In our last post, we talked about identifying Topics. Today we are going to explore the importance of looking at how those topics change with different groups of consumers. You can define a Group by many factors, including; geography, purchase frequency, age, gender, and many more. A deeper understanding can be achieved by looking at segments and exploring how different groups behave and how these differences impact their perceptions.
An excellent example of group perception is that of an electrical issue that we found for a client that sells motorcycles. One of the Topics looked at how customers talked about electrical matters. We explored the impact that electrical issues had on the overall satisfaction scores and found that there was a small reduction in scores. When we looked at the customers by generation, it became evident that younger, millennial buyers’ perceptions of electrical issues significantly reduced their satisfaction.
The difference between the two was stark. With an overall brand NPS in the low 9s, the NPS for all customers with electrical issues was still about an 8, which while not ideal is hardly something to stop the presses over. When running a regression on the overall population, electrical issues were not a significant predictor of a deviation from the brand level NPS.
However, when looking only at millennial customers the average NPS for someone with electrical issues drops to a 5, and the topic becomes the number one predictor of a detractor score among millennial buyers based on a regression analysis.
This finding led us to take a more in-depth look into how different age groups perceive electrical issues. We discovered that although both groups experienced the issue, older buyers were more tolerant, for them, it was part of the experience. Younger buyers, by contrast, viewed the problems as a significant flaw.
A deeper understanding of the customer’s perceptions is developed when you explore how each group talks about their experience. Remember, behind every comment is an experience that matters.
How are you currently segmenting your customers?