FlexMR’s Danny Russell and Saga Plc.’s Hannah Fisher featured in the final print edition of the Market Research Society’s Impact magazine. In an article written by journalist Jane Simms and entitled From Top Table to Many Tables, Danny and Hannah took the space to talk about Customer Salience, in the context of FlexMR’s Customer Salience Framework and Saga’s excellent customer-centric culture.
Customer Salience in Impact Magazine
Jane starts the article by examining what the business current situation is today, drawing on sources such as the Institute of Customer Service and KPMG Nunwood to show that customer satisfaction levels have stagnated over the past decade. In conversation with Danny, Danny states that “if the insight industry is to achieve the nirvana of ‘insight-driven decision-making’, we need to ensure that the customer is at the front of everyone’s mind – even if we’re not in the same room… the way to achieve this ‘customer salience’ is to forget our historic quest for ‘a seat at the table’ and look instead for ‘a seat at many tables’.”
To achieve customer salience, insight professionals must challenge, create, connect and collaborate. Hannah Fisher, marketing director at Saga Cruises, part of Saga Group plc, is exactly the kind of stakeholder that insight professionals need to influence – but she needs no persuading.
“We are a customer-centric organisation through and through,” says Fisher. “We use all the levers FlexMR talks about, probably without even realising it; it’s just how we operate.” Hannah continues to talk about the practices at Saga, reiterating that everything they do and every decision they make is informed and underpinned by customer insights. The firm understand that the more they do to engage with their customers and keep them in mind throughout all actions, the more satisfied their customers are in the end.
The insights from these two interviews has made for a very compelling story, and Jane rounds off the article by reiterating that companies are 60% more profitable if they are customer-centric, than those who are not. And that these conversations have led Jane to conclude that “insight could well be pushing at an open door.”
Read the full article in the last print edition of the Impact Magazine (July 2024 -Issue 46), or online here.
About Impact Magazine
Impact is the award-winning magazine from the Market Research Society; it looks at how business and government uses evidence and insight to make a difference providing research insight and opinion to help better customer understanding. Impact was a quarterly membership magazine of the Market Research Society (MRS) and, before its discontinuation, was sent out to all MRS Members and senior marketers and buyers of research in client organisations.
