ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The latest research from the NACS/Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council recommends that convenience store retailers learn about and develop relationships with teens. To supplement national, industry-wide studies, management teams can benefit from securing insights specific to their own customers.

This final “Action Report” describes five approaches that convenience retailers can use to solicit teen feedback. Best practices suggest retailers should use more than one method and involve management and frontline employees. Retailers also should regularly test to re-validate and ward off “surprise” attacks from the competition.

Tip 1: “Ask Mikey” (talking with teens in general)
Tip 2: Customer conversations
Tip 3: Focused group discussion
Tip 4: Opportunity assessments
Tip 5: Surveys and statistical analysis and benchmarking

“If there’s one thing we learned from this NACS/Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council project, it’s that better understanding consumers is a continuous process, and this final Action Report provides an important tool to help people learn continuously in a practical way,” said Willard Bishop Chairman Bill Bishop, who developed the action report for the Council.

For more information about convenience teens, visit the updated Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council Web site and click on the NACS/CC tab to download “Building Loyalty with the Next Generation,” a study published during 2005 by the NACS/Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council.

Also, beginning with the February 2007 issue, NACS Magazine published a four-part series examining the validation studies of the in-depth look at the convenience teen segment developed by the council.