Solutions / Research & Intelligence / Consumer Intelligence
Consumer Intelligence
Stated preference and observed behaviour disagree constantly, and the gap between them is usually where the commercial insight is.
Segments you can act onBuilt on behaviour and need, and tested for whether they can actually be served differently.
Price sensitivity measuredWillingness to pay established through structured methods rather than asked directly.
Claims checked against behaviourStated findings validated against transaction and usage evidence before you act on them.
In simple terms
You tell us what you need to understand about your customers. We combine research with behavioural evidence, because what people say and what they do rarely match.
What Consumer Intelligence is. Consumer intelligence combines primary research with behavioural and transaction evidence to explain who buys, why they switch, what they will pay, and which segments are worth building for.
What makes this different from a market report. A report is a photograph of a market on the day it was written, and it is written for every company in the industry at once. This work starts from your position and keeps running, so you hear about a change while you can still do something about it.
What the service covers
These are the areas we work across, such as the ones below. We combine them in the proportion your question needs, and we tell you which ones your question does not need.
Segmentation
Segments built on behaviour and need rather than demographics, and tested for whether they can actually be reached and served differently.
Need and journey research
Qualitative and quantitative work on what customers are trying to achieve and where your product fails them.
Willingness to pay
Price sensitivity measured through structured methods rather than asked directly, which reliably overstates.
Behavioural validation
Stated findings checked against transaction and usage evidence, because the two routinely disagree.
Questions this answers
If something like this is on your agenda, the engagement is already half scoped.
- Who is actually buying this, and is it who we designed it for?
- Why do customers leave us, in their words rather than our exit codes?
- What would make them pay more, and what would make them leave over price?
- Which segment is worth building the next product for?
- Is this preference shift real, or an artefact of how we asked the question?
How you can use this
A few of the situations where this service does real work.
Understanding churn
Customers are leaving and the recorded reasons are not convincing.
Defining segments
You need to serve different customers differently and cannot agree how to split them.
Testing a price change
You want to move price and cannot predict the volume effect.
Choosing who to build for
The next product could serve several audiences.
What changes for your business
The practical difference between running on this and running on what you have now, such as the following.
You decide earlier
Acting on a shift before competitors see it in published data is usually the difference between setting terms and accepting them.
You spend where the growth is
Capital, headcount and budget go to the segments with real headroom rather than the ones that grew last time.
You reduce the cost of being wrong
Market and product bets get tested against evidence before the money is committed, not after.
Your internal debates get shorter
When everyone works from one sourced set of numbers, meetings move from arguing about the market to deciding what to do.
Your board papers hold up
Independent analysis with traceable sources survives the question internal estimates usually do not: where did this number come from?
Your team stops rebuilding the same analysis
The model and evidence base are yours to reuse, so the next question starts from something rather than nothing.
Who this is for
Roles that commission this work most often include those below. Each asks a different question and gets a different cut of the same evidence.
Strategy and corporate development
Should we commit to this market, and what does being wrong cost?
Sized opportunity by segment, likely competitive response, and the conditions that would make you walk away.
Product and engineering leadership
Will this direction still be right when we launch?
Demand direction by segment, cost and capability trajectory, and the choices that are hard to reverse.
Sales and commercial leadership
Where should my team be spending its time?
Demand by territory and segment, realistic price bands, and where addressable market is growing fastest.
Investors and boards
Does the market evidence support this plan?
Independent validation or challenge of the growth case, plus early warning when a market starts to move.
In-house research and insight teams
We need depth in an area we do not cover.
Specialist capacity that works to your standards and hands over the model and sources, not a closed report.
Typical clients
How we work
The third step is the one that makes the output usable, and it is the one most work of this kind skips.
Understand the decision
We start with the choice you are making, not the topic you named. Sizing a market and approving an investment need different work.
Gather and test the evidence
Industry data, filings, trade flows, regulation and interviews with people who operate in the market. Every figure is checked against a second independent source.
Read it for your position
The same market change can help one part of a value chain and hurt another. We establish where you sit first, then interpret everything through that.
Give you the decision
A recommendation, how confident we are, and what would change our view. Then the full data, so your team can audit or rerun any part of it.
What you receive
Decision memosix to ten pages, written for the executive who signs
Full analytical report with sizingsegmentation and structure
Model workbook in Excelunlocked, assumptions traceable to source
Evidence appendix with source register and interview log
Access to Phi, our AI research platformincluded
Every engagement comes with access to Phi. Ask questions of your own findings in plain language, pull the evidence behind any number, and keep querying long after the work is delivered. Your team gets the working intelligence, not just the document.
Open PhiWays to start
Tell us the decision and the date it has to be made by. We will recommend the smallest engagement that gets you there.
Signal briefing
A focused read on one question, structured to commission without a procurement cycle.
Intelligence study
Full analysis of one market, technology or competitive set.
Intelligence programme
Continuous coverage, quarterly refresh and standing analyst access.
Common questions
How do you avoid leading the respondent?
Instrument design, neutral phrasing, randomised ordering and independent moderation. Most weak consumer research fails at question design, not sample size.
What sample size do you need?
It depends on how finely you need to cut the results. We size to the decision and tell you what precision you are buying.
Who owns the work?
You do. It is exclusive to you, it is not resold, and working files are handed over unlocked.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before the first conversation if you prefer.
Tell us the decision you are facing
Send us the question, the context and your timeline. You get back a recommended first step, what evidence it needs, and what it costs. Not a capability deck.