What Is Your Product's Convenience Quotient?

The product that is most convenient will win in the marketplace.

Introducing The Convenience Quotient

The Convenience Quotient (CQ) is a consulting tool developed by Forrester. From more than a decade of surveying millions of consumers about hundreds of products and services, we have concluded that the secret to creating and marketing a successful consumer product experience lies in a single, comprehensive concept: convenience. The Convenience Quotient is a methodology to benchmark competing consumer products and services in terms of convenience offered.

Convenience = Benefits – Barriers

Convenience is not a product feature you can simply dial up or down. Convenience is a comprehensive measure that considers the total product experience — including product research, acquisition, use, and eventual disposal. We assert that convenience encompasses the benefits a product provides by measuring how easy the product makes it for people to get the benefits the product promises. Convenience is also diminished by the barriers to consumer use that may exist for a given product.

Forrester uses the Convenience Quotient as a market assessment tool to help companies understand the relative convenience of their product, service or channel vis-à-vis other direct and indirect competitors. Consumer product strategists who harness the power of CQ will know how to increase their product's benefits while reducing barriers to success.

What Questions Will The Convenience Quotient Answer?

To successfully launch or revamp products or services you must keep convenience high. Forrester's CQ methodology will provide answers to the following questions:

• What are the benefits my product provides to consumers? How do my product's features translate into tangible consumer benefits?
• What are the key barriers that will keep consumers from adopting my product — price, distribution channel, product awareness, etc.?
• What appropriate competitive set, including direct competitors and indirect alternatives, to my product or service should be compared?
• How do my products rank against competitors in terms of overall convenience? What are the relative strengths and weaknesses of the key competitors in the market, including my own product?
• Are there indirect alternatives to my product that are more convenient for consumers?
• What should my product road map look like? As we continue to develop our products, what are the areas of greatest improvement that we need to focus on, compared with competitors?

Deliverables For A Standard CQ Project

Forrester's CQ includes specific deliverables to identify weaknesses and drive product improvements:

• Detailed scorecard. We compare the features and functionalities of your product with your closest competitors as well as relevant alternative options using the CQ scorecard.
• Graphical depiction. We'll show you a CQ Meter (see below) that graphically depicts overall CQ scores for the rated products. We’ll also provide a 4-quadrant matrix that shows how rated products fared in terms of overall benefits and barriers scores.
• Gap analysis. We'll be able to tell you if there is a disconnect between your product, service, or channel and the solution that you are trying to provide.
• Prioritized recommendations. We present our findings highlighting the main strengths and weaknesses of your product, compare them with other reviewed solutions, and provide a prioritization of actions and recommendations.

In addition, CQ projects can be enhanced to include the following:

• Custom consumer survey data. Forrester can leverage its extensive knowledge of consumer market research to design and deliver a custom survey of users in the markets you are interested in. Forrester analysts then interpret the data and incorporate the findings into the CQ scorecard. Such data can complement the results of the CQ analysis by identifying key areas for marketing or development.
• Market analysis. Forrester can prepare a market analysis, analyzing and quantifying the market opportunity for your products/services based on existing research, Technographics® data, and our inquiry database.
• CQ strategy day. A one-day onsite strategy session regarding CQ, which would include 1) an overview of consumer needs and why convenience is king; 2) how to identify benefits from a list of product features; 3) in-person delivery of the CQ results; 4) how to establish a common corporate goal centering on convenience; and 5) a dialogue with executives and marketing and product professionals about the potential for applying CQ to other products or services.

Contact Us

Please contact us if you want to know more about the CQ and how it can be applied to your product, service or channel. Forrester's analysts can quickly assess your challenge and develop a strategy wherever you are in the product life cycle.