Here at HelloInfo, we work hard to support our client needs. This week we are looking at work we have done in the Financial Services sector. Client and product names have been anonymized for competitive privacy purposes.
As a global leader in Financial Technology (FinTech) solutions, this HelloInfo client (we will call them “Client”), has driven dramatic technological innovation for companies worldwide over the recent years. In a recent study, Client wanted to explore its sales approach for a new software solution, more specifically the pricing model they should deploy to acquire new customers.
The client need – pricing competitive intelligence
Our client contact was approached by internal stakeholders and asked to obtain insights on competitors’ pricing models. Upon review of existing corporate knowledge, they realized they had many gaps to fill. Following internal refinement, our client contact approached us with the following question:
Please tell us how our competitors are pricing their competitive solutions. We don’t need to know how much they charge, but we are looking to understand the pricing structures, and components included in their pricing. And further, how should we be pricing our offering? Oh, and we know it’s tough, but can you do this in 3 weeks?
– Client
HelloInfo’s (speedy) approach
Three weeks to tell Client how to price a product that is being deployed to some of the world’s largest businesses! Yowza. But no problem. For this piece of research, we needed to deploy a methodology that would maximize speed of results, and would unearth hard-to-find answers. For this, HelloInfo turned to primary research.
Our project process involved six core steps:
- Assembling our primary research team to be rapidly deployed on this task.
- Developing a discussion guide of questions to be answered during the primary research calls.
- Having Client approve/adjust/add to the discussion guide to supplement with any additional questions they wanted to make sure we asked.
- Training the primary research team on the discussion guide and project.
- Having six discussions with members of three competitive organizations to answer the Client’s questions.
- Processing and analyzing results to develop approachable, easily understandable answers to Client questions.
Analytical discussion summaries and data visualization
As with each of our client engagements, HelloInfo consulted with client stakeholders to understand how the insights we uncovered would be best utilized by the team. For this engagement, we designed two custom deliverables: a text-based roundup and analysis of primary research results, and a slide-based visualization of results.
- Analytical discussion summaries – As a way to start getting research results into Client’s hands even before our three week project timeline was up, HelloInfo processed the results of each primary research call into analytical discussion summaries. These highlight key takeaways and provide verbatims from each conversation we had with competitors.
- Data visualization – We also wanted to provide Client with a way to easily digest our findings. The discussion summaries above were detailed and insightful, but would take time and effort to read. For this second deliverable, we made a small Google Slides deck, which included data visualizations for each of the three competitors analyzed, in addition to HelloInfo’s key takeaways for Client.
Together, these deliverables served a two-pronged purpose: to provide results to Client as quickly as possible, and to ensure that insights we are imparting are easy to understand. Because at HelloInfo, our mission is to provide Approachable Intelligence, ensuring the process and outputs are easy and pleasant to navigate.
A low-investment way to pricing competitive intelligence
In engaging with HelloInfo to support a tactical need that came from the top of the organization, our Client was able to answer its questions in a quick way with a low investment. The company now has a well-informed, optimistic view about its future in this product space, and is poised with pricing competitive intelligence that will propel its future success in contracting with new customers.
“Thanks so much for the quick turnaround on the report, it looks great, and insights are so helpful. The team has really loved the findings and how you’ve displayed them.”
– Client
Did you know that competitive insights could be gathered so quickly? Or that a competitive attribute such as customer pricing models could be researched? We would love to help your organization increase its competitiveness in its market. Schedule a call with HelloInfo to chat about how we can help you do this!
