value to the company. Many companies still have a single focus on the traditional, individual ‘value chain’ of customer experience, or how they can decrease churn and cross-sell and up-sell among existing clients. Nevertheless for many companies the true value of investing in compelling customer experiences lies in the potential referral value.

As such, marketers need to understand how client conversations contribute to the value of their company. What is the current referral value of the customer base? Which customer touch points matter? What drives positive conversations for each touch point?

What are you most proud of?

Ask me the same question in a year, and I hope I can say we have successfully established our office in the UK. First steps have already been taken, but within a year we want to have moved forward substantially: having built a solid team of experienced and enthusiastic people based in London, being recognized in the UK market for our innovative research beliefs and techniques, and being trusted by major brands as their market research partner on an international level.

What has caught you lately?

Recently we set up a ‘360° video ethnography’ test together with a retailer. With this joint R&D study we aimed to develop a consumer driven alternative for traditional mystery shopping. Consumers were asked to record their store visit with a ‘spy cam’, and tag and comment different scenes afterwards. A large group of consumers were exposed to a selection of those scenes and invited to tag and comment them as well. The data have been analyzed both via text analytics and traditional observational analysis techniques. The results proved to be very insightful and lead to a very actionable level of recommendations.

What did your morning look like today?

To start with I had 1 extra hour of sleep due to the shift to winter hour I primarily introduced new members of the customer experience team at InSites to our beliefs and research offering in this domain. In between regular trips to our London office and client visits in Belgium and the Netherlands it was a relief to be present in our Ghent office for a quite relaxing morning with internal meetings.

Let’s end with a ‘quote of the day’!

I can never remember quotes with more than 2 words… ‘No fear!’, lately often heard in the InSites’ office when we are talking about our plans

An InSites Consulting survey for Getronics shows that one third of Dutch employees are not satisfied with the computer and IT facilities at work. In the Netherlands the speed of home computers and broadband Internet increases rapidly. Consequently people are more critical of computers and other IT facilities.

One of the obstacles in ICT facilities is the system speed. A third of the respondents are dissatisfied with the slowness. 47 % of the respondents also experience their insufficient ICT knowledge as a problem.

The importance of ICT for work and the professional performance is endorsed by almost everyone. Over two thirds is of the opinion that ICT helps them to work more effectively, 61 % thinks that ICT contributes to the employee satisfaction, and 47 % declares that the ICT facilities stimulate their motivation.

Half of the employees indicate being able to work from home. In general they think that companies should do more to encourage telework. Two thirds does worry about the company data safety during telework and agrees this could represent a serious obstacle.

For more information, contact Ramon.pardo@insites.eu

The ‘Relationship Monitor’ is a pan-European research realized by InSites Consulting in collaboration with Peppers & Rogers Group. The survey’s objective was to discover the main factors for strong customer relations. In the telecommunication sector specifically, consumers attach the most importance to their telecom supplier’s services offer, the telecom service’s quality and the communication they receive. The comparison between the countries shows that consumers in different countries often have different expectations where the level of customer service is concerned.

Check out the full article here

If you’re involved in retailing right now you’re probably trying to figure out how to turn a tight marketing budget into sustainable success. A visit to Retailday at the Kinepolis in Brussels on Thursday 24 September could give you the help you need.

The Retailday will feature talks by industry leaders giving you a practical understanding of

• how the market is doing now and what the future holds
• how to increase the efficiency of your marketing while still achieving your sales targets
• how much retailing now happens online
• why service remains essential but can still be kept affordable
• the growing importance of integrated technologies in shops
• and the most important question of all: How do you do all these thing in practice?

Our own Managing Partner Christophe Vergult and Annelies Verhaeghe, Senior Consultant ForwaR&D Lab, will be presenting ‘At your Service‘, the results of a study among Belgian consumers and how they’re experiencing shops and retailing in the downturn.

Check out the full program and sign up online.

InSites Consulting was the big winner at the MOAwards last Thursday in Amsterdam. InSites Consulting, the only marketing research company, was nominated for 2 awards and won both: ‘Marketing research company researcher of the year 2009′ (Bureau onderzoeker van het jaar 2009) and ‘SPSS Feedback Innovation Award of the year 2009″. The Dutch MOAwards are an initiative of the MOA, Center for Marketing Intelligence & Research.

The ‘Marketing research company researcher of the year 2009′ award was won by Christophe Vergult, one of InSites Consulting’s managing partners.
According to the MOA: “As InSites Consulting’s face in the Netherlands, Christophe Vergult was a breath of fresh air in research land. With an innovative research approach the established order was shook up on the principle that: good research can be different and made to be more fun. Analytically, Christophe likes to go a step further; he decides on his own initiative to present or immediately carry out the less obvious analyses. This innovative approach can also be found in the preparatory phase of new research. At an early stage he shares innovative research ideas with clients. This distinct fanatical willingness to help clients, combined with his rapid and crystal clear communication about running projects makes him a challenging sparring partner. He is also actively involved in MOA initiatives and goes to great lengths to strengthen InSites Consulting’s position in the Netherlands.”

