consumer behaviour Archives

Understanding Customer Experience

Leave a Comment / Consumer behaviour, Customer Satisfaction, Market Research, Opinion, Research / By Paul Watts

Customer experience surveys are widely used in business today. They are widely regarded as a great way to get invaluable feedback from customers.

But whether you’ve been running a customer survey for years, or whether you’ve never run one, it’s worth reflecting on the benefits they can offer. And it’s also worth considering how to go about getting the most from them.

Why run a customer experience survey?

Quite simply happy customers are loyal customers and loyal customers deliver more recommendations and more repeat business.

A well-designed customer satisfaction survey will deliver several important business benefits:

By monitoring customer opinion, you’ll have early warning of any potential problems that might cause you to lose revenue further down the line.
It will tell you which improvements will do the most to boost customer loyalty and sales.
It can also tell you what improvements/changes are unlikely to deliver much value.
In short, it prioritises what you need to do to nurture a loyal customer base.

So, when a customer survey is well designed and used effectively, it serves as a positive vehicle for tangible business improvements.

However, it is possible to get it wrong. And if this happens you might end up with something that delivers limited actionable insight.

So, how do you ensure your customer survey falls into the former category rather than the latter? Here’s a list of pointers I’ve pulled together, based on over 30 years’ experience of designing and running such programs:

Make sure you set the right objectives to start with

Let’s start at the very beginning by looking at the overall business objectives for a customer survey. Get that wrong and you’ll be lucky to get any real value from the exercise.

The most common reason why such surveys can fail is when they’ve been designed as a box ticking exercise from the very start. If a survey is just used to provide internal reassurance that all is well, it isn’t ever going to serve as an effective agent for change.

Fortunately, this kind of problem is rare. A more common issue is that sometimes these surveys can be used exclusively in a limited, tactical, way. Here performance scores for each area of the business might be used to directly inform such things as bonuses and performance reviews. That’s all fine but if this is the only tangible way in which the survey is used, it’s a missed opportunity.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a value in using surveys to tactically monitor business performance. But their true value lies in using them to guide business improvement at a strategic level. If we lose sight of this goal, we won’t ever get the most out of such surveys.

Takeaway: The primary goal of a customer experience survey should move beyond monitoring performance to providing direction for business improvement.

Using standard templates is just a starting point

Moving on to how we go about designing a survey, the next trap people can fall into is taking the easy option. By that, I mean running a generic customer survey based on standard templates.

It is easy enough to find standard templates for customer experience surveys online. Most DIY survey tools will provide them as part of the service. Standard questions for such things as NPS and generic performance scoring are readily available.

But standard templates are, as the name implies, standard. They are designed to serve as a handy starting point – not an end in themselves.

There is nothing in any of them that will be unique or specific to any business. As a result, if you rely purely on a standard template, you’ll only get generic feedback.

That might be helpful up to a point, but to receive specific, actionable, insight from a survey you need to tailor it to collect specific, actionable, feedback from your customers. And that means you need to ask questions about issues that are specific to your business, not any business.

Takeaway: Only ever use standard templates as a starting point. Always tailor customer experience surveys to the specific needs of your business.

Avoid vague measures, focus on actionable ones

It may sound obvious, but it’s important to make sure you are measuring aspects of business performance that are clearly defined and meaningful. That means it needs to be specific, so there is no confusion over what it might or might not mean when you come to look at the results.

Leaving these definitions too broad or too generic can make it very hard to interpret the feedback you get.

Let’s take an example – ‘quality’. What exactly does that mean? It might mean slightly different things in different industries. And it might mean different things to different people, even within the same organisation.

If your product is machinery, product quality could refer to reliability and its ability to run with minimal downtime. However, it might also relate to the quality of work the machine produces. Or perhaps, under certain circumstances, it might refer more to accuracy and precision? When you think about it, ‘quality’ could encompass a range of different things.

To avoid potentially confusing outcomes of this sort you need to use more specific phrasing. That way, when you identify an area that needs improvement, it’s clear what needs to be done.

Takeaway: Ensure you’re testing specific measures of business performance.

Always Provide a mechanism for open feedback

Not everyone will answer open-ended questions by any means. Indeed, surveys can fall into the trap of asking too many, leading to a poor response.

However, one or two well targeted open questions will provide invaluable feedback. It is a golden opportunity to pick up on issues and opportunities for improvement that you haven’t thought of, but which your customers have!

Takeaway: Always include one or two well targeted open questions to elicit feedback from customers. But don’t add too many or response rates will suffer, and the quality of answers will be diluted.

