Understand When Customer Needs and Choices Change

It can help when the same customer group makes different choices in different circumstances and your segmentation does not explain those differences. We can use the existing segments to examine who encounters each situation, then study the needs and constraints associated with it. The result may inform an offer, service, or message for a particular occasion without replacing the customer segmentation. If your current research already explains those choices well enough for the decision, a separate landscape may not be necessary.

Start with the decision: which portfolio, innovation, or experience question does the current market view fail to answer? We then define the people, geography, time period, and types of occasion that belong in the study. The alternatives may extend beyond your usual product category if people use them to meet the same need. This boundary matters: a study limited to current customers or current product usage cannot establish the full range of demand outside that scope.

We ask people to describe a defined episode, such as a recent purchase, trip, task, or service encounter, and connect their answers to its circumstances. Questions can cover what prompted it, the needs involved, alternatives considered, constraints, and the eventual choice. The design also specifies which episodes people report and how frequently they occur. Counting people and counting occasions answer different questions, so those rules need to be established before interviewing and reflected in the analysis.

No. Early work may use interviews and existing evidence to identify possible demand situations and the differences worth investigating. Statistical grouping methods can help when a quantitative study needs to establish recurring patterns across many occasions. We assess whether the resulting spaces are distinct, stable, and useful for the business decision, rather than selecting a method to produce a predetermined number of groups. Exploratory descriptions should remain labeled as hypotheses until the research supports a stronger conclusion.

No. Exploratory work can identify possible territories without estimating their size. Prevalence or commercial sizing requires a defined market boundary, suitable sample, measurement, and analytical design. We also distinguish the share of people who encounter a space, the share of occasions it represents, and the spending associated with it. Those are different measures. Estimating commercial value requires additional evidence about frequency, spending, or other relevant business measures; a space's size is not a forecast of the revenue your brand will capture.

We compare the spaces against the decision criteria agreed for the project: unmet needs, existing alternatives, your ability to serve the situation, and scale or value where those can be estimated. A large space may already be well served; a smaller one may reveal a more specific problem your organization can address. The output should explain each space, the evidence distinguishing it, and the uncertainties that remain. Priorities can then guide concept development, offer improvements, message research, or a focused commercial evaluation.

Yes. The unit of demand might be a purchasing decision, an operational task, a service requirement, or a professional workflow. We define whose perspective is needed for each situation and recruit people with the relevant experience or responsibility. Users, specifiers, and budget holders may describe different needs within the same organization. The design must also establish whether the results describe individuals, organizations, or decision episodes; those cannot be treated as interchangeable when interpreting or sizing the opportunity.

Existing segmentation, journey research, usage studies, customer feedback, and transaction or operational data can help define the study and identify gaps. We review what each source measures, whom it covers, and whether it captures the circumstances behind a choice. Start by sharing the business decision, the market you currently serve, relevant prior work, and your planning deadline. We can then scope the additional discovery, measurement, or analysis needed. Timing and cost depend on that work and the audiences and markets involved.