Interview #1 customer-service employee at PICNIC

The Employee Benefit Program was set up by Peugeot to fix the mobility programs employer have with their employees. Employees who are entitled to the program can lease a car of one of the three Peugeot brands which discount per month. Your company could be partner of the program, which means you could be entitled. My name is Paul Brouwer and I am conducting target group research to gather information of the wants and needs of people who are looking for a car.

Do you know anything about cars?

"No, I am a real newbie when it comes to cars. I got my driver's licenses a year and a half ago, but as I am living in the centre of Amsterdam, it is not really practical to drive a car. I rarely drive, only when I borrow my parent's car."

Whenever you can choose for car, what is the first thing you look at?

In the first place, I want to the car too looks nice. It has to be cute.

What, in your opinion, is nice or cute?

Well, I really like mini-coopers. Haha, you are dealing with a real lady over here. No, but I would really like a mini-cooper. A azure-blue one with nice interior details. It has to be a small and cozy car. Small, because I am not really doing well with parking and because I live in Amsterdam.

If I asked you some questions about your dream car, how would like to be questions stated?

In the first place, I thinks it clever to ask for demographic data.

Why demographic?

Well, I think it is clever to ask if the person is single, or has a relationship. In follow up, do you have children, and how much. This can determine how many seats the car needs. And I also think that asking for zip-code can help, because I live in Amsterdam, so it would be inappropriate if I get an offer of big SUV's.

And what would you think of gender?

Well, these days it is really a social issue when it comes to gender, haha. I think you should take it into account, but be careful not to differ the approach too much.

But men and women do have a different idea when looking for the right car.

Well, as I already said, you are dealing with a real lady over here. There are definitely women who know a lot more than I do. What I mean to say is, try to state the question as easy as possible, so everybody can find their way. You could ask me questions about the subjects I do no know of, but that does not work for me. So keep it simple, for example with the ranking system. That would really work well, because I can easy state what is important to me and not.

So based on your answer, I could be clever to have different approaches by gender?

Well, I think that is difficult to say. If you are separating the questionnaire into two approaches, men and women, you assuming that all women have no knowledge about cars. You should be careful with that.

But it does help people to find their favorite car.

That does not mean that you should make it more difficult for the other gender.

It is not more difficult, it is another approach to make it accessible for both gender and more user friendly.

Well, in that case, you could ask a follow-up question. So, not only gender and age, but also how long someone have their driver licenses and if they already owned a car in the past. I am woman who do not know anything about a car, but my mother drives a car for over thirty years. That would mean you could add different levels in approach. A beginner needs really easy questions, and someone who knows more about cars who like more nuanced questions. I think you should ask for interests and driver behaviour. When someone already owned a car for example you could ask about earlier experiences, and taking it to the next step. But be careful with assumptions!

Thank you very much for your time and input.

You are welcome and success with your project.

Insights:

• Asking demographic data can help to reduce the scope : Zip-code, gender, age, family composition

• Creating different approaches per gender could arise negative emotions, because of the assumption that every men or women have the same thoughts about a car.

• Ask simple questions that can be adopted by everyone

• Ask follow-up questions whenever the demographic questions have been stated

• It is possible to add different levels of knowledge and state different questions