Ensuring insight is actionable

Of course, you might already have a customer experience survey. Perhaps it has been running for years. If it is delivering good value then happy days. However, that’s not always the case.

Sometimes people find that the outputs from an existing customer experience survey are not particularly actionable. If that is the case, then it’s a clear warning sign you’re doing something wrong.

There are only two reasons why this ever happens:

1^st reason: Senior management in the business are incapable of driving positive change, even if they are provided with clear direction as to what they should be doing.

2^nd reason: The survey was poorly designed in the first place and is unlikely to ever deliver anything actionable.

Unfortunately, the first of these problems can’t be solved by a survey or any other form of market insight come to that! But it is possible to do something about the latter!

The answer is simple – you need to redesign your customer experience survey. Don’t keep re-running it and repeating the same old mistakes.

Takeaway: If your customer experience survey is not delivering actionable insight, stop running it. You need to either re-design it or save your money and not bother!

Legacy questions and survey bloat

Has your customer survey been running for several years now? Does the following pattern sound familiar?

Every year, the previous year’s questionnaire gets circulated to survey stakeholders for feedback.
Each stakeholder comes back with feedback that involves adding new questions, but they don’t often suggest taking any of the old questions away.
Some of the new questions (perhaps all) relate to some very specific departmental initiatives.
The questionnaire gets longer.
The response rate goes down as a result.
A year goes by and it may not be entirely clear what has been done with the outputs of some of these questions.
The process repeats itself….

Of course, there is a benefit in maintaining consistency. However, there’s little point measuring things that are no longer relevant for the business.

It may well be time for a more fundamental review.

Maybe even consider going back to square one and running some qualitative research with customers. Could you be missing something vitally important that a few open conversations with customers could reveal?

Alternatively, maybe you need to run some internal workshops. How well do current priorities really align with legacy questions in the survey?

Takeaway: If you think your customer survey has become overly bloated with legacy questions, don’t shy away from carrying out a full review.

About Us

Synchronix Research offers a full range of market research services, polling services and market research training. We can also provide technical content writing services & content writing services in relation to survey reporting and thought leadership.

For any questions or enquiries, please email us: info@synchronixresearch.com

You can read more about us on our website.

You can catch up with our past blog articles here.

Inputting credit card data onto a laptop

Working with Digital Data Part 2 – Observational data

Leave a Comment / Consumer behaviour, Market Research, Opinion, Research / By Paul Watts

One of the most important changes brought about by the digital age is the availability of observational data. By this I mean data that relates to an observation of actual online consumer behaviour. A good example would be in tracing the journey a customer takes when buying a product.

Of course, we can also find a lot of online data relating to attitudes and opinions but that is less revolutionary. Market Research has been able to provide a wealth of that kind of data, more reliably, for decades.

Observational data is different – it tells us about what people actually do, not what they think (or what they think they do). This kind of behavioural information was historically very difficult to get at any kind of scale without spending a fortune. Not so now.

In my earlier piece I had a look at attitudinal and sentiment related digital data. In this piece I want to focus on observational behavioural data, exploring its power and its limitations.

Memory vs reality

I remember, back in the 90s and early 2000s, it was not uncommon to be asked to design market research surveys aimed at measuring actual behaviour (as opposed to attitudes and opinions).

Such surveys might aim to establish things like how much people were spending on clothes in a week, or how many times they visited a particular type of retail outlet in a month, etc. This kind of research was problematic. The problem lay with people’s memories. Some people can recall their past behaviour with exceptional accuracy. However, others literally can’t remember what they did yesterday, let alone recall their shopping habits over the past week.

The resulting data only ever gave an approximate view of what was happening BUT it was certainly better than nothing. And, for a long time, ‘nothing’ was usually the only alternative.

But now observational data, collected in our brave new digital world, goes some way to solving this old problem (at least in relation to the online world). We can now know for sure the data we’re looking at reflects actual real-world consumer behaviour, uncorrupted by poor memory.

Silver Bullets

Alas, we humans are indeed a predictable lot. New technology often comes to be regarded as a silver bullet. Having access to a wealth of digital data is great – but we still should not automatically expect it to provide us with all the answers.

Observational data represents real behaviour, so that’s a good starting point. However, even this can be misinterpreted. It can also be flawed, incomplete or even misleading.

There are several pitfalls we ought to be mindful of when using observational data. If we keep these in mind, we can avoid jumping to incorrect conclusions. And, of course, if we avoid drawing incorrect conclusions, we avoid making poor decisions.

