Caravan and Motorhome Club Uses Insight to Plan a Sustainable Future

The Caravan and Motorhome Club are seeking to add new facilities to its sites in order to accommodate rising numbers of electric and hybrid vehicles that are expected to become an integral facet of modern life within the next 20 years. However, with over 160 sites in the UK, this reflects a significant investment. As such, the organisation must ensure it is acting on accurate and reliable data that demonstrates how members will interact and make use of the facilities.

Another challenge facing the Caravan and Motorhome Club is the geographic spread of its membership. To conduct in-person qualitative research on this matter at the scale and depth required would be costly and too slow to impact the immediate questions that must be answered. However, the Caravan and Motorhome Club had limited previous experience of online qual methodologies, and so required full-service support to ensure the organisation made the most of the investment.

To understand the needs and requirements of electric and hybrid vehicle owners, both in everyday life and whilst touring, The Caravan and Motorhome Club chose to run a three day asynchronous focus group. This was conducted with the Question BoardMR tool from FlexMR.

In addition to basic qualitative questions, the team also produced a clear and detailed campsite map that acted as a visual stimulus for participants. Members were invited to comment on where they felt charging points would be best placed within a campsite, as well as the speed at which they require their vehicles to be charged and what the best options to pay would be.

‘‘The clear presentation of results allowed us to take insights to stakeholders with less than 24 hours of preparation. The image of the site map in particular made it very easy for the team to understand our recommendations.” - Viv Harrison, Research and Insights Manager

Across the short, agile project, FlexMR were able to provide the Caravan and Motorhome Club with a significant amount of actionable insights that informed both short term and longer, strategic decisions around the implementation of electric and hybrid vehicle facilities.

The Question BoardMR tool and three-day time frame worked together to allow participants a window to reflect on questions and provide detailed, thoughtful responses.

“We had great interactions with the FlexMR team, and are very impressed with the research experience. End to end, this study really hit the nail on the head, and we now have a lot of great data to work off in future research studies.” - Viv Harrison, Research and Insights Manager

The project was a follow up from previous communications with members about the emergence of electric/hybrid vehicles for towing, and provided the insights needed to both steer and drive key decisions. Importantly, the chosen solution was able to deliver high quality results in a short time frame and generate insights that have been put to immediate use.

“In just a few days, we have already been able to present the results to a team working on the new sites.” - Viv Harrison, Research and Insights Manager

Results from this agile study for the Caravan and Motorhome Club were presented to a wide range of stakeholders and senior decision makers within a matter of days. The qualitative feedback provided by members has been used to build realistic working timescales for site redevelopments and stimulate further discussions around the volume of new facilities required.

The map used in the project was for one the Club’s campsites, which is planned to be the first to be outfitted with facilities for electric and hybrid vehicles. Work on the site has been immediately informed by the results of the study.