02 · Customer Understanding

Who your customer is, what they do and why

A demographic profile does not explain a purchase. The reason behind it does.

We build the full portrait of who buys from you and who could: habits, frequency, consumption occasions, choice criteria and the reasons that never show up on a sales dashboard. We cross the quantitative, which tells you how many and how much, with the qualitative, which tells you why.

What it answers

Questions it answers

Who actually buys from me, and how do they differ from who I think buys from me?
At what moment and for what reason do they choose my category?
What weighs most in the decision: price, proximity, brand or habit?
How do I segment my base so I stop speaking to everyone the same way?
Why do the ones who leave, leave?
What socioeconomic level is my customer, and what does that imply?

What you get

Deliverables

Usage & attitudes (U&A) study with a consumption profile
Actionable segmentation, with size and value per segment
Customer profiles built from data, not from assumptions
Socioeconomic classification under the current AMAI rule
Map of consumption occasions and entry barriers
Prioritised recommendations per segment

Methods we use

CAPI

Face-to-face surveys

The method that reaches where the internet does not.

CAWI

Online panels

Fast and economical — as long as your audience is online.

IDI

In-depth interviews

For hard-to-gather profiles and subjects nobody discusses in a group.

Focus groups

Watching an opinion form when there is someone else in the room.

Qualitative

Ethnography

What people do is not always what people say they do.

Analytical

Data and Big Data analysis

Your own data usually holds the answer before you go out and ask.

Where we apply it

Consumer goods, retail and food Banking, insurance and fintech Education Tourism, hotels and restaurants

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a qualitative and a quantitative study?

Qualitative work — focus groups, in-depth interviews, ethnography — answers why something happens and is useful when you do not yet know what to ask. Quantitative work measures how many and with what representativeness, and is useful once you have a hypothesis to validate. Most projects use both, in that order.

What sample size do I need?

It depends on the margin of error you are willing to accept and on how many subgroups you will want to read results for. You can run the numbers yourself in our sample size calculator, and if the study needs breakdowns by city or segment, we size it with you before quoting.

Do we get the raw data?