Correlation in data is not causation

It may be an old adage in statistics, but it is even more relevant today, than ever before. For my money, Nate Silver hit the nail on the head:

“Ice cream sales and forest fires are correlated because both occur more often in the summer heat. But there is no causation; you don’t light a patch of the Montana brush on fire when you buy a pint of Haagan-Dazs.”
[Nate Silver]

Finding a relationship in data is exciting. It promises insight. But, before jumping to conclusions, it is worth taking a step back and asking if the relationship we found could be explained by other factors. Perhaps something we have not measured may turn out to be the key driver.

Seasonality is a good example. Did our sales of Christmas decorations go up because of our seasonal ad-campaign or because of the time of year? If our products are impacted by seasonality, then our sales will go up at peak season but so will those of our competitors. So perhaps we need to look at how market share has changed, rather than basic sales numbers, to see the real impact of our ad campaign.

Unrepresentative Data

Early work with HRT seemed to suggest that women on HRT were less susceptible to heart disease than other women. This was based on a large amount of observed data. Some theorised that HRT treatments might help prevent heart disease.

The data was real enough. Women who were on HRT did experience less heart disease than other women.

But the conclusion was utterly wrong.

The problem was that, in the early years of HRT, women who accessed the treatment were not representative of all women.

As it turned out they were significantly wealthier than average. Wealthier women tend to have access to better healthcare, eat healthier diets and are less likely to be obese. Factors such as these explained their reduced levels of heart disease, not the fact that they were on HRT.

Whilst the completeness of digital data sets is improving all the time, we still often find ourselves working with incomplete data. Then it is always prudent to ask – is there anything we’re missing that might explain the patterns we are seeing?

Online vs Offline

Naturally, digital data is a measure of life in the online world. For some brands this will give full visibility of their market since all, or mostly all, of their customers primarily engage with them online.

However, some brands have a complex mix of online and offline interactions with customers. As such it is often the case that far more data exists in relation to online behaviour than to offline. The danger is that offline behaviour is ignored or misunderstood because too much is being inferred from data collected online.

This carries a real risk of data myopia, leading to us becoming dangerously over-reliant on insights gleaned from an essentially unrepresentative data set.

Inferring influence from association

Put simply – do our peers influence our behaviour? Or do we select our peers because their behaviour matches ours?

Anna goes to the gym regularly and so do most of her friends. Let’s assume both statements are based on valid observation of their behaviour.

Given such a pattern of behaviour it might be tempting to conclude that Anna is being influenced by ‘herd mentality’.

But is she?

Perhaps she chose her friends because they shared similar interests in the first place, such as going to the gym?

Perhaps they are her friends because she met them at the gym?

To identify the actual influence, we need to understand the full context. Just because we can observe a certain pattern of behaviour does not necessarily tell us why that pattern exists. And if we don’t understand why a certain pattern of behaviour exists, we cannot accurately predict how it might change.

Learning from past experiences

Observational data measures past behaviour. This includes very recent past behaviour of course (which is part of what makes it so useful). Whilst this is a useful predictor of future behaviour, especially in the short term, it is not guaranteed. Indeed, in some situations, it might be next to useless.

But why?

The fact is that people (and therefore markets) learn from their past behaviour. If past behaviour leads to an undesirable outcome they will likely behave differently when confronted with a similar situation in future. They will only repeat past behaviour if the outcome was perceived to be beneficial.

It is therefore useful to consider the outcomes of past behaviour in this light. If you can be reasonably sure that you are delivering high customer satisfaction, then it is less likely that behaviour will change in future. However, if satisfaction is poor, then there is every reason to expect that past behaviour is unlikely to be repeated.

If I know I’m being watched…

How data is collected can be an important consideration. People are increasingly aware their data is being collected and used for marketing purposes. The awareness of ‘being watched’ in this way can influence future behaviour. Some people will respond differently and take more steps than others to hide their data.

Whose data is being hidden? Who is modifying their behaviour to mitigate privacy concerns? Who is using proxy servers? These questions will become increasingly pressing as the use of data collected digitally continues to evolve. Will a technically savvy group of consumers emerge who increasingly mask their online behaviour? And how significant will this group become? And how different will their behaviour be to that of the wider online community?

This could create issues with representativeness in the data sets we are collecting. It may even lead to groups of consumers avoiding engagement with brands that they feel are too intrusive. Could our thirst for data, in and of itself, put some customers off? In certain circumstances – certainly yes. This is already happening. I certainly avoid interacting with websites with too many ads popping up all over the place. If a large ad pops up at the top of the screen, obscuring nearly half the page, I click away from the site immediately. Life is way too short to put up with that annoying nonsense.

