Ello Group: tastecard Personas Refresh & Lapsed Customer Survey

Ello Group manages a number of membership-based digital products that support the hospitality and entertainment sectors through encouraging customer engagement whilst supporting members to be able to eat out and spend quality time togehter in a range of formats, at a discounted price.

It had been some time since tastecard’s personas were last reviewed and there was a requirement to re-fresh the findings. Ello has significant data on its members and was able to understand both their product orientated behaviours and actions to a good extent (via 1 st party data) as well as having a broad understanding of what their customers are like via Fresco by CACI profiling.

However, there was room to understand the drivers of behaviour in more depth, particularly in relation to specific dining and entertainment behaviours, as well as to review customer perceptions around the tastecard product. This was in part as a result of a need to keep up to date over time but also due to several factors:

• The tastecard product has changed in terms of offer since 2019 – there is less of a focus on dining out as the sole offer, and that offer had also been a dynamic one since the pandemic, e.g. due to some independent restaurants closing their doors
• There was a sense that tastecard’s user profile and focus audiences had altered slightly both as a result of internal and external factors
• tastecard as brand has also moved beyond pure dining – the core offer now includes many elements previously under ‘tastecard+’ – such as pizza delivery, cinema etc. There was a desire to review perceptions and expectations of these.

M·E·L Research were commissioned to undertake research which quantified the motivations and perceptions of in-segment tastecard customers around the current offer, and understand the relative strengths and weaknesses between segments in appeal of the different elements of the tastecard offer. Further, the research aimed to develop a deeper understanding of the “why” proposition for tastecard for each segment – why did they get it? Why do they use it? Why would they renew? Beyond this, to understand reactions to non-dining offerings provided by tastecard, and to understand how to provide messaging that could help to increase update among current usage and draw in new audiences.

While tastecard themselves held the data to establish the personas, this study provided depth and detail – the ‘colouring in’ – to add flesh to the skeleton, and support targeted development of app development, messaging and targeting and partnerships and development.

Approach

In order to provide insights that could help tastecard to shape their messaging and development going forwards, an initial quantitative survey was conducted with existing tastecard members. The survey investigated the types of offers that were most important to members, using MaxDiff (a statistical technique) to establish the relative importance of the offer types that tastecard provide. The survey then delved into the aspects of these individual offer types that most appeal to members, the barriers they face in using them, and the developments they would like to see to them in the future. The study captured the respondent’s segment so that analysis could be conducted across each, in order to provide insights that tastecard could use to develop their offering in a way that is personalised to different areas of their customer base.

Respondents to the quantitative survey had the opportunity to opt in to a follow up qualitative research community hosted on our online community research platform. The research community involved answering open text questions by text or on video, and completing activities such as card sorting, joining in discussion boards and sharing images. The community provided further depth of insight, with customers sharing in detail their experiences of dining out, the decision making process that they undertake when planning whether or not to use their tastecard, and the frustrations that they currently face in using it.

In addition to this, a further study was conducted with users who had recently cancelled or let lapse their tastecard membership. Again using a mixed methodology approach, former customers were invited to take a quantitative survey on their reasons for cancelling their membership, with a qualitative online community conducted subsequently with a small number of respondents to provide greater understanding of what was driving these reasons.

Outcomes

M·E·L Research supplied tastecard with two reports, one summarising the results of the survey and community investigating desires and experiences of current members, and one on the reasons customers said impacted on their decision to cancel their membership.

The reports incorporated quantitative data from the surveys, broken down by customer segment, alongside quotes, videos and images from the online community. These provided stories and narratives to help understand the trends in the data at the human flavour, as well as providing insight into the ‘why’, to help tastecard understand not only what the opinions are of their customer base about their current offering, but also the factors driving them to feel this way.

The results provided data for tastecard on the offer types that are most important to customers, and on the barriers that are currently preventing customers from being able to use their tastecard as much as they would like. It provided insights into the improvements that could be incorporated into tastecards offer to improve the discounts available and the likelihood that customers would renew their tastecard at the end of their current subscription.

The use of video and real stories helped the tastecard CRM team to bring the customer in to the Board Room, and informed internal hypotheses about the way forward.