How Customer Interviews Can Save Your Business
Marketers are often faced with an age old dilemma when coming to conducting research: quality versus quantity. Both have their own strengths and weaknesses, but today we are going to talk about the former. In particular, we are going to talk about interviews.
Interviewing allows you to get deeper, more emotional insights that can be used to create campaign-changing alterations or save your business altogether!
One thing to remember when talking about interviews: people open up to people. When you’re interviewing someone who is relaxed and feels safe enough to reveal the emotions and motives for their behaviour, you can discover things that would be impossible to find using any other research method.
The story of how Febreze re-invented its marketing message is perhaps the best illustrator of how customer interviews can benefit businesses.
P&G originally tried to sell the spray as the cure for America’s foulest household smells. But that concept didn’t work.
The problem with the idea was that people got used to the odors in their homes and thought their houses smelled. That was a huge roadblock for Febreze to succeed.
In order to save the product, the company hired a researcher to interview customers on how their use of the product. One housewife, who was very particular about keeping her home clean, said she sprayed Febreze as part of her room-cleaning habit. She specified, that she usually sprayed it at the end of every clean-up, as a finishing touch.
That key insight triggered an analysis that made P&G realize it had to position Febreze as part of an existing routine.
Perfume was added to the bottle and the company launched new advertising campaign showing women spraying freshly made beds with Febreze.
Within two months, sales of the product doubled.
This story can serve two purposes: as a proof that interviews can be incredibly effective in getting to know your customer’s psychology, and as a reminder that it is imperative to get to know your customers’ needs and wants before embarking on a new business venture.
Keep both of them in mind.