Understanding why

By observing behaviour, we can see, often very precisely, what is happening. However, we can only seek to deduce why it is happening from what we can see.

We might know that person X saw digital advert Y on site Z and clicked through to our website and bought our product. Those are facts.

But why did that happen?

Perhaps the advert was directly responsible for the sale. Or perhaps person B recommended your product to person X in the bar, the night before. Person X then sees your ad the next day and clicks on it. However, the truth is that the ad only played a secondary role in selling the product – an offline recommendation was key. Unfortunately, the key interaction occurred offline, so it remained unobserved.

Sometimes the only way to find out why someone behaved in a certain way is to ask them.

Predicting the future

Forecasting the future for existing products using observational data is a sound approach, especially when looking at the short-term future.

Where it can become more problematic is when looking at the longer term. Market conditions may change, competitors can launch new offerings, fashions shift etc. And, if we are looking to launch a new product or introduce a new service, we won’t have any data (in the initial instance) that we can use to make any solid predictions.

The question we are effectively asking is about how people will behave and has little to do with how they are behaving today. If we are looking at a truly ground-breaking new concept then information on past behaviour, however complete and accurate, might well be of little use.

So, in some circumstances, the most accurate way to discover likely future behaviour is to ask people. What we are trying to do is to understand attitudes, opinions, and preferences as they pertain to an (as yet) hypothetical future scenario.

False starts in data

One problematic area for digital marketing (or indeed all marketing) campaigns is false starts. AI tools are improving in their sophistication all the time. However, they all work in a similar way:

The AI is provided with details of the target audience.
The AI starts with an initial experiment,
It observes the results,
Then it modifies the approach based on what it learns.
The learning process is iterative, so the longer a campaign runs, the more the AI learns, the more effective it becomes.

However, how does the AI know what target audience it should aim for in the initial instance? In many cases the digital marketing agency determines that based on the client brief. That brief is usually written by a human which should (ideally) provide a clear answer to the question “what is my target market?”

That tells the Agency and, ultimately, the AI, who it should aim for.

However, many people, unfortunately, confuse the question “what is my target market?” with “what would I like my target market to be in an ideal world?” This is clearly a problem and can lead to a false start.

A false start is where, at the start of a marketing campaign, the agency is effectively told to target the wrong people. Therefore, the AI starts by targeting the wrong people and has a lot of learning to do!

A solid understanding of the target market in the first instance can make all the difference between success and failure.

Balancing data inputs

The future will, no doubt, provide us with access to an increased volume, variety, and better-quality digital data. New tools, such as AI, will help make better sense of this data and put it to work more effectively. The digital revolution is far from over.

But how, when, and why should we rely on such data to guide our decisions? And what role should market research (based on asking people questions rather than observing behaviour) play?

Horses for courses

The truth is that observed data acquired digitally is clearly better than market research for certain things.

Most obviously, it is better at measuring actual behaviour and using it for short-term targeting and forecasting.

It is also, under the right circumstances, possible to acquire it in much greater (and hence statistically reliable) quantity. Crucially (as a rule) it is possible to acquire a large amount of data relatively inexpensively, compared to a market research study.

However, when we are talking about observed historic data it is better at telling us ‘what’, ‘when’ and ‘how’ than it is at telling us ‘why’ or ‘what next’. We can only look to deduce the ‘whys’ and the ‘what next’ from the data. In essence it measures behaviour very well, but determines opinion, as well as potential shifts in future intention, poorly.

The role of market research

Question based market research surveys are (or at least should be) based on structured, representative samples. It can be used to fill in the gaps we can’t get from digital data – in particular it measures opinion very well and is often better equipped to answer the ‘why’ and ‘what next’ questions than observed data (or attitudinal digital data).

Where market research surveys will struggle is in measuring detailed past behaviour accurately (due to the limitations of human memory), even if it can measure it approximately.

The only reason for using market research to measure behaviour now is to provide an approximate measure that can be linked to opinion related questions measured on the same survey. To be able to tie in the ‘why’ with the ‘what’

Thus, market research can tell us how the opinions of people who regularly buy products in a particular category are different from less frequent buyers. Digital data can usually tell us, more accurately who has bought what and when – but that data is often not linked to attitudinal data that explains why.

Getting the best of both data worlds

Obviously, it does not need to be an either/or question. The best insight comes from using digital data in combination with a market research survey.

With a good understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches it is possible to obtain invaluable insight to support business decisions.

