Breaking Free From The Jaws of Mediocrity

The Buyer’s Perspective: Scholar Walter J. Ong once published a brilliant essay about the challenges of effective communication titled, The writer’s audience is always a fiction. I believe research and insights providers face a similar challenge. The buyers (and the end users) of our efforts are “always a fiction.”.

I built and led insights teams at Fortune 200 companies for 25 years before joining KLC in 2021 and I believe consistently satisfying and meeting the needs of buyers is more challenging than ever.

If you’ve been around long enough to remember when “marketing to Millennials” first entered corporate discourse, you may recognize the challenge. Everyone was giddy about this massive generation of consumers with plenty to spend. Quickly, however, the wise realized declaring a focus on Millennials was about as useful as declaring a focus on humans.

While knowing how to please buyers was never easy, it has gotten more difficult because the buyer has become more and more “a fiction.” In short, a focus on “insights buyers” is no more useful than a focus on Millennials. Centralized (and centrally funded) functions are all but gone. There are segments within segments within segments and buyers may sit in multiple departments in the organizations they serve (not to mention many are now sitting at home instead of a centralized location).

Finding, understanding, and pleasing buyers is indeed harder than ever because attempts to think of the audience holistically creates a buyer that is a fiction. That’s why we customize our approach to an audience of one.

The Supplier’s Perspective

The GRIT Report on Supplier Performance can be summed up in one word; “Mediocrity”. Since the inception of GRIT, the insights industry has been stuck on satisfaction scores of roughly 50%. Although GRIT took a Ginsu Knife to this section, slicing & dicing the data into 29 charts, buyers (whether it be corporate buyers or full-service suppliers) remain consistently unimpressed with their suppliers.

We decided to ladder up and examine the report vis a vis the overall B2B service industry. A 2016 McKinsey Report* finds some normative solace for the research industry. “Whereas B2C companies typically score in the 65 to 85% range, B2B companies average less than 50%”. In other words, Insights Supplier Performance Levels are in line with other service industries.

Still, how does one break free from the jaws of “mediocrity” and be seen as a superior service option? In the same article, McKinsey points to mass customization. Using technology to offer buyers a custom experience, tailored to their individual needs. How to achieve that? We need to research the unique needs of our clients. Even a simple “Importance/Satisfaction Gap Analysis” will allow us to focus our efforts on areas of importance to each client. If you want to differentiate from your competitors and escape the black hole of mediocrity, you need to over communicate and customize your approach.

“Conducting the research” properly gets you into the game. Winning the game means putting the individual needs of your customers in front of any cookie cutter deliverable strategy. It also keeps you ahead of the Procurement Bear, who is always looking to cull the herd of mediocre performers.

Cited Sources: McKinsey & Company: Improving the business-to-business customer experience.
Authors: Nicholas Maechler, Sanjeev Sahni and Marine van Oostrum / March 3rd, 2016