Tailfin buyer research

“Muir Wood & Co are the perfect partners for businesses doing research for the first time.”

^{Nick Broadbent, founder of Tailfin}

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The Challenge

Moving from personal intuition to a customer-centric strategy

Tailfin makes lightweight luggage carrying solutions for serious pedallers. Their team of bike enthusiasts have successfully scaled the business from a single carbon pannier to a suite of bike-packing equipment. But as the audience grew, the team realised that their own preferences and experiences might not represent those of all their customers, with different riding styles and luggage needs.

As an organisation that had never done research before, they needed help not just with how to do research, but also to understand what questions the research should answer, then how to translate the findings into decisions. 

“Andrew and Maia were incredible; they analysed the different parts of the business and then helped select where they could add the most value.”

^{Nick Broadbent, Founder of Tailfin}

So we donned our lycra and tiny caps and got to work.

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Our Approach

Getting research underway, then gradually handing it over

We put together a bespoke programme that first diagnosed the most pressing questions and assumptions in the business, then translated these into a research plan as follows:

• Understanding all their different kinds of buyer so they could be more targeted with their products and messaging
• Mapping out their current buying journeys, from initial awareness of the product, through to purchasing on the website and beyond
• Then helping them to ramp up their own customer research process

We began by building the plan, scripts, recruitment screeners and interviewing customers alongside their team, then gradually empowered them to run the sessions themselves. We switched roles to become observers and note takers for them, coaching them on their interviewing skills and guiding them towards the correct interpretation of what they were hearing.

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The Outcome

“Astounding” results and a strategic foundation

Fixing the website problems we uncovered has led to a giant, gnarly wheelie in how it performs. The team let us know that over 6 months, our research contributed to a 30% increase in conversion and 20% drop in bounce rate, with sales also increasing during that period.

“The results have been astounding – a massive uptick.”

^{James Atkey, COO of Tailfin}

We also helped saddle them up with longer term strategy and processes. We helped them invalidate a key assumption about the company's biggest spending customer. And now the team is now able to run their own research without us, although we sometimes check in to help with new challenges or techniques.

This project was a hybrid of our full service research offer with our capability-building packages. Starting off with us doing all the research then gradually handing over to the team. Get in touch if you're interested in working with us to understand your audience better.