Papago Vans
Research project · Internal

Prepared for ownership · Papago Vans

We have never asked
the people who bought.

The three avatars on the target audience page are reasoned, not measured. They rest on published research about Class B owners generally, most of whom bought a factory van at a dealer and many of whom bought used. Nobody has surveyed people who commission a six-figure custom build, because no such research exists. Papago has something better than research: roughly a hundred and fifty of them, with phone numbers.

What is actually wrong with the avatars today. The constraints and the ranked objections are defensible: they come from documented complaints about custom builders and from Papago's own concept language. The ages, incomes and household descriptions are not. They are inferred from a population that includes people who bought a ten-year-old Roadtrek. One specific suspicion worth testing first: the younger avatar is probably drawn too young, because the under-35 half of Class B ownership is full of used-van buyers who will never write a six-figure cheque.

Phase A

What the filing cabinet already knows

Ten fields, one row per build, every one of them already sitting in a contract, a job file or a delivery log. No customer contact required and no permission needed.

FieldWhere it livesWhat it settles
Age at purchaseContract, registration or finance paperworkSettles whether the barbell split applies to our buyer or only to Class B owners generally.
Home ZIP codeDelivery or billing addressConfirms or kills the East Coast read, and tells search where to weight bids.
Tier and final priceJob fileWhich tier actually sells, against which we assume sells.
Chassis chosenJob fileSprinter, Transit or ProMaster mix, and whether AWD is standard behaviour.
Cash or financedFinance paperworkTests the financing wall. If most paid cash we are losing the financed buyer entirely.
Change order count and valueContractsThe cost of customisation, and the single best predictor of who should have been sold Papago Collection.
First contact to signedCRM or emailThe real sales cycle, which every attribution decision depends on.
Signed to deliveredDelivery logOur actual contract-to-keys number. Decides whether the twelve-week promise is possible.
Lead source, if recordedHubSpotProbably thin. Item 10 of the data request covers how thin.
Referred by an existing ownerSales notesIf referral is large, the whole spend argument changes.
Do this before contacting anybody. Every question answered here is one we do not have to spend a customer's goodwill on. Their attention is the scarcest resource in this project and we get roughly forty minutes of it, once.

Phase B

The survey, ready to build

Eleven questions, about five minutes. Closed where we already know the shape of the answer, open text where we do not. Nothing here duplicates what Phase A pulls from the files, because asking a customer their own address is how you teach them the survey is not worth finishing.

1
Before your Papago, what were you using for trips?
Nothing / hotels · A tent or car camping · A travel trailer or fifth wheel · A factory camper van · A DIY van build · Another custom-built van
Tests the 66% repeat-buyer figure and whether the rental-to-buyer path exists here.
Choose one
2
What was going on in your life that made this the right time to buy?
Leave it completely open. Offer no examples.
The trigger. Every prompt we supply is an answer we will get back and mistake for a finding.
Open text
3
Which other builders or brands did you seriously consider?
Open text only. Never a list of names to tick.
The whole competitive set, and whether Boho is a rival or a neighbour. A multiple choice here would tell us only that our own guesses are recognisable.
Open text
4
Was there anything that almost stopped you from going ahead?
Open. Resist the urge to offer deposit, timeline and financing as boxes.
Our ranked objections are currently reasoned from other companies' complaints. This is the first time we would hear our own.
Open text
5
How did you first hear about Papago?
Google · Instagram · Facebook · YouTube · A forum · A friend or another owner · A show or event · Saw a van somewhere · Other
First touch, which no analytics we own currently captures.
Choose one, plus other
6
Roughly how long from first hearing about us to getting in touch?
Under a month · 1–3 months · 3–6 months · 6–12 months · Over a year
The real research window, which sets the attribution window and the nurture cadence.
Choose one
7
Who else was involved in deciding?
Just me · Spouse or partner · Adult children · A financial adviser or accountant · Someone else
Whether we are marketing to one person or two, and whether the second has different fears.
Choose all
8
Roughly how many nights a year do you use it?
Under 10 · 10–20 · 21–40 · 41–90 · Over 90 · We live in it
Tests the 21-day figure on our buyer rather than on Class B owners generally.
Choose one
9
If a friend asked why you chose Papago over the alternatives, what would you tell them?
Open, and give it a big box.
This is the copy. Not what we think our advantage is, but the sentence an owner actually says out loud. Everything in the ad account should eventually sound like these answers.
Open text
10
What would you change, about the van or about the process?
Two boxes, labelled separately, or the product answer swallows the process answer.
Product roadmap and where the build experience hurts.
Open text
11
Would you be willing to talk for twenty minutes on the phone?
Yes, happy to · Maybe, email me · No thanks
This is what turns the survey into the recruitment tool for the calls. It is the reason survey-first works.
Yes / no, plus contact
The one thing that would wreck this survey. Turning questions 3, 4 or 9 into multiple choice. It is tempting, because tick boxes are easier to analyse and SurveyMonkey will nudge you toward them. But the options would come from the avatars we are trying to test, so the results would confirm our own guesses and look like evidence. If we list "deposit size, timeline, financing" as the reasons people hesitated, we will learn that people hesitated for those reasons. Leave them open, read the answers, and let the actual words be the finding.
Sending it. From a person with a name, not an info@ address. Subject line about the next generation of Papago builds rather than about feedback. One reminder a week later to non-responders, then stop. Expect a strong response rate, because these are people who spent six figures on something they chose carefully and mostly love, and being asked is itself the incentive. Do not put a prize draw on it: it changes who answers.

