The Opportunity
Work Industries is conducting a search for an experienced Consumer Insights leader to support a growing, approximately $50M direct-to-consumer consumer products company with a significant subscription-based business.

The company has access to substantial quantitative customer and behavioral data through Shopify and other internal sources and has a strong understanding of what customers are doing.

The next opportunity is to better understand why.

The organization is seeking a senior fractional Consumer Insights leader to establish its qualitative Consumer Insights and Voice of Customer capability, generate actionable insights through initial research, and build a sustainable framework that can ultimately be transitioned to a permanent internal leader.
This is not a traditional market research assignment focused solely on executing studies. The consultant will help define what the organization should be learning about its consumers, determine the appropriate methodologies for answering those questions, conduct and/or lead initial research, synthesize qualitative findings with existing quantitative data, and establish how consumer insights should inform business decisions going forward.

The Mandate
The Fractional Director will build the foundation for an ongoing Consumer Insights and Voice of Customer function.

The engagement will focus on four primary objectives:

Understand the "why" behind customer behavior.
Translate quantitative behavioral data into research questions and uncover the motivations, needs, perceptions, barriers and experiences driving customer behavior.

Generate initial consumer insights.
Design and execute priority qualitative research to begin answering the organization's most important consumer questions and demonstrate how qualitative and quantitative insights can work together.

Build the Consumer Insights & Voice of Customer framework.
Establish the methodologies, processes, tools, cadence and cross-functional operating model required for an ongoing insights capability.

Prepare the function for permanent leadership.
Define the future-state role and capabilities required internally and assist the company in evaluating and transitioning knowledge to a permanent Consumer Insights hire.

Key Responsibilities

Assess existing customer information, quantitative data, research and feedback sources to understand what is currently known about the consumer and where meaningful knowledge gaps exist.
Partner with executive and functional leadership to identify and prioritize the business questions Consumer Insights should help answer.
Translate quantitative customer behavior into qualitative research hypotheses and questions.
Develop an initial Consumer Insights and Voice of Customer research roadmap.
Determine the appropriate qualitative methodologies for priority business questions, including approaches such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, customer journey research, concept testing, observational/ethnographic research and other relevant methods.
Design and execute or oversee initial qualitative research initiatives.
Explore customer motivations, needs, purchase drivers, expectations, perceptions, barriers, product experiences, subscription behaviors, retention drivers and reasons for churn where relevant.
Identify opportunities to understand current customers, former customers, prospects and/or non-purchasers where appropriate.
Synthesize qualitative findings with existing quantitative and behavioral data to develop a more complete understanding of the consumer.
Translate research findings into clear, actionable implications for leadership and functions such as Product, Innovation, Customer Experience, Marketing and Retention.
Establish an ongoing Voice of Customer framework, including recommended feedback channels, research cadence, methodologies, insight repositories and mechanisms for sharing insights across the organization.
Recommend how Consumer Insights should interact with existing data, analytics, customer service, marketing, product and other functions.
Define the capabilities, responsibilities and profile required for a permanent Consumer Insights leader.
Support the evaluation and selection of the permanent hire and facilitate an effective transition of the function, research and institutional knowledge.

Desired Background
The ideal consultant is an experienced Consumer Insights leader who combines strategic leadership with the willingness and ability to personally execute research in a growing, entrepreneurial organization.
Candidates should bring:

Significant experience leading Consumer Insights, Customer Insights, Voice of Customer or closely related functions within consumer-facing organizations.
Deep expertise in qualitative consumer research and demonstrated ability to select and apply appropriate research methodologies.
Experience within DTC, e-commerce, subscription or other data-rich consumer businesses strongly preferred.
Strong ability to connect qualitative findings with quantitative behavioral and transactional data.
Experience translating consumer behavior into an understanding of underlying motivations and decision drivers.
Experience building or significantly evolving a Consumer Insights and/or Voice of Customer capability.
Demonstrated ability to translate research into actionable business recommendations rather than simply reporting findings.
Experience working cross-functionally with senior leaders across Product, Marketing, Customer Experience, Innovation and/or Analytics.
Comfort operating in a hands-on fractional environment without the infrastructure or resources of a large corporate insights organization.
Executive-level communication and synthesis skills.

Fractional Director of Consumer Insights & Voice of the Customer (CPG/DTC)

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