concept test #1 overview

Concept test #1 overview

• Purpose: – Get direction on positioning and delivery vehicle for savings concepts

• Financial report

• EasySaver

• Personal shopper

• Date– June 17

• Method– 1.5 hour long remote concept test (Webex)

• Test marketing messaging for 3 approaches

• Gather feedback on concept sketches for 3 approaches

• Participants: – 3 total (all QuickBooks Desktop users)

1st round concept testing: Financial report

We save you time and money by comparing your spending to other businesses like yours and providing you with substantial opportunities to cut

1st round concept testing: EasySaver

We save you money by analyzing your spending in key categories and finding tangible ways for you to save.

1st round concept testing: Personal shopper

We save you time by creating a modifiable shopping list based on your company's expenses. Then, we leverage our partnerships to provide you with savings on what you need from preferred top tier vendors.

Concepts such as the personalized shopping cart perceived as interesting because of the time (and secondarily money) savings

What we learned ImplicationsHypothesis confirmed

• There seem to be 2 targets: those who want to save money only, and those who want to save money through saving time – the shopping cart concept appealed strongly to the second group

• People like tabs where savings offers are grouped by expense categories

• Personal shopper concept appealed to participants, and there was interest in the idea of pulling inventory counts from QB to generate POs and re-order when needed

• No one was surprised or scared about the idea of us reading their QB data, and participants had an expectation that to redeem some savings they would be connected to a third party through links

• The concept of “buy more for less” based on group discounts resonated with people because of perceived savings benefit of buying in bulk

• Participants wanted middle of the line versus high or low end savings positioning… ”Like me but better!”

• Position product as saving time – saving money is an added benefit • Group savings offers by category for easy browsing

•Use QB inventory data to set reminders for re-ordering

•Combine the benefit of printing shipping labels in QB with discounting savings on shipping

• Position savings value as “Tell me what I don’t know” by showing competing offers

• Position Intuit as a “business partner” with the small business owners

Surprises

• If you only talk about expenses, then people think are analyzing “transactions” only. They don’t understand that we may also be analyzing their items list to find savings opportunities

• Money and quality outstrip loyalty when talking about vendors• Self-identify as old-fashioned when they are developing relationships with trusted vendors – what if I am getting taken advantage of?

• Immediacy of savings is important - cash back was not as appealing as coupons/discounts

• Broad savings does not equal tailored, but want both?

• If the offers were green and saved money, it was an added bonus, but green offers by themselves were not compelling.

• Amex card that gives you rewards – may be potential partnership opportunity

• Further investigate what the appropriate level of tailoring is – hypothesis is that tailored savings will draw people in at first, but broad savings will provide more opportunities for savings?

• Long tail: Bring this together with Intuit connect (referrals)


• Purpose: – Get direction on positioning and delivery vehicle of savings concepts

• Financial report

• EasySaver

• Procurement department

• Dates– June 24


• Marketing messaging for 3 concepts

• Concept sketches for 3 approaches

• Participants: – 3 total (all QuickBooks Desktop users)

2nd round concept testing: Personal Shopper

Intuit provides small businesses like yours with the buying power of larger corporations by negotiating on your behalf to provide you with substantial

opportunities to save time and money.

2nd round concept testing: Your Procurement Dept.

QuickBooks gives you insight into your spending by comparing your company to other businesses like yours. It finds you the best prices for exactly what

you need. No more overpaying!

2nd round concept testing: EasySaver

Some business purchasing decisions are more complex than others, such as health insurance. QuickBooks can help you analyze your business to determine which

option provides exactly what you need at the lowest price.

Concept test #2 findings

What we learned ImplicationsHypothesis confirmed

• Notion of this product being in QB makes sense if we’re targeting smaller businesses in which the person who is using QB is the person who is doing the company’s shopping

• Saving time is important – saving money is only added benefit that can’t often be teased apart• This is appeal of shopping list. Show me that I’m getting the best deal. I’ll check on the drill down to make sure you’re getting me the best deals, so building on trust.

• Pie chart appealed more than stacked bar – shows you how you’re spending without questioning where the numbers from “others” are coming from.

• Stacked bars didn’t fit with the savings offers that were shown below – there was a disconnect between how the two were related.

• Consistently the “others like me” is perceived as others businesses in the same industry, location, size, and revenue

•People definitely wanted to be able to search for items they knew they would need (especially big ticket items)

• The personal shopper concept was received even better than from last week– this may be because it resembles an actual shopping list that participants are accustomed to

• Billshrink’s cell phone savings were well received, but participants wanted the opinions of those they knew regarding customer service and quality before making a purchasing decision

• Participants expected that Intuit was partnering with different vendors to provide savings, but wanted Intuit to be transparent about whether they were getting actual savings through this partnership rather than just getting routed to Intuit’s “preferred” vendors

• Likelihood of following up on savings offers is influenced by costs of shipping and tax

• Position as:“Saving me time helps me to focus on what I love to do.”

• Other code words for saving time: Quick, Easy, Simple

• If we are going to show stacked bar charts comparing spending to “others,” the savings need to be grouped by categories

• In addition to pre-populating a suggested shopping list, we need to offer the option to search for non-listed items

• We need to make it clear that we (Intuit) is getting money, but that it’s not at the small business owner’s expense.

• Savings offers need to be positioned as all-inclusive of tax and shipping

What we learned ImplicationsSurprises

• Smaller businesses have less time to devote to saving money. But they probably need the money savings more. Larger companies have more time to devote to spending money (and it’s probably one person’s job) – so they are both more efficient and spend more time.

