Member Spotlight: RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP
Based in Toronto, Ontario, RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP is a full-service market research agency with expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research techniques. They apply innovative approaches, utilizing AI, language models, predictive models, and other machine processes to provide enhanced analytics and insights. Their team works across diverse sectors, including micromobility. Their goal is to drive client transformation with insights and actionable strategies.
In 2022, RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP conducted pricing strategy research for Bike Share Toronto. Given a choice, when asked directly, people do not want to pay more. They believe the best way to get useful feedback from customers (and potential customers) about pricing for a product or service is not to ask about pricing, directly. To this end, RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP has developed a pricing research protocol that predicts how people respond to pricing strategies without asking directly. The protocol involves four stages:
- Lead a discovery session with key stakeholders to build consensus around the current situation and clearly identify the business objectives (i.e., is it overall ridership, access, membership, revenue, profit, e-bike adoption/use, etc.) and hypotheses about the future.
- Conduct desk research into international urban bike and scooter sharing pricing models to identify success factors and inhibitors, and identify pricing options or features for consideration for our client’s situation.
- Facilitate a co-design workshop with key stakeholders to determine feasible pricing options and alternative service models based on the desk research and the client’s situation and goals.
- Design a quantitative study to determine optimal and alternative pricing models that will achieve goals set during the discovery phase. The core of the survey is a tradeoff exercise, from which they develop a model to evaluate pricing scenarios – without directly asking ‘what consumers want to pay’ for the services. They then deliver an Excel-based simulator to instantly test any ‘what-if’ service-pricing scenarios. This allows the client to assess countless combinations and identify the optimal services and pricing structure to meet organizational goals.
Bike Share Toronto Director, Justin Hanna notes that Bike Share Toronto greatly appreciates RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP‘s research and has used this information to underpin their pricing structure recommendations to City Council. Strategic recommendations from the project have contributed to a +23% increase in rides, +10% increase in membership sales and +24% increase in revenue (from 2022 to 2023).
When asked about the value of NABSA membership, they said that as a new member they are enjoying meeting other members and learning more about the nuances of shared micromobility across North America. “We see a lot of passion and potential! We look forward to connecting in-person at the conference in Philadelphia.”
Learn more about RESEARCH STRATEGY GROUP: https://rsginc.net/
