customer experience

Approach Community Studies With an Eye to Customer Experience

July 27, 2017
, , , , , Community Studies, The Art of Research

By looking at community members as “customers,” The Melior Group’s approach to community studies offers clients a unique perspective and innovative recommendations.  Our research methodology applies a marketing framework to the issues of interest to specific communities, and examines purchase decision-making, buyer behavior and the customer experience.

When this innovative approach is utilized, our clients are better able to understand how community members view the experiences, services and products being offered by the client.  Community leaders can then foster a more positive experience, driving a higher volume of “purchases” and/or more meaningful, engaging and successful interactions.

Recently, we’ve been sharing with our industry peers the efforts and successes of Melior’s Vice President Susan Levine and Senior Project Director Sindey Dranoff in the Jewish community studies sector:

  • Their article, “Jewish Community Studies as Seen Through a Business Lens” was published in a special edition of Contemporary Jewry: click here to read the article
  • Susan and Sindey presented at the Eastern Sociological Society’s 2017 Annual Meeting as part of the “The Transformation of Jewish (and Other) Community Studies” session: click here to learn more

To read more about our work with Jewish community studies, click here.  If you have questions about your own community study, please reach out to us and we will be happy to start the conversation.

For more information, contact Susan Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107 or Sindey Dranoff at 215-545-0054 x108 / [email protected].

ice cream

Did You Know: July is National Ice Cream Month

July 6, 2017
The View From Walnut St.

Every summer we get excited for the month of July, as it celebrates one of our favorite desserts: ice cream!  President Ronald Reagan designated July as National Ice Cream Month in 1984, and specifically, the third Sunday of the month as National Ice Cream Day… so this year, National Ice Cream Day is Sunday, July 16.

In his proclamation, President Regan called for everyone in the United States to observe the month with “appropriate ceremonies and activities.”  We interpret that as taking the opportunity to partake in at least one delicious frozen treat.  And there is more than one option… beyond ice cream, this is the chance to try gelato, soft serve, ice pops, FroYo, frozen custard or water ice!  Check out the guide below for some helpful information and fun facts:

(Click image to enlarge)

Let us know in the comments what your favorite is… since we are located in Center City Philadelphia, we at The Melior Group love our water ice!

jewish community studies

If You Ask, We Answer: Part 2 – Healthcare

June 15, 2017
, , , , Healthcare, The Art of Research

Continuing our series about the common questions that our clients ask us:  our first post focused on the higher education sector.  We now turn our focus to healthcare.

When my kids ask me what I do all day, I respond with, “We answer questions.”  I give pretty much the same response to adults, because while it sounds simple, it captures the essence of my work.  That’s why The Melior Group is in business.

So when it comes to our healthcare provider clients like hospitals and health systems, what kinds of questions is Melior answering, and how are they using the information?

If we build it, will they come?

Investment in facilities, programs and services is costly, and our healthcare clients need data about consumers to support their decisions.  Hospital planning departments and their consultants provide the market information (how many people live in the area, insurance status, etc.); Melior’s work focuses on gathering insights into consumer attitudes and behavior. We ask questions of the market such as:

  • Is there a need in your community for said initiatives?
  • When making decisions for this type of program/service, what are your criteria for selection?
  • If the program/service offers these menu items, how likely would you be to consider using it?
  • What would make you more likely to use it?

With the answers given, Melior is able to guide clients to make “go/no go” decisions, and, if the decision is “go”, to develop a product that is responsive to consumers’ needs and preferences.

Is our consumer-directed marketing and outreach accomplishing what we want it to accomplish, and if not, what can we do to make it better?

We often work with clients when they are developing their consumer marketing strategy.  They may need to evaluate their current brand status, as well as elicit input for future marketing campaigns.  We ask questions of consumers such as:

  • What is important to you when you are making decisions about healthcare?
  • What are your impressions of the different providers in the market?
  • How do you gather information about healthcare providers?
  • What is your reaction to current advertising and other messaging from healthcare providers?

The answers help our clients to develop marketing communications which are believable, distinctive and have the potential to resonate with desired audience segments.

How can we better serve our surrounding community? 

This is an important question for our nonprofit healthcare clients, which are usually mission-driven.  They take their missions seriously, and want to hear, from the audiences they are committed to serving, how they are doing.  As such, we ask questions of those audiences such as:

  • Do you perceive this provider as the “go to” resource for your family’s health needs?
  • Does this provider treat all patients with the compassion and respect that they deserve?
  • Is this provider doing all that it can to improve the overall health of the community?

Though sometimes the findings can surprise, and even hurt, they can provide a starting point for improvement and rededication to meeting mission goals.