About Us

Synchronix Research offers a full range market research services and market research training. We can also provide technical content writing services.

You can read more about us on our website.

You can catch up with our past blog articles here.

If you like to get in touch, please email us.

Sources, references & further reading:

Observational Data Has Problems. Are Researchers Aware of Them? GreenBook Blog, Ray Poynter, October 2020

Hands holding tablet and watching Youtube

The Visual Communications Age

Leave a Comment / Consumer behaviour, Gaming, Market Research / By Paul Watts

The past few years has seen a boom in visual communications across social media. An estimated 2.3 billion people now use YouTube every month. Instagram and TikTok have around 1 billion monthly users each.

Visual social media of this kind – be it in the form of still images or video clips – are transforming the way in which we communicate. Part of this change is simply a function of accessibility. Technology has made it far easier for people to create visual images and make short video clips and mini films than ever was the case, even ten years ago. And now there are more social media outlets than ever before where it is possible to publish such material.

It is incredible to think that twenty years ago Facebook, YouTube and Twitter did not even exist. How much the world has changed!

However, we should not be tempted to think that social media platforms will continue to grow forever. There is a finite limit to the number of users any platform can attract, after all. Like in any other market, market growth will inevitably give way to market maturity at some point.

Platform maturity

Facebook’s owner Meta Platforms recently recorded a record daily loss on the stock market. This came in the wake of the news that Facebook’s Daily Active Users fell to 1.929bn in the three months to the end of December. This compares to 1.930bn in the previous quarter.

This is the first time Facebook has experienced such a fall; a clear sign that this particular platform is reaching its mature phase. Of course, it was bound to happen eventually. After all, there are only so many active daily users you can have from a global population of 7.7 billion (some of whom do not have good internet access).

Rising Platforms

TikTok’s owner ByteDance, by contrast, saw revenues grow by 70% in 2021 (although even this is slower than the spectacular growth seen previously).

Facebook is primarily about written communication, albeit pictures, images and gifs are often shared on the platform. TikTok is, of course, mainly about the short form video clip. The BBC recently reported that Facebook’s owner has warned of pressures on revenues precisely because of stiffer competition from TikTok and YouTube.

Are these signs, therefore, of a wider trend? Are we seeing a real sea-change in the way in which we communicate? A transition from a culture of communication based on the written word to one where visual images and video become the dominant mode of interaction?

A visual future?

Are these portents of things to come? Of a world where communication is primary achieved with the video clip and the streamed podcast? Some would argue it is already happening, after all it is now quite easy for anyone to broadcast their own content on YouTube, TikTok or Twitch and it will only become easier with each passing year. Now everyone is a content publisher.

There are also signs of generational differences. Anecdotally we are hearing that younger people are more likely to engage with social media like TikTok and YouTube. Social media such as Facebook, with its higher reliance on written content, still has an appeal for older generations but is, perhaps, less suited for a generation addicted to the video clip.

But can we put any hard numbers to these claims?

Generational differences

A Synchronix survey from last year looked at social media use amongst gamers. We wanted to understand the extent to which people of different ages engaged with social media to discuss or exchange information about gaming. The results showed some clear generational differences in terms of preference.

Graph of gamer social media preferences by age

Platforms

YouTube: Emerges as the most popular social media platform for gamers under the age of 45. Older gamers also engage with it extensively but, for the over 45s, is relegated to the number two spot.

Instagram: is the second most popular media with the under 25s. It is less popular with the 24-35 age group but still ranks 3^rd overall. Its popularity clearly diminishes with age, especially amongst the over 45s.

TikTok: If anything, TikTok illustrates the most significant generational differences of all. It is used by nearly 40% of the under 25s, placing it neck and neck with Instagram within this age group. This drops to 26% amongst the 25-34’s (still significant). However, its popularity wanes markedly in older age groups.

All three brands of visual based social media reflect the same overall pattern. Their popularity is greatest in the youngest age groups and lowest amongst the over 45s.

Facebook: Despite the recent slight dip in use, Facebook is popular with all ages. However, it is not even one of the three most popular platforms for the under 25s, although this soon changes when we start to consider older age groups. It is the second most popular platform for the 25-44 age group and the most popular with the over 45s. Its higher reliance on written content lends it greater appeal for older audiences.

Twitter: Twitter is fourth most popular in the under 25s but drops in popularity with older age groups (especially the over 45s). This is interesting as it shows that Twitter, which is primarily text based, demonstrates that written communications retain a certain degree of popularity with the younger generation. The short form tweet, with its soundbite feel, is still able to resonate with generation Z in a way that other forms of written communication appear to struggle to do.