Christophe Vergult, managing partner: “Winning this Award is a strong confirmation of where InSites is heading, our vision of marketing research and how we view the research company – client relationship.”

The SPSS Feedback Innovation of the year 2009 Award was won thanks to the RTL Nederland case:
According to the MOA: “‘So You Think You Can Dance”. This is the name of the popular television programme that RTL Nederland and InSites Consulting monitored every week based on a webcontent analysis. Using webscraping technology and text mining techniques they analysed opinions of viewers about the programme. They were able to determine plenty of time in advance what parts of ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ needed adjusting and how. The case is a gripping illustration of a new research paradigm in which answers ‘already exist’ and the challenge lies chiefly in creating insights from unstructured data. It fits within an experimental marketing and research domain. At the same time, and that is the striking part of this case, it follows a very structured process and all academic standards are complied with.”

Annelies Verhaeghe, ForwaR&D Lab consultant managed the project. “As InSites Consulting we connect with the participants in our research. Really connecting means we don’t just ask questions ourselves, but also listen to what consumers spontaneously tell us on social media. This principle was applied to this project using SPSS software. And we’re over the moon with our award.”

InSites Consulting in Rotterdam
The InSites Consulting Rotterdam office was established on 1 August 2008 and is managed by Ramon Pardo, Country Manager for the Netherlands. The Rotterdam team will be strengthened from 1 August by Martijn van Bijnen, an experienced marketing researcher and ex-Research International employee.

The Dutch client portfolio includes Unilever, Heineken, Albert Heijn, Heinz, Danone, PepsiCo, Koninklijke Peijnenburg, ING, RTL, Sara Lee, PON, PCM uitgevers, Agis, Coca Cola, Pfizer, MSD ….

“The unthinkable has happened”, according to Ramon Pardo, Country Manager for the Netherlands. “Being nominated for 2 MOAwards was more than we ever dreamed of. For a new marketing research company in the Netherlands to be nominated twice is a great honour. And to then actually go on and win both categories was beyond my wildest dreams. It underlines the appreciation for all the efforts we have gone to as a team over the past year.”

The MOAwards are an initiative of the MOA, Center for Marketing Intelligence & Research. The aim is to put the marketing research sector in the spotlight more. For every award there’s an independent jury and all jury members are external. The jury’s opinion is based on what the nominees produce and what is made available to the juries.

Closing up our Smartees of 2008, we present you the last rerun in 2009 and this in a special edition, combining our Customer Experience and Innovation insights on 19th of February.

We begin the afternoon with our findings of the ‘Relationship Monitor 2008’-study. This study covers 6 sectors: Finance, Automotive, Telecom, Air Travel, Tour Operators and Retail and gives you a review of your customer experience strategy through benchmarking.

After the coffee break our guest speaker, Johan Van Langenbick from CREAX will demonstrate how the CREAX methodology works through real case examples. Filip De Boeck, Director Innovation Research will reveal the innovative InSites approach and the challenges in terms of the selection of the specific profiles, the tools used to connect with consumers and the stimulation of creativity in an online setting.

Check out the full program and register online.

On 27 August, Erwin Knuyt, Consulting Director, is the key note speaker at the global sales meeting of the Imaging Group of Agfa Healthcare. Agfa Healthcare, a member of the Agfa-Gevaert Group, is a leading provider of IT-enabled clinical workflow, diagnostic image management solutions, state-of-the-art systems for capturing and processing images in hospitals and healthcare facilities. The key messages of his speech will be: ‘understand what your customers want’, ‘align the organization to deliver the basics’ and ‘build on the strong relationship you have with the customer’. Want to learn more about these topics or get in touch with Erwin, e-mail (erwin@insites.eu) or call him (+32(0)9 269 15 12).

Together with Vlerick Management School, we’ve set up a study to see how consumers use the internet to decide what and where to buy.  The results of this large-scale Belgian consumer research project and critical website screening will be presented by Christophe Vergult, Director Customer Experience research, at the conference ‘Internet & changing shopping behaviour’ (Affligem, 19 june). It’s a full day program with also top cases of retailers and of brand manufacturers who share with you their vision on the internet.
As a partner, we offer our contacts 10% reduction on the attendance fee (mention InSites Consulting as reference when registering). More info on the full program and registration on www.vlerick.be/go/winkelgedrag