In addition to the questions we ask, our rigorous approach to figuring out who we need to reach in order to gather the information we need, and determining the best methodology for gathering information, is central to our work.

Our research can help healthcare providers explore all of these issues and more.  Give us a call or shoot us an email and let us know how we can help.

For more information please contact Elizabeth Cohen at [email protected]/215-545-0054 ext. 103

define a brand

The 5 Aspects That Define A Brand

June 8, 2017
, , , , The Art of Research, The Invisible Customer, The View From Walnut St.

In our work with brand development and tracking of branding effectiveness, we have to accommodate the five aspects that define a brand.  We conduct research to understand whether there is congruity between what the brand is – and says it is – and the perceptions of the various targeted market segments.  This research can be conducted with both internal stakeholders (employees, board members, “friends,” professionals) and external stakeholders (customers, consumers, opinion leaders, other professionals).

The 5 aspects are:

  1. Brand promise: what consumers will actually get interacting with you and the feelings they will have in the “relationship” with you.
  2. Brand elements: the tangible and the intangible components that work together to clearly and consistently communicate the aspects of your brand.
  3. Brand persona: how consumers judge and evaluate you before doing business with you and, subsequently, establishing a relationship.
  4. Brand perceptions: how consumers comprehend your brand… and does it actually reflect/represent what you want it to.
  5. Brand expectations: every interaction with the brand matters, and must be what consumers expect.

We believe that a brand must be clear, reliable, consistent and believable to both internal and external constituencies.  The branding research that we conduct explores these aspects with that in mind; we then make recommendations for minor and major shifts based on the perceptions of all types of stakeholders, and work with clients to refine and/or refresh the brand.

For more information, contact Linda McAleer at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x104.

data

True or False: Without Data You’re Just Another Person With An Opinion

February 23, 2017
, , , , , The Art of Research

“Without data you’re just another person with an opinion.” 
– W. Edwards Deming

At The Melior Group, we live and die by that quote.  It is how we sell our services:  we believe, deep in our bones, that information/data can help move an organization toward where it wants to go.

The longer I work in marketing research, the more that quote has taken on another meaning.  I have learned that our clients’ opinions, which are usually based in anecdotal evidence and intuition, are also often correct and borne out in data.  Upon delivery of our findings, we usually hear some version of the following:  “this information doesn’t surprise me.” 

When I first started out in this business, my face would fall when a client would say that.  I thought a statement like that was a criticism,  a veiled message that the client did not value what we had done and felt they hadn’t gotten their money’s worth.  Today, however, I have a different perspective.  Head nods and lack of surprise at our findings are comforting signs that we did our job right.  I feel unsettled when a client says, “this is news to me…I am completely surprised by what you have found.”

My change of heart starts with confidence in my clients.  If they are doing their jobs right, then they have a sense of what is going on with their customers, their employees, their brand, etc.  They work there, after all.

So have I just talked The Melior Group out of business with my assertion that our clients already know what will be revealed in the data that we gather?  Absolutely not.  If data collection is done well (and this, we know, is critical), data provides validation and proof… it is defendable.  It is the bulwark of evidence that organizations need to move forward.

Just because “without data you’re just another person with an opinion,” doesn’t mean that your opinion isn’t right.

For more information please contact Elizabeth Cohen at [email protected]/215-545-0054 ext. 103

ethics and integrity

Ethics and Integrity – Are The Standards Different in the Profit and Non-Profit Worlds?

February 9, 2017
, , Ethics and Compliance

Shortly after beginning my career with The Melior Group I became involved in our Ethics and Integrity work, specifically creating stand-alone surveys to measure ethics and compliance culture amongst employees at multi-national corporations.  Last year I wrote about three steps organizations can take to improve their ethics and compliance culture.

In addition to Ethics and Integrity, over the last several years I have become involved in The Melior Group’s work in the non-profit arena.  We work with non-profits to help them learn more about their customers –their users, their donors, and their funders.  We use a “business lens” and look at “buyer behavior” to provide guidance to these organizations on a variety of issues.

While our work in Ethics and Integrity has been concentrated in the for-profit area, there is a connection between these two areas:  Ethics and Integrity are important throughout all of the business world, including in the non-profit sector, and specifically involving philanthropy.

A recent reading of Funders & Power – Principles for Honorable Conduct in Philanthropy piqued my interest.  This document was created to help funders delineate the boundary between strong philanthropic leadership and abuse of power.  It outlines broad standards of conduct, including seven principles that funders should follow and recipient organizations should expect, including being ethically consistent and treating all with respect and partnership.  Although this document specifically references Jewish philanthropy, it can be argued that these principles and goals are far reaching and should be considered by all – specifically those making the donations, and those accepting them.

