Data services providers run on very short development cycles. A major tech firm contacted us regularly with needs around marketing and product planning insights, but costs to reach potential users were too high for many of the smaller product teams, and timeframes for recruitment often made research unfeasible. The Data Services team needed to understand the needs of high-potential accounts (big budgets overall, but very little spend on the client’s data services), and what blockers they faced when considering adoption of the client’s offerings. At a more granular level, each of the product planning teams needed feedback on feature prioritization, pricing plans and messaging.
Through our existing partnership with product planners on the client’s product planning team, Escalent became aware of a client training/education program. This multi-day immersive program introduced customers to a variety of data services, complete with hands-on training labs. Based on the scope of the program and the target participants, it became clear that the training program was an ideal vehicle for capturing myriad customer feedback. We built out a plan with our client to embed a qualitative researcher in the groups to capture:
With the detailed reports for each event, a number of stakeholder teams at the client firm had a strong foundation from which to build better, more profitable customer relationships.
Over the course of the program, we worked with a key lead product planner to show evidence of a 6:1 ROI for the program, with adoption of the client’s tools and services proving sticky over time. Additionally, the program was an ongoing (near real-time) source of beta testers, and feature prioritization, messaging and pricing plan feedback.