Business challenge
A well-known casual dining brand wanted to drive transaction volume growth by expanding its customer base beyond existing loyal customers. The goal of this research was to identify barriers and drivers for different customer segments to enhance acquisition and retention strategies.
Our approach
Stage 1: Market sizing to size priority segments and identify the biggest opportunities.
Stage 2: Online survey with 2,000+ respondents covering behaviours by channel, choice versus competitors, and barriers to visiting at all or more often. We tested 49 barriers using rating scales and MaxDiff.
Stage 3: 8 focus groups across segments and demographics to explore the key barriers in depth and generate improvement recommendations.
Stage 4: 40 WhatsApp tasks with focus group participants. Respondents completed a ‘mission’, shared video feedback, and completed pre- and post-task ratings. This was especially effective for tracking perception shifts among lapsed and non-customers.
Outcome
The results from the research provided different stakeholders with direction on what to focus on to improve their customer growth strategy, this included easy/ quick wins all the way to larger/ long-term changes. The video voxpops and case studies brought the research to life, allowing stakeholders to hear directly from consumers and further engage them to take action as a result of the research.