Customer-Led Strategy

Real evidence.
Real decisions.

Decide with your customers in the room.

Strategy for the decisions that depend on what your customers think. We go and ask them, in 60+ countries, and turn what they say into a direction you can defend.

IN ONE PARAGRAPH

Customer-led strategy means making your most important business decisions on real evidence from your customers, gathered first-hand and kept in their own words. MindMarket frames the decision you are facing, gathers the evidence first-hand with your real customers across 60+ countries, and turns what they say into a recommendation you can put in front of your board. The customer is in the room for the decision, because the only evidence that can tell you whether it will work comes from your customers themselves.

THE PROBLEM

Big decisions, thin evidence.

Most big decisions get made on a workshop, a deck and a strong opinion. Somebody in the room says what customers want. Nobody in the room has asked them lately. In McKinsey's 2019 global survey, only 20 percent of executives said their organisation excels at decision making, and 61 percent said most of their decision-making time is used ineffectively.

That works until it doesn't. The launch lands flat. The repositioning confuses the people who already liked you. The new market turns out to want something else entirely.

And the post-mortem always finds the same thing: one untested assumption the whole plan was resting on. That customers wanted the new product. That they would follow the brand upmarket. That the new market would behave like the home market. Nobody had asked the customers before the decision was made.

A boardroom meeting: an executive standing at the head of the table presents a slide deck to four listening colleagues.

WHO THIS IS FOR

You are probably here because...

You are a CEO or a founder, about to sign off on a decision that will shape the next three years.
You are a CMO or a Head of Brand, defending a repositioning to a board that wants evidence before it signs.
You are a Director of Insights, and your leadership team needs a direction. The last report gave them sixty slides.
You are a strategy consultant, and you need real customer evidence under the deck you are building for a client.

WHERE THIS GETS USED

Which decision is in front of you?

Ten situations where the answer depends on people we can go and talk to. Pick the one that sounds like your Monday morning.

Not on the list? The question is usually still the same underneath. Tell us the decision and we will tell you honestly whether customers can answer it.

Tell us the decision

HOW IT WORKS

The Decision Case.
Three steps, one direction.

Research answers questions. Strategy decides what to do about the answers. We do both, in that order, and the order is the whole point.

Step one.

We work out what you are deciding.

Before anyone speaks to a customer, we get clear on the decision itself. What is on the table? What would change your mind? What would you have to hear to go the other way? Half of what goes wrong in research goes wrong at this stage, before a single customer has been spoken to.
Step two.

We listen. This is our research practice, and it is the heart of everything we do.

Once we know what you are deciding, we go and talk to the people who will settle it: your customers, the customers you have lost, and the ones who chose someone else. We do this ourselves, in 60+ countries, in the language people speak at home, with researchers who live in the market. Nobody is briefed out and nobody is passed along. The person who conducts the research, sits in the living room, walks the aisle or runs the group, is part of the team that writes the recommendation. This is the work behind 400+ projects delivered for 50+ global clients, and it is what makes the strategy at the end worth trusting.
Step three.

We tell you what to do about it.

The Decision Case sets out the choices in front of you and makes one recommendation, in full sentences. For each option we give the case behind it and the trade-offs of the routes we are not recommending, so your board can see why we landed where we did. It is written the way a board reads: the decision first, the evidence under it, and nothing that needs a researcher to translate.
The output, in one line:

One clear recommendation on the decision in front of you, with the evidence under it.

Tell us the decision

PROGRAMMES

Three ways to listen

The listening comes in three shapes, and we will tell you which one your decision needs before you commit to anything. Most clients start with First Listen.

First Listen.

A precise question, answered in weeks.

When you have one clear question and a date by which you need the answer, First Listen is a short, focused study built around exactly that question. You get real conversations with the right people, a clear read of what they told us, and a debrief call where we talk it through together. It is the fastest way to bring your customers into a decision without slowing it down, and it is where most of our strategy work starts: one question, answered properly, and a clear view of whether there is a bigger decision behind it.

How First Listen works and what it costs

Deep Listen.

The complete study, for a decision that matters.

When there is a real decision on the table, Deep Listen is the full programme. We start with a framing session with your team, so the research is designed around what you need to decide. Then we run the fieldwork, across as many markets as the decision touches. And instead of ending with a report, it ends with a decision workshop with your leadership team, where we work through what your customers said and what to do about it, together. This is where the work deepens, when the first answer opens a bigger decision.

How Deep Listen works and what it costs

Always Listening.

Your customers in the room, all year.

Some decisions never stop, and some organisations would rather not wait for the next big study to find out what their customers think. Always Listening keeps the conversation running: a steady rhythm of listening, shaped around the decisions you are living with, so that when the next call comes, the evidence is already there.