•Secondary appeal for those who have accountants… save on money that you’d spend on accountants. This replicates 80% of what accountants do in terms of saving their clients money.

• People liked the email concept because it’s less pressure to buy, but they wanted it in conjunction with other savings vehicles

• People respond well to email and hardcopy catalogs/coupons/savings offers from other companies (i.e. Staples). They wait for these, and purchase at one time.

• There are some things people are more careful about when it comes to the selection process (“special sauce”). We need to separate those as much as we can.

• It’s difficult for participants to project how much or how often they would use this product without seeing the real offers in market – there is a perceived trial period to determine whether they will use a product like this

• There are a variety of factors that influence shopping decisions:• Secret sauce item or commodity?• In-store versus online?• Big ticket or recurring purchase?• Price transparency of “all in” – including shipping, tax• What is the value of direct sales people? Relationship, guilt factor, direct Q&A, and having them remind you.• Value when they actually contact you to tell you about sales or to remind you to reorder

• “PO” may not have appeal because it’s too “accounting” sounding. May want to position as more of a shopping list that you can send to others instead of as a PO.

•Has to solve one thing really well, then I’m convinced and trust future savings

• May be the vertical – which secret sauce can we go after? Could be a great delighter with recurring businesses

• Brainstorm on the following approaches:• Secret sauce vs commodity approach• How to keep bringing people back (suggested items?)• How to capture industry accurately (may not relate to how they identify themselves)• What other information can we provide along with the savings opportunity that is interesting content?• How do we sequence this? Project plan… based on priority.• What asset we’ve just built with the sawteeth engine?• Partnerships and acquisitions?• Sites that do similar things – best and worst practices (Alice and amazon)? Think also about catalog aggregation, beyond the shopping list. • Marketing messaging?• Diagram the shopping experience and determine our focus

Concept test #2 findings


• Purpose: – Get feedback on entry point to EasySaver

– Test hypotheses about savings offers and presentation

• Dates– July 7


• Participants: – 2 total (QuickBooks Desktop users)

Entry from QB

Targeted savings

Community tips

Singular savings (Southwest)

Complex decisions (Billshrink)

What we learned Implications

Hypothesis confirmed

• Saw how this could save them time • Sam – “I could spend time looking for savings at 1 AM, but I’d rather invest this time in

sleep.”• For these two users, it seemed to make sense that savings would be offered through QB (OK with idea of QB data being used in this way)• With trends, users wanted more detail… but they are curious• Trends is useful when the savings are grouped by category – then users can see the relationship between the insight and the savings

• “I would pay for trends if I knew that I could get savings through it” - Sam• Got caught up in what is “uncategorized” and “Other” in trends

• Tailored savings are interesting when based on their own data… they saw value in this idea• Also an element of time savings – you searched the deals for me and that saves me time in

looking for savings• Shipping itself may be a differentiator (time and cost)• If it’s exactly the same product, I don’t need to worry about quality, but if it’s a different brand or product then I need to know the quality (if it’s a big name brand I’m less likely to worry)• Confirmed idea that people are willing to enter more data to get targeted savings • Community data needs to be linked with actionable items

• Advertising, travel, insurance are particularly relevant for community (both said the same thing)

• Community data needs to feel “Intuit approved.”• Everyone said that they would contribute. • There wasn’t any rockstar language, and reactions were somewhat deflated.• If the savings tap something that I’m already doing, then it’s a no-brainer. Won’t change anyone’s behavior.• Switching costs were top of mind for Billshrink – but no one noticed that they were included.• No body noticed that we mixed up toilet paper with office paper – mixed tailored and generic offers• Some hesitation about privacy, but seeing the verisign and Intuit-approved logos eased this worry• People were not overwhelmed by the data – felt that it was good and supportive. Right level of data was also included (maybe because of the bay area phone number too!)• Pooling with other small businesses makes sense to them – and in some cases they are already doing this• Office supplies – they understand it’s not a huge savings, but it’s still worth it. Simplicity of purchasing is important – don’t have to enter data multiple times. • Insurance seems like it’s on the same level as cell phone for complex purchasing – if you provide me savings on what I’m already getting, then I’ll switch.• Bank fees consistently seen as something they can’t save on – “it’s my fault.”

• Trends

• Consider “badges” for accountants and rockstar savers. Accountants might be likely to participate because they trust Intuit and want to get more customers

• Include savings rockstar tone/language

• We don’t have to explain too much of the idea of savings

• Logical step in their minds about entering CC info in QB and purchasing through QB

What we learned Implications

Surprises

• Votes are irrelevant because that person might not be like me

• The colors of trends made it hard to distinguish the difference between side-by-side categories

• AAA site and advance ware (how they do B to B ordering) and cell phone plan search were being used to find savings

• Both users says that QB was open all the time. Both also seemed like “data hounds” – what is it about them that distinguishes them. They were also the highest revenue people. Maybe it’s big revenue and slight margin?

• No savings or very limited savings are still interesting – reliable sources are important (additional benefit for the warehousing folks)

• People saw trends as a way to project – look at bigger businesses to see how they are managing their money differently

• Search is important when thinking about community

• If we had enough volume, could we segment community by industry?

• May need to think about coloring

• Next steps…– What is our roadmap? How will all of the ideas

we’re considering become integrated?• What are we getting August 1st? What’s next?• What partnerships are we declaring?

– Who is our target? What will we solve for our target? Let’s declare it!

concept test #1 overview

Documents