The future

One thing is now clear. Visual media has become critical for effectively communicating with Gen Z. However, they are not entirely abandoning the written word. Their preference for Twitter above Facebook is likely influenced by a texting culture in which short soundbites are strongly preferred to longer written posts.

The recent dip in Facebook usage likely reflects this generational behaviour shift. However, the downtick in Facebook engagement should not be exaggerated. The fact is that Facebook remains very popular amongst the over 25s and the most important social media for engaging with the over 45s.

As newer generations of internet users reach adulthood, it is likely that different generational preferences will become increasingly marked. Marketeers will increasingly need to adapt strategies to employ a different mix of social media channels depending on the generation of customers they are aiming to communicate with.

So, a campaign aimed at the over 45s may need to focus more on Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp. However, a campaign aimed at a Gen Z audience would need to take very different approach, and would do better to focus mainly on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Given the rapid pace of change we have experienced in the world of social media over the past decade, we can expect further significant changes over the next few years. The next TikTok is likely to be a platform that facilitates video and/or audio interaction rather than something more reliant on the written word.

As Gen Z comes of age and as younger generations follow, we will move to a culture highly dependent on streaming, video communication and visual interaction. Perhaps we will eventually see this evolve into virtual reality driven experiences. In fact, I’m sure this will happen at some point. And although I suspect it is still a good way off, I would not be surprised if we found ourselves living in such a world twenty years from now.

About Us

Synchronix Research offers a full range market research services and market research training. We can also provide technical content writing services.

You can read more about us on our website.

You can catch up with our past blog articles here.

If you like to get in touch, please email us.

Sources

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60255088#

Playbook – UK Gaming Market Report 2021, Synchronix Research

https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/population

https://backlinko.com/instagram-users

https://backlinko.com/tiktok-users

https://www.globalmediainsight.com/blog/youtube-users-statistics/

https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/exclusive-tiktok-owner-bytedances-revenue-growth-slowed-70-2021-sources-2022-01-20/

The Drone Revolution

Leave a Comment / Consumer behaviour, Technology / By Paul Watts

Since 2010, the growth in the use of drone technology has been gathering pace at an incredible rate. When first developed in the mid-1930s drones were highly experimental and expensive. Today, they are not only used for a wide variety of commercial applications, but have also become a popular and affordable piece of consumer tech.

So, are we on the verge of a Drone Revolution?

How many people are using Drones?

In the UK, in May 2021, there were nearly 4,500 certified commercial drone operators of small drones and 1,751 operators of larger drones. These are businesses using drones for serious commercial applications – applications deemed to present an equivalent safety risk to that of manned aviation.

However, these are now dwarfed by the number of hobbyists. The CAA estimated there were over 130,000 UK drone users at the end of 2019 – the vast majority of which were hobbyists rather than commercial users.

In a larger market like the USA, the numbers are even higher. The FAA figures show that there were nearly 875,000 registered US drone users in May 2021.

The Hobbyist

Drones are now very affordable, and a hobbyist can buy a decent drone to easily get up and flying for under £1,000 these days.

Research by Drones Direct shows that hobbyists are mainly using their drones for filming video (77%) or taking photographs (75%). The typical profile of these people is mostly male (96%) and middle aged (52% are aged over 45). It is also clear that these are hobbyists using their drones quite frequently (58% fly at least once a week).

There would appear to be a strong link between drone use and photography, with two thirds of drone users are also keen on photography. Around one fifth of the adult population list photography as a hobby (that’s potentially millions of people), so the potential for future growth, just based on current use patterns, is clearly significant.

Commercial Users

Drones have been used extensively by the military for decades now and much of the impetus for the development of this technology has come from the development of such applications.

The military will no doubt continue to provide an important impetus for innovation in drone technology. However, these days, a wide variety of other commercial applications are emerging. These are likely to prove increasingly important markets for drone tech suppliers in the future. Key commercial areas where drones are now being used would include:

Journalism & film making; drones are increasingly providing the primary way for obtaining aerial shots.
Disaster management; in gathering information and getting emergency supplies to isolated areas following disasters such as earthquakes.
Search and rescue; when fitted with enhanced imaging and thermal cameras, drones can play a critical role in search and rescue operations.
Mapping: drones can map terrain features in locations that are difficult to cover by other means.
Law enforcement and surveillance; drones provide a relatively unobtrusive means of surveillance and allow observation to be undertaken without the need for a physical human presence.
Weather monitoring and storm tracking.
Building inspections; drones allow construction workers to view the exterior of large structures and gain detailed photographs of places that are difficult to physically access by other means.
Inspections of processing plants (e.g. for the oil and gas industry); any large structure can now be inspected by drones. Detailed images, including thermal ones, can be taken of inaccessible areas, allowing maintenance engineers to view the state of equipment without being physically present.
Shipping and delivery; at present applications are being developed that focus mainly on the distribution of small packages. However, in the future, it may even be possible to transport larger cargos using large drones.

