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.
Hypothesis confirmed
Concepts such as the personalized shopping cart perceived as
interesting because of the time (and secondarily money) savings
What we learned
Implications
• 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
• Position product as saving time – saving
money is an added benefit
• People like tabs where savings offers are grouped by expense categories
• Group savings offers by category for easy
browsing
• 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
•Use QB inventory data to set reminders
for re-ordering
• 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
•Combine the benefit of printing shipping
labels in QB with discounting savings on
shipping
• The concept of “buy more for less” based on group discounts resonated with people
because of perceived savings benefit of buying in bulk
• Position savings value as “Tell me what I
don’t know” by showing competing offers
• Participants wanted middle of the line versus high or low end savings positioning… ”Like
me but better!”
• Position Intuit as a “business partner”
with the small business owners
• 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
• Amex card that gives you rewards – may
be potential partnership opportunity
• 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?
• 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?
Surprises
• 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.
• Long tail: Bring this together with Intuit
connect (referrals)
Concept test #2 overview
• Purpose:
– Get direction on positioning and delivery vehicle of savings concepts
• Financial report
• EasySaver
• Procurement department
• Dates
– June 24
• Method
– 1.5 hour long remote concept test (Webex)
• 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
Implications
• 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
• Position as:“Saving me time helps me to
focus on what I love to do.”
• 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.
• Other code words for saving time: Quick,
Easy, Simple
• 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.
Hypothesis confirmed
• Consistently the “others like me” is perceived as others businesses in the same industry,
location, size, and revenue
• 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
•People definitely wanted to be able to search for items they knew they would need (especially
big ticket 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.
• 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
• Savings offers need to be positioned as allinclusive of tax and shipping
• 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
Concept test #2 findings
What we learned
Implications
• 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.
• “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.
•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.
•Has to solve one thing really well, then I’m
convinced and trust future savings
• 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.
Surprises
• 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
• 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 #3 overview
• Purpose:
– Get feedback on entry point to EasySaver
– Test hypotheses about savings offers and presentation
• Dates
– July 7
• Method
– 1.5 hour long remote concept test (Webex)
• Participants:
– 2 total (QuickBooks Desktop users)
Entry from QB
Targeted savings
Community tips
Singular savings (Southwest)
Complex decisions (Billshrink)
What we learned
Implications
• 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
• Trends
Hypothesis confirmed
•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.”
• 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
• Votes are irrelevant because that person might not be like me
• Search is important when thinking about
community
• 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
• If we had enough volume, could we segment
community by industry?
• May need to think about coloring
Surprises
• 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
• 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!