Do your funders make unrealistic requests tied to their philanthropic donations or project funding?  An article written in response to the Funders & Power document suggests that organization staff need to “be bold enough to call out funders for behaving poorly, and wise enough to phrase challenges constructively so that people feel they have an opportunity to improve rather than a need to defend themselves.”

Does your staff know how to react to these requests?  First and foremost is the need to create a culture of ethics and integrity in your organization.  It starts from the inside: there’s no replacement for knowing what employees think and feel, and are likely to do when confronted by an ethics issue.

An employee survey dedicated to ethics and integrity establishes a baseline measure that allows for a better understanding of the level of integrity that resides in your organization, and what employees need to learn and understand in order to feel a part of the process. This survey tool, often used in the for-profit world, can and should also be used in the non-profit world for measuring ethics and integrity amongst employees.

Interested in learning more about how our clients have used stand-alone employee Ethics and Compliance surveys to create and sustain a culture of ethics and integrity, or how our non-profit clients have used our buyer behavior research? Please reach out to Sindey Dranoff at 215-545-0054 ext. 108 / [email protected].

personas

Traditional Market Segmentation Has Met Its Match – Meet “Personas”

January 26, 2017
, , , , , , The Art of Research

“Market segmentation” is typically defined as a process of dividing consumers (or businesses) into groups based on some shared characteristics, such as demographic profiles, lifestyles, common interests or needs.  It is an extremely useful tool for targeting these groups and developing strategies and tactics to effectively reach them by assuming that different market segments are motivated by different things.  This has worked effectively and has been a successful process since marketing was a “wee thing.”

Today, by actually understanding more about these consumers and businesses and what they represent, we can do an even better job of target marketing… reaching them in a way that expands the data about the segment into descriptors of the people who “reside” in the segment.  We can go beyond data and create personas, bringing to life the people for whom strategies are created by providing sketches of the people representative of key segments.

Consider a wealth management firm looking at ways to reach a target audience…

personas

By adding behavioral, opinion, motivational and attitudinal dimensions to market segmentation development, marketers are better able to know what makes customers and prospects tick, what they need, what they are willing and able to buy from them (and competitors), and how to tell the target segments their story. Personas are more than the sum of data points – they are the vehicles that bring your target market to life.

In future posts, we’ll explore more on this topic – stay tuned!

For more information, contact Linda McAleer at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x104 or Sue Levine at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x107.

Rooster Soup Company

Melior Group People of the Moment, Rooster Soup Owners, Open Restaurant

January 23, 2017
, , , , The View From Walnut St.

A year ago we heard about Rooster Soup Company, which was clearly going to be more than just a new restaurant opening in Center City. The newest venture of esteemed chefs and restaurateurs Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook aimed to turn the unused parts of the whole chickens purchased by their restaurant Federal Donuts to make chicken stock for a variety of soups to be sold at Rooster Soup Company. Not only do perfectly good chicken parts no longer go to waste, but 100% of Rooster Soup Company’s net profits go to generating revenue for Philadelphia’s Broad Street Ministry, which provides vulnerable Philadelphians with meals and services such as a mailing address, access to free medical care, personal care items, and clothing.

Rooster Soup Company opened today at 1526 Sansom Street. Check out our original blog post to learn more about this exciting new restaurant, and visit the Rooster Soup Company website to peruse the delicious offerings on the menu. We encourage you to try out a meal there, and let us know what you think!

 

 

jewish community studies

If You Ask, We Answer: Part 1 – Higher Education

January 12, 2017
, , , , , Higher Education, The Art of Research

When people ask us what we do, one of the things we often say is, “we answer questions for our clients.”  And inevitably, we’re then asked, “What kinds of questions?  Why are the asking this of you?”

Frankly, this is why we’re in business.  Our daily challenge is to assist our clients in taking the management issues they regularly wrestle with, and shaping them into questions that we can then use in our research.  We gather information, with these questions as a backdrop.  The answers are enlightening and provide clear paths to follow with strategic next steps.

Let’s look at the higher education sector as an example.  We’re asked to solve issues involving admissions, enrollment, programming, curriculum, and community relationships.  Here are just some of the questions our clients have asked us to help answer through our work.

If we build it, will they enroll?
It can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build and launch a new program, and administrators want to know what they’ll need to do to make it successful before they invest the time and money into its creation.

How will workforce trends impact our programming/curriculum?
More colleges and universities seek to offer programs that teach students skills for jobs that are available in the local and regional market.  This may lead to offering more non-credit and certificate courses.

