You have been employed as a consultant for a small, local, business which sells cupcakes called Cupcake Addicts. The business operates online and cupcakes are available for delivery or pick-up at a small cupcake house in Manchester, United Kingdom.
The business has just entered its second year of operation. Your expertise is being sought because the sales have dropped significantly by 30% over the last quarter. You have done your initial research on the insights of Cupcake Addicts and have noticed a range of problems which prevented Cupcake Addicts from delivering superior customer experience including delayed deliveries featuring destroyed cakes, a lack of gluten-free options and vegan choices. You spotted these via social media, Google and TripAdvisor but so far you only have a very basic understanding and further examination is required.
You have arrived at the Cupcake Addicts headquarters. The owner is away, and you meet the Marketing Manager, Chris. It turns out that Chris has multiple roles. Essentially, Chris does not really seem to understand the role of customer research methods and knows nothing about digital analytics.
Therefore, your task is to prepare a Consultancy Presentation where you will discuss how to improve the situation and drive the sales up. Certainly, this would be quite an overwhelming task to perform if all the organizational factors were to be considered, this is why you are required to focus on providing informed recommendations on customer research methods. It is your choice (which should be well-justified), whether you use online or offline research methods or both.
You are also expected to discuss the importance of research and digital analytics in the context of online consumption and the role of online consumption in society. Your Consultancy Presentation should also include an understanding of social capital online and sentiment analysis and a plan of design and implementation of digital analytics tools that use consumer behaviour research to enhance customer experience.
Please note that you can make some assumptions/make up some numbers if you find it fit such as for instance number of returning visitors on the website, percentage of the loss of unique visitors, churn rate and so on.
The following learning outcomes for the module are applicable to this assignment:
- Critically reflect upon the role of online consumption in society.
- Critically assess and evaluate different consumer research methods, both online and offline.
- Design and implement digital analytics tools that use consumer behaviour research to enhance customer experience.
Presentation Guidance
- Your presentation should be 15 minutes (equates to 2,000-2,500 words) long. Do not exceed 15 minutes of presentation time.
- You must upload your slides / displayed materials and audio onto the learning platform by your resubmission date as detailed on your resubmission letter.
- Please note that both the presentation and the audio must be included for the assignment.
- We strongly recommend that you also submit a transcript of your audio presentation.