Research: Customer Contact.

After having a chat with this fish supplier I decided to talk to some of the customers at the fish & chip shop. Customers are after all at the heart of every business so I felt this was important.

I decided to keep the questions short and sweet and ask them while they were waiting for their order. I wanted to find out what their favourite fish was to see if it matched Hugh’s opinion that Brits only like haddock or cod. I also wanted to know what they thought of fish & chips and the fish & chip shop experience, any word that came to mind. I brought with me a black card cut out of a haddock for them to write their answers on and cooked some battered plaice for them to sample. I thought some free food would be a nice thank you for them completing the questions and it would also let me judge some of their responses to a new type of fish.

I found that the majority of the customers I asked preferred haddock, next in line were cod and salmon, only a couple chose different types of fish such as halibut or mackerel. Getting people to try a piece of plaice proved difficult I’m not sure this was because they thought they wouldn’t like it or if they felt to uncomfortable to take a free sample.

I have also drawn up four personas of my regular Wednesday night customers. They all have their rituals and all get the exact same order every week. 

This make me think that it may prove difficult to get people to change their habits and try a new type of fish. So maybe it’s not these customers I should target maybe it will be the more adventurous younger generation who are a bit bored of their local chippy, these may be the customers that will want a shark supper? 

'Feel Good': Personas

Who drinks 'Feel Good'? As a group we came up with a few different personas of the type of people who drink 'Feel Good'.

Gary
Age: 19

Occupation: Politics Student

Hobbies: Mountain biking, jogging and going to the gym regularly.

Gary enjoys socialising with his friends and getting good grades at uni. He enjoys his politics course. He's always trying to keep his family and friends happy.

Louise
Age:25

Occupation: Accountant

Hobbies: Shopping, reading a good book in her local park, going to the gym and going out for dinner with friends.

Louise has a busy lifestyle, she's a recent graduate and has just started her first job working as a trainee in an accountancy firm. After work she has a glass of wine to relax or invites friends over to her flat which she is currently renting in the city center.

Sue
Age:27

Occupation: Full time mum

Hobbies: Entertaining friends and socialising with other parents at family groups.

Sue is extremely health conscious since becoming a mother. She does her best to cook healthy meals for her family.

John
Age:30

Occupation: Electrical Engineer

Hobbies: Socialising, going out with friends for a few drinks, watching football.

John has his own house and lives on his own. He tries to be healthy but feels he doesn't have enough time. He gets the occasional take-away. When he's not working he's spending his money on the latest gadget.

Smash.

Last week was all about ‘Smash’. At Wednesdays lecture we were given a booklet of information about the product, this included detail of where it could be bought, its competitors and a SWOT analysis. As a group we were then to create personas using information we would collect the following day. These personas would help us direct our thoughts of possible advertisements, who to aim them at and how to get them interested in the product.

What is a Persona?

A persona is created using peoples personal information. This information is grouped into similar categories to create fictional characters to represent different user groups. Personas can help guide decision making for the product or service. For example what should the website look like?  A persona could be used to show what type of web design would appeal to a particular group.

Example of 'Yahoo' personas. (Details obscured to protect proprietary info.)

Thursday morning we decided to split the group into two teams, team one would head into the town centre and the other to the university campus. Both teams would find out people’s name, age and occupation then ask a couple of questions. The first team would stop people in the city centre and ask them to draw their favourite meal and what makes them happy. The second team asked ‘what’s your favourite meal?’ and ‘if it was a person what would it be like?’

                    

Together we asked a range of people with different ages and backgrounds. Using the information we came up with 3 personas.

Students

Name: Ben Clark

Age: 20

Occupation: Student (Studying Business)

Likes: Sports and socialising with friends. Being on the go.

General Info.: It’s his first time living away from home. At the weekends he sometimes goes home for a visit and to get a home cooked meal. He’s starting to cook for himself and learning each time. Usually doesn’t have much money. He juggles his work, uni and his social life. He’s learning to become more independent.

Retired

Name: Betty Blair.

Age: 70

Occupation: Retired.

Likes: Day time TV. Spending her time with her grandchildren. Bingo.

General Info.: Betty gets tired easily so doesn’t leave the house much. She sees her family once a week and goes to church coffee mornings regularly. She had a pet cat and cares for her elderly husband.

Families

Name: Helen Fields

Age: 32

Occupation: Part time worker at a supermarket.

Likes: Catching up and having a chat with the neighbours. Relaxing when she gets a minute to herself.

General Info.: Helen has 3 young children; a son Jack who’s 8 years old and twins that are 2years old. She works part time at the local supermarket and in between working and looking after the kids she’s studying from home to become a nurse. Her husband works away a lot but is home at the weekends. She’s not got much of a social like and is too busy too spend time on herself.

Using these personas I had a few ideas of possible adverts for the product ‘Smash’.

1. An advert where a student has his/her parents visiting and makes them dinner. Mother says, ‘this is delicious when did you learn to cook?’ The advert then shows how the boy/girl quickly made a proper meal giving the viewer tips on the types of meals that can be made easily and cheaply with smash for example; fishcakes or Sheppard’s pie. The supermarkets can give away recipe cards when someone buys ‘Smash’.

2. An elderly couple sitting down to a meal in their cosy kitchen having bangers and smash. The tag line may be “Classic meals. Even better than you remembered with Smash”

3. This advert would perhaps show a dishevelled looking mother rushing in from work tidying up after the kids then serving up a healthy looking meal in time for her husband returning from work. Children and parents sit happily around the table digging into food and chatting. Tag line could read “If only other things in life were as easy as Smash”.