Weighing a new home-energy proposition

The question

A home services company was weighing a new home-energy proposition in one of its markets, covering more than one kind of heating and energy system.

It knew that market and its customers well, but its own records described today’s customers. They couldn’t say how many households would take to something new, for which products, or whether owners and renters would respond alike. The business team wanted a figure it could plan around, and an offer pitched wrong would be costly to put right later.

Our approach

One household survey sized the market step by step, from all households down to those open to the company’s proposition, so every narrowing of the number could be questioned.

Owners and renters, and each product, were sized separately, because an average across them would hide decisions made in different ways. We read the answers beside the group’s research in another market, using the segments its teams already worked with, so the team could see what was particular to this one.

What the team came away with

A staged sizing for each product, split by owners and renters, came with an assessment of the proposition as households saw it.

Every stage of the number is an estimate from the survey under the conditions tested. Laid out in sequence, the stages let the team see where the number narrowed most, and which step was the least certain before it relied on any of them.

Because each product was sized on the same steps, the products could be compared on equal terms. And because the same segments ran through both markets, the new market could be discussed in language the business already used, beside what it knew elsewhere.