While a smaller size and 110v service did enter the purchasing equation, the impact of these features on unit preference was actually quite small. We discovered that a large segment of these customers would readily trade smaller size and 110v service for higher capacity and a touchscreen user interface. These “vectors of differentiation” had a 20+ point impact on unit preference, at a nearly 25% higher price point! And once engineering dug into the spec, they discovered that the cost of this newly featured unit would be LOWER than that of their current offering. The company’s investment in a few weeks’ worth of research saved them from a year-long new product development project which would have had negligible results on share and revenue.
