Why This Seminar Is Important To You:

Often customers can’t tell you what they really want – yet unspoken needs not only drive buying behavior, they are a powerful source of new product innovation. Product developers who know how to tap into these needs are steps ahead of the competition. Conducting a program of customer visits can yield a vast amount of information, and spark insights that lead to innovative product breakthroughs. However, conducting good customer visits requires planning.

Everything from knowing what to ask, whom to ask, and how to ask is critical. Just talking with customers, while admirable, can actually lead you astray if done incorrectly. That’s why Getting Voice of the Customer Right: Mastering the Art of Customer Visits will examine how to conduct customer visits – where you can personally enter the world of your customers and learn about their unspoken needs through direct interaction. Programmatic customer visits for product development have been a business practice for over twenty years and if executed successfully, can generate unique customer perspectives that would be difficult to gain from other VOC activities. Focused on best practices and key criteria for success, this seminar will provide participants with practical, step-by-step guidelines to successfully design, conduct and analyze a program of customer visits – specifically, it will prepare you for how to select the right customers, ask the right kinds of questions and uncover needs that customers don’t know how to vocalize. In an economic climate plagued by fickle customers, fierce competition and product proliferation, you cannot afford not to master the art of conducting successful customer visits.

About the instructor

Edward F. McQuarrie is the Associate Dean for Assessment in the Leavey School of Business and Professor in the Department of Marketing at Santa Clara University.  Considered to be a leading VOC expert, McQuarrie is also the author of two ground breaking books on the subject including Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus and The Market Research Toolbox: A Concise Guide for Beginners.  His research interests include implementation of a market focus, qualitative research, and technology strategy, on the one hand, and advertising research on the other. He has published articles in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Customer Psychology, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Marketing Management, Marketing Research, Journal of the Market Research Society, Journal of Advertising, Journal of Advertising Research, and others.  His depth of knowledge in the topic area is reflected in support from the Marketing Science Institute among others.

Professor McQuarrie has twelve years of experience moderating focus groups for Burke Marketing Research of Cincinnati, has consulted for a variety of technology firms, and has taught seminars on Effective Customer Visits, Managing Focus Group Research, Marketing Research Methods, and similar topics for Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment, Apple Computer, Compaq Computer, Informix, Sybase, Varian Associates, Cadence Design, and others.

Key Benefits

By attending this seminar, you will learn:

• When to do customer visits, when to do focus groups, and when it’s better engage in some other kind of market research entirely

• What it takes to gain organizational buy-in and how to do it

• How to calculate how many customers, across which segments, you need to visit in order to collect actionable data

• The importance of assembling a cross-functional team to conduct customer visits and how to prepare these teams to succeed

• How to design a discussion guide to maximize the effectiveness of a series of customer visits – know what topics to include and how to sequence them

• What customers can tell you (and what they can’t) - learn how to construct questions that uncover real insights

• How to assess the economic value of a proposed solution in the eyes of the customer

• That customer visits can serve dual purposes, both to gather customer input and build relationships

• Interview techniques that will help you identify needs that customers cannot vocalize – – and know when and how to probe further.

• Analytical tools for linking the voice of the customer to product design and key business decisions

Course Deliverables:
By attending this seminar, you will obtain:

1. Best practices for conducting customer visits aimed at gathering VOC data

2. Step-by-step guidelines to design, implement and analyze the results of a program of customer visits

3. Specific guidance and advice on how to combine customer visits with other market research techniques to improve business decisions

4. A reprint of Prof. McQuarrie’s book, Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus

5. Recommendations and advice for your specific customer visit program

The fee for this course is $2995

NOTE: This program is strictly limited to 15 participating groups. Register early to ensure your spot.

100% Satisfaction Guarantee
We are so certain the program will provide you with value far greater than the cost of participation, we guarantee it! If you are dissatisfied for any reason, simply notify us in writing for a full refund

The program fee covers all all online and offline activities, and complimentary one-year FastTrack* subscription (for post-session audio downloads, summaries and more). The Series subscription is individual -- you will have your own username and password. You may have as many people join you for the sessions as you wish as long as your group listens from one phone, and you may distribute materials with everyone who participates.

Upon registration, you will receive:

• Confirmation of your registration
• Receipt for charges
• Instructions for participation in online workshop sessions, including dial-in #s and access codes.
• FastTrack membership information