Whether cloud-based or on-premise, software tends to have a lot of capabilities. But which features turn prospects into buyers? Which features drive the highest ROI? Why does a given persona or organization utilize one feature more than another? Cascade Insights’ Key Buying Criteria Research answers these questions.
Don’t just keep adding features. Focus on the capabilities that lead to customer retention and new sales.
What Is Key Buying Criteria Research?
Key buying criteria analysis keeps your business, product, and marketing strategies focused by revealing the capabilities that matter most to customers and prospects.
Cascade Insights’ Key Buying Criteria Research can investigate how customers and prospects view product features, your company’s support model, key integrations, a pricing structure, or a way of doing business.
Expert Insight at the Speed of AI
Truly impactful research goes beyond the data you’ve had in front of you for a while. By combining the power of AI with our deep human expertise, we can move faster than other firms while still bringing insightful, comprehensive, and uniquely human perspectives to any research study.
How We Leverage AI: AI significantly enhances our ability to organize and analyze conversational data, quantitative data, and secondary sources of information rapidly. This allows us to identify patterns and trends with greater efficiency.
Fluid Intelligence™: However, AI alone cannot capture the full picture. That’s where our team’s expertise shines. We bring:
- Emotional intelligence – Human researchers interpret intent, emotion, nuance that AI might miss and business implications of those insights.
- Adaptive methodology – We adjust a line of questioning based on participant screener details, live responses, and always dig deeper where necessary.
- Tech sector expertise depth & context awareness – We challenge assumptions, validate insights, and connect them to real-world trends.
- Bias detection and correction – Our researchers detect uncertainty, subtext, and hidden biases all of which can lead a research project astray.
In short, great research isn’t just about collecting words or text. It’s about listening with empathy, paying close attention to your words and tone, nonverbal cues, and what is unsaid as much as clearly stated. These human capabilities drive great research that uncovers valuable insights, ultimately delivering a competitive advantage.
When Do You Need Buying Criteria Research?
Low Sales
If an in-market solution isn’t selling and you don’t understand why, key buying criteria research can help.
For a struggling new solution in a crowded space, it can clarify whether the solution has the features that customers want. It can also determine whether your sales, marketing, and product development efforts are focused on the right features.
Slowing Sales
If a solution that used to sell well is stalling out, our research can find out why. For example, as technology niches evolve, what were formerly key capabilities can become table stakes. Key buying criteria research makes it clear what customers want today so you can update your sales, marketing, and product development efforts accordingly.
Big Changes
Finally, if you’re looking to enter a new market or if the target buyer for your solution has changed, key buying criteria research can help you understand the priorities of a new set of buyer
15 Years In the Tech Sector, Thousands of Conversations With B2B Buyers
We only work with companies that create B2B technology products and services. This has been our specialization for more than a decade. Each day, we interview and survey B2B customers on their tech stack, pain points, and business needs. This B2B context lets us ask better questions, find better research participants, and generate better recommendations.
The Right Questions for Buying Criteria Research
- Are customers searching for a solution to replace what they’re using today? Why? What capabilities will the new solution need to have?
- Do our customers think our solution is lacking key capabilities?
- Do prospective customers think a competitor’s solutions is lacking functionality?
- What jobs-to-be-done are customers looking for solutions like ours to resolve?
- Which features motivate a prospect to buy?
- What ends up being the most important factor in the buying decision? Price, features, sales experience, vendor support, time to value, existing relationship with the vendor, etc.?
- Why are customers using certain features more than expected?
- Why are customers using certain features less than expected?
- How much did a given pricing point or model factor into the sale?
- Do customers prefer subscriptions or fixed prices?
- How do customers measure a successful deployment?
- How often are customers lost to DIY?
- How frequently do customers choose to do nothing rather than buy a new solution?
- Where did we do a great job of matching customers’ important business criteria? Where did competitors do a great job? How did we fall short?
- If customers could go back in time before the purchase, would they make the same decision?