How can we better serve our surrounding community?
Most universities have moved past the traditional “town and gown relations” model and have started to really take a look at what programs and services could be provided to make their institutions an asset to the local community.

Why didn’t students enroll?
Knowing why an institution didn’t make the final cut is as important as understanding what put the institution in the initial consideration set.

What’s the best way to deliver our courses?
Full time, part time, online, in person, and hybrids are all successful ways to deliver courses.  Clients often ask what the right mix is for their students.

Will changes to our curriculum be viewed positively by prospective employers of our students?
We’re proponents of understanding how employers perceive recent graduates… and we often provide insights about what’s lacking in today’s graduates.  We now know that soft skills, such as work ethic, emotional intelligence, and communications skills are highly important.  Educators want to know how to build curricula to prepare students for today’s workforce.

How do we manage our brand reputation (especially) after a crisis?
After an institution receives unflattering headlines in the (social) media, savvy institutions look to measure the impact on an institution’s brand to prepare to take the steps that will help fix the situation. 

What is the value of a college degree to prospective students and their parents?
In the past, quality learning, being prepared for the future, and “getting a job” have all been touted as the value of a college education.  But times are changing, as are the many reasons why a college degree is important.

Should we be offering interdisciplinary programs and courses?
As consultants, we just want to emphatically say “yes”!  But, the value of research is to understand what’s important to the market (prospective students, employers) and leverage what we learn to help build a valuable interdisciplinary focus.

What’s the best way to partner with community colleges as a funnel for admissions to four year institutions?
One community college in our area took a controversial approach to funneling students to a four year college – and we even wrote a blog post about it.

Our research can help higher education clients explore all of these questions and more.  Give us a call or shoot us an email and let us know what management issues your institution faces.

In future posts, we’ll explore the questions that clients in our other sectors (healthcare, mission-based/non-profit) have asked us to answer – stay tuned!

To learn more about our work with colleges and universities, please contact Elizabeth Foley [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x111 or Linda McAleer [email protected] / 215-545-0054 x104.

 

Hallmarks of a Good Brand

What are the Top 5 Hallmarks of a Good Brand?

December 8, 2016
The Art of Research, The View From Walnut St.

The concept of a “brand” has been evolving over time.  The word has been used as the name of a product or service, kind of like a “trademark.”  But, in the past 20 or so years, a “brand” has become something that encompasses all that the product or service means to those engaging with or simply observing it; as David Ogilvy, the advertising master guru said:  It’s “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes.”

Jerry McLaughlin said in a Forbes blog post (12/21/2011), “your ‘brand’ is what your prospect thinks of when he or she hears your brand name.  It’s everything the public thinks it knows about your brand offering – both factual and emotional.  Your brand name exists objectively; people can see it.  It’s fixed.  But your brand exists only in someone’s mind.”

So, as good market researchers, we began looking at assuring that brands are based on perceptions… the perceptions held by those stakeholders who brand owners believe represent their customers and prospects.

In the research we’ve conducted to develop the attributes of a good brand and to measure how these brands reflect what is good, we’ve come up with our (in no particular order) TOP 5:  THE HALLMARKS OF A GOOD BRAND.

  • Memorability – It goes without saying that people need to know your name; and more than that, they need to know what you do/provide, and think of you when looking for your product or service. This does not necessarily mean you have to have a long history, but it does mean that you have to remind people you’re there and what you do.
  • Comprehension – You’ve spent a good deal of time creating a vision for your brand, a set of attributes and/or promises that define it. Or, at least, you think you have.  Do your customers and prospects actually understand what it is you offer, what the benefits are of your products or services, why they should choose you over others?
  • Trustworthiness – While some brands lose their way through no fault of their own –or because of errors and flaws, the good brands know how to “make good” on mistakes, own up to them, and value their customers and the customer experience more than anything else.
  • Timeliness – Consumers today are quick to change. When they value a brand, they want that brand to adapt to today’s challenges and opportunities, while recognizing that it must be true to itself.  We might add to “timeliness” some sub-concepts, and they are “relevance” today or “adaptability” without forgoing the brand’s value.
  • Consistency – This might be the most difficult, as it is based on expectation and belief… that the brand will live up what people want from it, anticipate it will provide. Consistency allows for changes and shifts, but the overarching need is for customers to know they can recommend the product or service for what it is/stands for – without question.

Does your brand stand up to these five standards?  If you don’t know – or if they don’t – it’s time to recognize the importance of measurement to assure your brand is not just a name or a logo, but a true brand.  We can help with our brand measurement tools.

For more information, contact Linda McAleer at [email protected] or 215-545-0054 x104.

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