Customer satisfaction research Can you spare some change?

The situation
This newsletter company was beginning to feel the effects of the information age. As the amount of information available to their customers--particularly online--burgeoned, they started to see a decline in their subscriptions. Why weren’t their customers satisfied? And, what could they do to improve retention? They engaged O'Donnell & Associates to help them understand the needs of their customers and reshape their product.

The process
O'Donnell & Associates conducted two phases of research to help our client make some hard decisions. First, we conducted focus groups with current and former subscribers. In these, we probed to better understand how customers gather, store and assimilate market intelligence. We also asked the customers to react to the newsletters and give ideas for new products and formats. Then, we conducted a comprehensive survey of current and former subscribers to a half-dozen newsletters.

The results
In the two phases of research, we were able to identify the market segments, and provide advice to our client about which newsletters were better left as print and which should be offered online. Timeliness was a critical issue in the need for online delivery. Some of their markets preferred a briefer weekly online update to the traditional monthly printed newsletter.

More important, we identified some gaps between our client’s offerings and their customers needs. We found that our client was not providing enough analysis or enough data in some of its market segments. Customers provided ideas for new reports and online feeds that could support the print newsletter. And, finally, we were able to get a firm grip on the pricing expectations of customers, helping our client to determine that they could raise prices in some areas.