Developments

Virtually any application involving observation, or transport and delivery of small items are potentially suited to drone use. One thing is for certain. As the price of the technology reduces and the technology improves, it will become increasingly practical to perform a wider variety of commercially viable applications.

So, what further developments should we look out for in the future?

Logistics – Amazon Prime Air

Amazon have been working to develop a fleet of drones to deliver small packages as part of its logistics network. One key potential advantage of such an approach comes from the fact that drones can avoid traffic and deliver packages by a more direct route (as the crow flies in some cases).

The service will be called Prime Air and is currently being tested in several countries. In the UK Amazon have recently doubled the size of their Prime Air team and we are likely to see the service launch in a matter of months rather than years.

Hydrogen power

Hydrogen is an emission-free fuel and has the advantage of keeping a drone airborne for longer. The technology first appeared in 2016 but we are now starting to see more hydrogen powered drones come onto the market. The capability to remain airborne for longer makes them particularly suited for applications such as agriculture, mapping and for disaster response in remote locations. Any application, in fact, where there is a need for a long flight time.

At present the primary barrier to hydrogen power is the cost but as prices come down and technology improves we can expect to see more hydrogen powered drones in the future.

AI and improved navigation

As more drones fill our skies it will become increasingly important for them to navigate their way around avoiding each other and various other safety hazards.

AI drones that use computer vision to detect and navigate their way avoiding other airborne objects and hazards are now starting to appear on the market. High performance on-board image processing coupled with other navigational aids will make this increasingly possible. At present, of course, such technology is expensive, but we can expect to see it become more commercially available over the next few years.

Perching drones

Drones all have a limited amount of flight time available to them. However, this can be prolonged significantly if a drone is able to land on a building or other high object and make its observations without needing to expend energy to remain airborne.

Various technologies are being developed to allow drones to do this; perhaps enabling a drone to ‘perch’ on a streetlight or to rest on the corner of a building. This would have the benefit of making a drone more stable whilst it is making its observations as well as conserving power.

Problems and dangers

Of course, as drones become more ubiquitous, they bring with them their own unique set of problems and challenges. Not least is the potential for this technology to interfere with existing air traffic or for it to be misused by criminals and even terrorists.

In 2019, the year before Covid cleared our skies of aircraft, UK aircraft pilots reported 91 confirmed incidents involving drones and a further 29 incidents that may well have been drones but were unidentified. This compares to only 4 confirmed incidents involving drones and 1 unconfirmed incident that were reported in 2010.

This has prompted the UK government to introduce a registration system in 2020 and to require users of certain types of drones to obtain specific certification. Now even hobbyists must hold a flyer ID and past a test to legally fly their drones in the UK.

Whilst such measures will no doubt serve to help minimise the danger of accidental incidents, the threat of criminal or terrorist misuse is a different matter. In warzones, drones are already used for surveillance, to disrupt airspace and even to deliver small explosives.

With new threats comes new technology. Countermeasures of various kinds are being developed, these include directed energy weapons with the power to disable drones using such techniques as lasers, particle beams or radio frequency waves. One of the latest uses high-powered microwaves to knock out a drone’s onboard electronics.

If future, we can expect to see measures of this kind deployed to protect airports and other sensitive potential targets.

The Future

It seems clear that the coming decade will see an increasing proliferation of drone technology. This technology has grown from the highly specialised and niche use of a decade ago to a stage where it is now beginning to experience mass commercial and consumer adoption.

The coming decade will see this technology becoming more ubiquitous as it develops further and the costs come down. The challenges faced by drone suppliers will be to keep developing the technology at a rapid pace whilst remaining conscious of the public safety concerns.

However, the future is bright and no doubt there are many potential applications out there that new technological advances will enable drones to exploit. There is also a potentially significant untapped consumer market. As the technology reaches out to a mass market, so manufacturers will need to think increasingly about their marketing, and building strong and distinctive brand image and awareness amongst potential customers.

It would seem that we are indeed on the verge of a drone revolution.

