Many companies are creating customer journey maps to get a better idea about the various stages, steps and decisions customers make along their journey from awareness-to-advocacy. Cross-functional workshops create detailed “post-it note heavy” diagrams that cover the various inputs and information sources that shoppers consider, both online and offline. Touchpoints are mapped, pain points are discussed, moments of truth are imagined. Existing research and Voice-of-the-customer information is added in where it exists.

But a surprising few capture and integrate in-store surveys into their journey maps. Why not capture, analyze and integrate the insights from one of the most important shopping aspects – the trip to and through the store. The value of in-store insight can quickly, easily and affordably be accomplished – and provides information and insight few other methods can capture – that impact and drive important decisions.

Highlights of In-store-surveys

• Mobile surveys are easy for all shoppers to engage with – from Millennials to Baby boomers
• In-store surveys capture feelings, preferences, decisions and rationale “at the moment they are making the decision”, more timely than post-purchase online surveys, especially for products with an infrequent purchase cycle
• GPS-validation ensures that you can link the survey to a particular store for time-of-day, day-of-week and retailer/channel specific assessments.
• In-store surveys can capture pictures, videos and other imagery critical to the shopping decision, like merchandising layout, stock-outs, competing offers/promotions, pricing, product quality

A major CPG company found that when they captured this information, they learned that:

• Brand and Retailer merchandising were much less important than previously imagined
• Price was an important, but secondary factor in the shopper decision
• On-shelf merchandising was “relatively on-brand” with few stock-outs

If you are creating a customer journey, it isn’t complete until you include in-store survey research. Gold Research is the leader in in-store, online and at-home research. We have extensive experience in journey mapping, path-to-purchase research, deploying customer intercepts, in-store interviews, and mobile surveys for concept testing, marketing testing, satisfaction research, shopper insights, and mystery shopping. We can also act as an extension of your research team in helping with data processing, analysis, report development, and survey programming. Contact us at 1-800-549-7170 or send us an email for a free 30-minute consultation on this topic.