How Always Listening works and what it costs

KEEP LISTENING

What happens after the decision?

You made the call. Your customers did not stop moving.

Customer Pulse keeps the listening running against the decision you took. Every quarter, a working session where the direction is either confirmed or challenged, in writing. Between sessions, a two-page note every month: what we heard, what changed, and what it means for the call you made.

It is the same people who did the original work, still listening, and still willing to tell you the ground has moved.

Most clients run it alongside an Always Listening programme. Some run it lighter. We agree the cadence with you.

Customer Pulse

How is this different

How is this different from a strategy consultancy?

It is a fair question. We overlap with a consultancy on one thing and differ on everything else. The thing we share is the ending: you get a clear recommendation on the decision in front of you, written for a board. How we get there is where the difference lies.

How a consultancy works

A strategy consultancy

A strategy consultancy usually arrives with a point of view. Its team settles on a likely answer early, builds the case for it from desk research, expert interviews and existing data, and, when customer evidence is needed, buys it from a research agency. Often that agency is someone like us. The people who spoke to your customers are two handovers away from the people who write the recommendation, and a great deal of what customers meant gets lost on the way.

How we work

Customer-Led Strategy, by MindMarket

MindMarket works the other way round. We arrive with questions, not a view. We go and listen to your customers ourselves, in 60+ countries and in their own language, and we build the recommendation from what we heard. The researcher who ran the conversations is in the room when the direction is written, and the words your customers used are in the document, not a summary of them. That is what we mean by customer-led: the customer speaks first, and the strategy follows.

There is also a difference of scope, and we would rather be clear about it than oversell. A consultancy will advise you on how to reorganise, what to acquire and how to run the business. We do none of that, and we will say so on the first call. We work on the decisions that depend on what customers think, feel and do, and we go and find out.

A strategy consultancy and Customer-Led Strategy, side by side
Comparison	A typical strategy consultancy	Customer-Led Strategy, by MindMarket
Where it starts	With a likely answer in mind, formed early, then tested.	With your customers. We listen first, and the recommendation follows what we hear.
Where the customer evidence comes from	Bought in from a research agency, often one like us.	Gathered by MindMarket, ourselves, in 60+ countries, in the local language, with researchers who live there.
Who hears your customers	Analysts reading a report someone else wrote.	The same people who sat in the room with your customers, and who then write the recommendation with you.
What you get	A recommendation, with the evidence summarised.	A recommendation with your customers' own words under every claim, and the trade-offs of the routes we are not recommending.
What we cover	Strategy, organisation, operations, acquisitions.	Only the decisions your customers can answer. If they cannot, we tell you on the first call.
After the decision	The engagement ends.	The listening can keep going, so you know whether the decision is working.

How is this different from ordinary market research?

The fieldwork is identical. Same researchers, same standards, same 60+ countries. What changes is what happens either side of it.

Before

We work out what you are deciding before we design anything. A research brief asks what you want to find out. A decision brief asks what you are choosing between, and what would make you choose differently. The second question produces better research, because it tells us what would be worth knowing.

After

A research project ends with findings. Customer-Led Strategy ends with a recommendation. Findings tell you what people said. A recommendation tells you what we think you should do about it, what we would not do, and the evidence under both. One of those you can take into a board meeting.

If you have your own research team and you want the fieldwork alone, that is a real and welcome way to work with us. Customer-Led Strategy is for the moments when you would rather not carry the decision on your own, and you want the people who heard your customers to stay in the room until the direction is set.

OUR SCOPE

Where we play, and where we don't.

We would rather tell you where we stop than oversell.

Where we play

Decisions that depend on what customers think, feel and do.
Growth, entry, brand, pricing, concepts, retention, segments, range, experience, what to build next.
If a real person can answer it, we can go and ask them.

Where we don't

Mergers and acquisitions.
Restructuring.
How your organisation is run.
These are real decisions and they matter, and they are not decided by customers.
If the answer does not depend on one, we are the wrong people, and we will tell you so on the first call.

HUMAN INSIGHTS

Where does the evidence come from?

We are the bridge that brings human voices into the boardroom.

Culture first. Human first. No panels, no recycled data, no shortcuts. We recruit, screen and moderate ourselves, in the local language, wherever the decision needs evidence.

60+

countries

400+

projects delivered

50+

global clients

Behind those three figures is our own network of in-market researchers, built over years and run by us. That is why the evidence under every recommendation is first-hand: gathered by people we know, in the markets where they live, and brought back into the room where the decision is made.

THE DELIVERABLE

What do you get at the end?