About Synchronix

Synchronix is a full-service market research agency. We believe in using market research to help our clients understand how best to prepare for the future. That means understanding change – whether that be changes in technology, culture, attitudes or behaviour.

We have considerable experience in the design and execution of market research surveys in the field of both b2c and b2b science, engineering and tech markets. We can offer a range of services to help you identify new market opportunities and to understand the position and strength of your brand in the market. You can read more about this on our website.

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Sources

Interesting Engineering

The Rise of the Female Gamer

Leave a Comment / Consumer behaviour, Gaming, Market Research / By Paul Watts

One half of all gamers are women

Gaming is fast becoming as much a female hobby as a male one.

Once upon a time we used to think of gamers, almost exclusively, as young, heterosexual, white, and male. That is no longer the case. Gaming is now a popular pastime and today’s “gamers” are a more diverse community than ever before.

These days, around half of all gamers are women – a fact confirmed by more than one 2020 survey reported on UKIE’s ukiepedia site. Despite this, many women who play games (two-thirds) do not regard “gaming” as one of their hobbies.

Why don’t women see themselves as gamers?

So why is this?

Perhaps some mostly only play casual games on mobile devices and are less inclined to regard this as “proper” gaming. Or perhaps some have come to the hobby so recently that they don’t yet see themselves as gamers. Or perhaps the traditional image of the gaming community as a male dominated sphere makes some women reluctant to overtly identify with it.

Anecdotally, women are still a lot less likely to buy from sites such as Steam and, although accurate figures on such sites are hard to come by, there is some evidence to support this. One 2015 analysis estimated that only between 4% and 18% of visitors to the Steam homepage were actually women. Now this may well have changed but it does suggest that there are certain gaming environments where you are less likely to find a female gamer.

Whether or not women as yet represent half of the gaming market in value terms is an open question. However, they clearly now represent one half of all gamers. And, no one would argue that, if provided with the right products, women will not spend as much as men.

But if this potential is to be fully realised, we first need to consider what factors, if any, might be holding things back.

What’s putting women off?

One factor that we certainly can’t afford to ignore is that some (possibly many) female gamers have been put off by the toxic misogyny that has been present in certain sections of the gaming community. This came to an unpleasant head in 2014 with the gamergate controversy. Attitudes and incidents of this sort will no doubt discourage at least some women from identifying too closely with the gaming community. It is particularly likely put off others from engaging in some multiplayer games, where they are more likely to encounter such unpleasant behaviour.

Qualitative research has suggested that the online multi-player environment can be particularly problematic for women gamers. This study suggested that female gamers did, for example, seek to “…mitigate online harassment, including actively hiding their identity and avoiding all forms of verbal communication with other players.” This may explain, at least partly, why only 33% of women who play games are happy to self-identify as gamers.

When the hobby gets things right

All that said, some studies suggest the hobby is catering more for female gamers than used to be the case. A 2016 study by Indiana University analysed 571 gaming titles over a 31 year period and claimed that there had been a decline, since 2005, in the level of sexualisation of female characters.

It is also the case that there will also be certain spaces where you’d be a lot more likely to find female gamers. Many would argue that female gamers become a lot more significant when it comes to mobile and casual gaming. For certain games, the female audience can approach 80% but for others it can be as low as 8% and for others closer to 50/50.

Clearly some games have done a great job of attracting a significant female following, for instance, by offering strong and interesting female character choices. Games like Horizon Zero Dawn may be an example of this. As Malindy Hetfield wrote on Polygon: The complex representation of women in different social spheres throughout Horizon Zero Dawn is one of its best features.

Game developers who make the effort to understand and cater for the female audience can potentially unlock a significant future market. All it requires is a good understanding of what that market wants and the ability to develop and market it in an authentic and appealing way.

One potential issue here is the fact that women still represent a minority of people working in the games industry. UKIE’s 2020 game industry census reported that women make up only 28% of the workforce. Getting women more involved in the creative process of games development can surely only enrich the end result.

Tapping into the female gamer audience

However, one size is unlikely to fit all and, with so many women now playing games, it would be wrong to think of them as a single homogenous audience. Some women may prefer casual tile matching games and puzzles but others like enthralling RPGs, or racing games. The future is likely to see a variety of different female audiences emerge within different gaming genres.

Tastes are evolving and changing over time and if game developers can find creative ways to tap into the female gaming market, the potential opportunities are clearly significant. The challenge is to find the right audience and understand how best to reach them with the right products and messages.

We can help in this process by providing audience profiling and segmentation market research services. If you’d like to find out more about these services, please contact us for more information.