Take Aways from Forrester's Consumer Forum 2008: James McQuivey
Highlights from Forrester's James McQuivey's speech on "Satisfying Consumers for the Next Decade." Began by showing the adoption curve for electrification between 1900 and 1930. What's the difference between early adopter and laggards? Convenience. (Showed lots of technographics examples of adoption rates of different technologies, etc.)
People share a set of universal needs. Satisfy those needs with convenience and you win. It's even more important that we do this in a recession. Adoption curves may flatten out during a recession, but they explode at the end of it.
What are the universal human needs? (Not Maslow's hierarchy-- messy)
People share 4 universal needs:
- Connection
- Uniqueness
- Comfort
- Variety
We all have all 4.. They vary in their importance for each of us. Each person's need profile can also shift in time and based on context. As a result, people will tradeoff needs against each other.
How do you give it to them?
Win with convenience...(it's not a need. It's a means of access to peoples' needs). Example, one switch locks all 4 car doors. The need is safety. The means is convenience.
What do you do?
- Know your target customers' need profiles (connection/uniqueness/comfort/variety) based on circumstances. (Forrester's research will help with this --natch!)
- Know and Increase your Convenience Quotient
This is a single score between -1 and +1 that expresses the benefits of your convenience minus the barriers to adoption...
Convenience = all the benefits you offer - the barriers to adoption/use
CQ also tells you how your approach compares with other ways to meet the same needs.
We will have a needs thermostat for each customer -- a customer segment will have the same range of needs (when they're in the same context).
Chilean economist, Manfred Max Neef reports that many of these needs may be cross-cultural.
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