Market research news
The blog of the market research agency IntoTheminds lists opinionated articles, examples of alignment with marketing theory, highlights and bad buzz, carefully selected by Pierre-Nicolas Schwab, his team and influential experts.
Three criteria to differentiate good and bad prospects
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Over the years I have developed a sixth sense for recognizing uninteresting prospects, those who consume your time and will have a zero ROI. Criterion 1: The emergency factor A prospect contacts you. It is urgent. He/She needs your offer…
Meeting with a great entrepreneur, Alain Milliat
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
If you wonder what it makes to see his name printed on millions of products, just ask Alain Milliat how he feels. He’s managing the Alain Milliat company which produces 2,5 million bottle of juice per year. Alain is one…
Be responsive: a business strategy that works … if you apply it!
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Here’s a true story that many of you have already experienced and which resulted in a incredible feeling of frustration. It’s the story about looking for a company to provide a service or a product you need. Sending a request…
Will Ryanair really improve service quality to satisfy its customers?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Michael O’Leary, the arrogant yet charismatic CEO of Ryanair, announced last week that the company would strive to improve customer service. "We should try to eliminate things that unnecessarily piss people off" and "A lot of those customer services elements…
Emerging trend on the food market : raw chocolate
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Among the 200+ exhibitors of the Gourmet Food&Wine fair in Paris on Sept 23rd and 24th 2013, our attention was caught by Rrraw, startup launched by Frédéric Marr to exploit the raw chocolate market trend. After having sold his previous…
The soon collapsing delicatessen market
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
After visiting the Gourmet Food & Wine fair in Paris a strange feeling remains in my head: that of an endless repetition. I got bored. From booth to booth noting emerged as really different; everything was alike : exotic spices…
« Clic and walk » reinvents the customer satisfaction survey
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The social media rise has launched a new era in customer satisfaction measurement; twitter, Facebook and the like have allowed marketers to collect more primary data to evaluate whether clients were satisfied or not. Yet the multiplicity of sources makes…
How to create a concept store with a limited budget?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
After having visited the SMETS concept store in Brussels and the subsequent definition of the innovation factors of this type of outlet, I visited Le Dressing. Le Dressing is a small concept store that openly claims to be part of…
Black money hunt makes Ferrari sales drop
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Tax evasion remains very popular in Italy (and in Belgium too by the way) but since January 2013 the Monti and Letta governments are testing a new approach. The latter , as you will in this article, continues to fuel the great…
Ryanair’s CEO better at provocation than Abercrombie&Fitch’s CEO
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Mike Jeffries, Abercrombie&Fitch CEO, was under fire this summer about his declarations on excluding people from his targeted clientele. Back in 2006 he declared : "We go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive, all-American kid with a…
How a postcard can create high customer satisfaction
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Here's one example of how a company can increase its customers’ satisfaction and loyalty by paying attention to details. This example is inspired by Werner Bruyns, the CEO of Coolblue whom I met at a bpost event earlier this year.…
BNP Paribas Fortis: how their hotline make them lose customers
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Websites have become nowadays a tool to attract and retain potential customers. They either allow the visitors to perform certain actions by themselves or get a trigger to call an agent. This mechanism is especially important in B2C transactions where…
The market of recycled devices grows with the crisis
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
There are some markets which benefit from the crisis. The market of recycled electronic devices is one of them. With the growth of smartphones and a diminishing buying power, consumers tend to look increasingly for bargains in the second-hand market.…
Get inspired by concept stores to improve your marketing strategy
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I was called in mid-July by the Belgian TV Channel RTBF to explain what concept stores are. The 3-minute television report was filmed –obviously- in a concept store located in Brussels : SMETS. I went back to the store later…
Even century-old firms die … because they don’t adapt
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Darwin was right … those who adapt will survive and in the race to survival smaller species seem better placed. This seems also to be true for firms. The biggest ones are not –always- the most resistant to shocks and…
Positive return for subsidies to innovative SMEs
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
A recent press release by the European Commission has brought some interesting statistics about the effectiveness of subsidies to SMEs. More specifically the European Commission measured a series of performance indicators in eco-innovation SME which had received funding via the…
Is crowdfunding the best option for your savings ?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Several crowdfunding platforms have emerged in the last months in Belgium. One of them (MyFirstCompany), although very promising, already ceased operations earlier this year. The legal problem mentioned on their website seems not to have impeded another platform (Look&Fin) to…
The holiday period has arrived …
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We published our last post on Friday and kept on our promise made in January 2013 to publish 3 times a week in both English and French. The time has now arrived to take a step back, reflect on the…
Some innovating ideas around customer satisfaction and loyalty
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
I recently attended an internal BPost event where externals speakers went to give a speech and inspire the audience. This event had been organized at the initiative of BPost COO Peter Somers and it was a great opportunity to better…
Do High-Tech startups deserve so much support? What about Low-Tech firms?
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Hi-tech startups receive a great deal of attention in the press and from official authorities; they are sexy, make cool products, are usually launched by talented young guys with excellent engineering / business degrees. The purpose of my post today…
Innovation in the postal industry : the self-service trend
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
We reported that the postal industry, not see by many as one of the most innovative sector, is actually trying new ways to better fit into consumers’ behaviors. Two recent Esmerk press releases confirm that the self-service trend is extending…
BSE Academy: first prize awarded to bugs’ food project
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
The first prize of the BSE Academy was awarded on 12 June to Brecht Vanhecke and Jasper Peeters for their novel food project. Brecht and Jasper’s project revolves around insects and aims at transforming them into food that can be…
Mono-product marketing strategies: the exemple of l’Atelier de l’Eclair
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
There is no such difficult thing than to start a successful business with only one product. Yet, we have noticed recent initiatives in the retail sector of innovative mono-product marketing strategies. We visited last month “L’Atelier de l’éclair” in Paris,…
Avoid biased results when measuring customer satisfaction
By Pierre-Nicolas Schwab •
Measuring satisfaction of clients is a widespread practice among large companies as we showed in an earlier post. A new practice is however to link employees’ salaries to customer satisfaction scores. We’ve had the opportunity to witness this practice in…
