New Feedback: Matchmaker
A company can only acquire and retain the right customers when it consistently aligns all areas of its business to meet the needs of the
customer segments that it wants to serve. The segmenting methods that market researchers have traditionally used to define these groups are
often ill-suited for achieving this objective. Would you be able, for instance, to develop a car model for someone from a "traditionally-minded
intellectual milieu"? What level of discount would you offer Yuppies? What specific measures would have to be taken in a call centre to stop a
35-year-old woman from the North East from cancelling her life insurance policy?
Answering questions of this kind is more than difficult; until now, it has been virtually impossible. If, however, the segments are established
on the basis of purchase-relevant criteria, it suddenly becomes easy to answer exactly these types of question.
[more]
Feedback: Customer Centered Pricing Strategy
Classic pricing research methods are based on the assumption that people always decide rationally. Nevertheless, the ground-breaking pricing study "Smarter
Pricing with GRIPS" conducted by Vocatus in six sectors and sixteen countries demonstrates that people deal quite differently with the issue of price. In the
media market the customers often don’t even know the price of the newspaper they are buying.
The unique method has been awarded with the renowned ESOMAR-Best Paper Award 2010 and has changed the way media companies think about
pricing radically. Read more about pricing strategies based on GRIPS.
The results are so convincing and have such an immediate positive effect on the bottom line that Vocatus has successfully overhauled the pricing strategy of more than
70 newspapers and magazines. Read here, what our clients say or see list of all media clients of Vocatus.
Article: Marketing in Emerging Markets
Marketing in emerging markets often has to follow different rules to those prevalent in developed markets and is largely influenced by
infrastructure, income situation and social structure. Completely different product features might be important to the customer in
the purchase decision. Basic functionality and reliability can be much more important than fancy features, whereas the motivation to save
time by using the product is usually not pronounced. Success in these markets is thus not only a matter of thorough analysis and understanding
the differences but also of speedily developing the right marketing strategy and putting it into action.
[more]
Event: Vocatus Asia Forum
As the exclusive German partner of the international market research network "IRIS", Vocatus organised an Asia Forum on 7 April 2011
entitled "Market Research in Asia: What Really Matters". This event allowed market researchers from a variety of different companies
to get first-hand information about the situation in various Asian countries, and to make direct personal contact with the leading lights
of Asian market research. IRIS members from Japan, China, India, South Korea, Pakistan, Malaysia and Australia came to Germany and reported
on the special features, challenges and stumbling blocks facing market research in their respective countries.
[more]
Feature: Customer Service
The customer typically demands service. Unlike marketing and sales, it's thus not the company that's seeking contact with the customer, but the customer who's proactively contacting the company. At the same time, service contact is one of the strongest levers in terms of customer retention, and therefore offers enormous potential.
An ever-greater proportion of contact with the customer takes place on the phone. Countless surveys unfortunately demonstrate that long waiting times, being frequently passed on, plus incompetent or outright false information are too often the norm with quite a few call centres ...
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