At the end of the work you receive one written recommendation on the decision you brought us. We call it The Decision Case. It is short enough that your board will read it in one sitting, and specific enough that they can act on it the same day. It is not a deck of findings for you to interpret. It is our answer, with the evidence under it.

Here is what is inside it.

1

The decision, restated the way we now understand it.

By the time the listening is done, the question is rarely the one you described in the first meeting. We write down what we now believe you are deciding, and why it moved. Clients often tell us this page alone was worth the work.
2

Our recommendation.

This is what we would do, and this is what we would not do, in plain words, with the reasons for each. Where the evidence is strong we say so clearly. Where it is mixed we say that too, and we tell you what it would take to settle it.
3

The evidence under every claim.

Each point in the recommendation traces back to real people saying real things, quoted in their own words, so you can see for yourself where a conclusion comes from and how much weight it can carry.
4

What to watch for on the routes we are not recommending.

No recommendation is right in every future. For each option we set aside, we tell you what would need to happen for it to turn out to be the better one, so you can keep an eye on it.
5

What we could not answer.

Some questions the listening cannot settle, and we would much rather tell you where the edge of our knowledge is than paper over it. Where a question is still open, we say what it would take to close it.

And everything that went into it stays yours: the recordings, the transcripts and the full analysis. You own what your customers told you.

QUESTIONS

Strategy questions, answered straight

Is this consulting or is it research?

Both, in one place, and that is the point. Most consultancies buy their evidence from someone like us. Most research agencies hand you findings and stop. We gather the evidence ourselves and then tell you what we think you should do with it.

How does a Customer-Led Strategy engagement run, step by step?

A Customer-Led Strategy engagement runs in three steps, in a fixed order: we agree the decision, we listen to your customers ourselves, and we write the recommendation.

Framing session with your team: what is on the table, what would change your mind, what you would need to hear to go the other way.
Listening in market: focus groups, in-depth interviews, in-home visits, shop-alongs or diaries, run by researchers who live in the market, in the local language, in as many countries as the decision touches.
The Decision Case: one written recommendation with your customers' own words under every claim, then a decision workshop with your leadership team.

Most clients start with First Listen, one question answered in weeks, and move to Deep Listen when the first answer opens a bigger decision.

Which research methods does Customer-Led Strategy use?

Customer-Led Strategy uses the qualitative methods MindMarket runs in 60+ countries, chosen for the decision rather than by habit: focus groups, in-depth interviews, ethnographic visits, shop-alongs, customer intercepts, online diaries and bulletin boards, concept and taste testing.

Which ones a decision needs is set in the framing session. A repositioning usually calls for interviews with the customers you have and the ones you want; a retention decision starts with the people who left; an experience decision is observed on site. Every decision page on this site names the methods it draws on.

How long does it take?

First Listen answers one precise question in two to three weeks; Deep Listen typically runs eight to twelve weeks from framing session to decision workshop, depending on the number of markets; Always Listening is continuous, with a written note every month and a working session every quarter.

The two things that stretch a timeline are the number of markets and how hard your customers are to find, and we tell you both before you commit. What we will not do is compress the listening to hit a date and then present the result as if it were solid.

What does it cost?

The research is priced openly on our pricing page, per market and per programme, and the strategy work is quoted after a conversation about the decision, because its scope depends on it.

The structure is simple: First Listen is priced per market, Deep Listen per programme, Always Listening per month, and any of them can start from the fieldwork alone if you have your own strategy team. The ranges, the study builder and an itemised quote within 48 hours are on the pricing page. We would rather understand what you are deciding before we put a number on helping you decide it.

We already work with a strategy firm. Where does this fit?

Underneath them. We make your consultant's work stronger. They keep the pen on strategy; what changes is that the strategy now rests on what your customers said, gathered first-hand. It is the cheapest insurance you can buy on an expensive piece of advice.

What if the evidence says our plan is wrong?

Then we tell you, and it will be the cheapest bad news you ever buy. Finding out now costs a study. Finding out after the launch costs the launch. Some of the work we are proudest of stopped an investment rather than confirming one.

What happens after we make the decision?

Customer Pulse keeps the listening running against the decision you took, so you know whether the direction still holds.

It works in two rhythms: a two-page note every month on what we heard, what changed and what it means for the call you made; and a quarterly working session where the direction is confirmed or challenged, in writing, by the same people who did the original work. The cadence is agreed with you, and it starts when the first decision lands. Most clients run it alongside an Always Listening programme.

A customer at her table, mid-sentence, explaining her choice to the researcher listening across from her.

Bring the customer to the table.

You have a decision to make and an opinion about what your customers want. We can go and find out whether you are right, then help you decide what to do about the answer.

Tell us the decision. We will tell you what it would take to answer it properly.