Came across this recount of a consulting engagement that is tremendously relevant to us. The objective of the consulting was to improve the sales of milk shakes in a fast food chain.
The first consultant came in and did all the standard customer interviews which basically asked them what they like and dislike about the product, improvements they want to see, new flavor suggestions, etc. The result of which was a change in the flavours of the offerings. The owners did it but no change in sales.
The second consultant and did the following. First, he sat back and documented every single transaction that went through with a milk shake - time of purchase, customers' gender, age, and job, whether the customer was in a group, and how the product was consumed. From this first exercise, the consultant narrowed down to 2 major groups who bought milk shakes: commuters and parents. The next stage of the engagement was to conduct a different kind of interview with each of the two groups.
The interviews started by asking the question "What job did the milk shake fulfill when it was purchased by the customer?". The idea is that the milk shake is not simply something that customers consumed, here, the consultant recognised that when a customer buys a milk shake, it is because the milk shake is solving a problem for the customer better than any other competing products can. The key here is for the vendor to truly understand their products' role, improve them so they perform that role even better, and sell more to new customers who have not thought about using the product to solve that problem earlier.
I will only discuss the commuters group here to give you a better idea of how this works:
- Milk shakes are filling enough so customers will not be hungry until lunch time.
- Commuters don't get messy consuming milk shakes as compared with bananas, salads, or sandwiches. This is especially important when one is taking public transport or driving.
- A milk shake lasts long enough (you just gulp it down even if you wanted to) so the journey to work is more enjoyable.
- Despite the milk shake not being a 'healthy' food, customers are willing to live with it because it is doing its job so well.
As you might anticipate, the second consultant subsequently recommended that the operators make their straws thinner (so commuters can enjoy them longer) and give them an option of chopped fruits (to make the product healthy).
And lo-and-behold, milk shake sales picked up and sustained thereafter.
Cheers!
Shoop
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