Phase C

The call guide

Twelve questions for the people who ticked yes on the survey. Twenty minutes, recorded with permission. Going second means most of these become follow-ups: chase what they actually wrote rather than asking cold.

01
“Take me back to before you started looking. What was going on in your life?”
Listen for: The trigger. Retirement date, job going remote, a diagnosis, a house sale, kids leaving. Do not prompt with a list, let them tell it.
Tests  Whether our three constraints are real or invented.
02
“What were you doing for trips before the van?”
Listen for: Rented a van, owned a trailer, a DIY build, a factory Class B, or nothing at all.
Tests  The 66% repeat-buyer figure, and whether the rental-to-buyer path exists here the way it does at Boho.
03
“When you started looking, who else did you seriously consider?”
Listen for: Names. Then why they did not go with them. Do not suggest names first.
Tests  The entire competitive set. This is the most valuable question on the page.
04
“What nearly stopped you from signing?”
Listen for: Deposit size, timeline, financing, a spouse, resale, whether we would still exist.
Tests  Our ranked objections, which are currently reasoned from other companies' complaints rather than our own customers.
05
“How long between first hearing about us and getting in touch?”
Listen for: Weeks or months. Then what finally made them pick up the phone.
Tests  The real research window, which decides the attribution window and the nurture cadence.
06
“How did you first come across Papago?”
Listen for: Let them answer before offering options. Then probe: what else did you see or read before you contacted us?
Tests  First touch, which no analytics we own is currently capturing.
07
“Who else was involved in the decision?”
Listen for: Spouse, partner, adult children, an accountant. Who had a veto.
Tests  Whether we are marketing to one person or two, and whether the second person has different fears.
08
“What did you spend the most time agonising over?”
Listen for: Layout, price, timing, or a single component. Where the deliberation actually went.
Tests  Whether customisation is the draw we think it is, or a burden they would have traded away.
09
“Roughly how many nights a year do you actually use it?”
Listen for: The number, and their reaction to being asked.
Tests  The 21-day figure, and whether the emotional-purchase framing holds for our buyer.
10
“What would you change about the van, and about the process?”
Listen for: Two separate answers. Do not let the product answer stand in for the process answer.
Tests  Product roadmap, and where the build experience actually hurts.
11
“Have you recommended us to anyone? What did you tell them?”
Listen for: Their words, verbatim. This is the copy.
Tests  The referral engine, and the only positioning language that has ever actually worked.
12
“Is there anything I should have asked and did not?”
Listen for: Silence is fine. Wait it out. This question produces the finding you did not design for.
Tests  Everything we have not thought of.
On the calls, question 03 is the one that pays for the project. The survey asks who else they considered. The call asks why they did not go with them, which is the half that cannot be answered in a text box. It settles the competitive set, tells us whether Boho is a genuine rival or a neighbour, and produces the only positioning language ever proven to work on this buyer, which is the words they used themselves. Never name a competitor first. The moment we supply a name we stop learning anything.

How it runs

Four phases, eight weeks

Phase A

Mine the records first

Weeks 1–2
Free

Everything in the table above comes out of files Papago already holds. No customer is contacted.

Never ask a customer something the filing cabinet already knows. It wastes the single most valuable resource in this project, which is their goodwill and about forty minutes of their attention.

OutputA spreadsheet, one row per build, every field above. Half the avatar questions answered before anyone picks up a phone.

Phase B

Survey everyone

Weeks 2–4
About $40 a month for SurveyMonkey

Eleven questions, five minutes, sent to every past customer. Closed questions for the facts, open text for anything we do not already know the shape of. The last question asks who is willing to talk on the phone.

Fast, cheap, and it does not need relationships we have not built yet. It also recruits the interviews, so nobody has to cold-call a stranger who bought a van three years ago.

OutputBreadth across the whole customer base, and a list of people who have already said yes to a call.

Phase C

Phone the ones who opted in

Weeks 5–7
Time, or roughly $3,000 outsourced

Twenty minutes with ten to twelve people who ticked yes, chosen to spread across tiers, ages and geographies, and deliberately including anyone whose survey answers were unhappy.

The survey tells us how often something is true. The calls tell us why. Going second means every question can chase something a real customer actually wrote rather than something we guessed.

OutputThe reasoning behind the patterns, in the customer's own words, which is where the copy comes from.

Phase D

Rewrite the avatars

Week 8
Free

Replace every inferred figure on the Target Audience page with a measured one, and delete any avatar the data does not support.

The point of the project. Be genuinely willing to find that there are two avatars, or four, or that the constraint framing is wrong.

OutputA Target Audience page built on Papago's customers rather than on published research about a different population.

Nobody tells the person who sold them the van that the build ran late. Who asks decides what you hear.

On in-house versus outsourced

The decision

In-house or outsourced

The real variable is not cost. It is whether the person asking is someone the customer will be honest with.

My recommendation: I do the first ten

  • New is an advantage hereI did not sell them the van and I did not build it. There is nothing to defend, which is exactly why people will tell me the build ran late or the communication went quiet.
  • It is the fastest onboarding availableTen conversations with real buyers teaches more about this business in two weeks than any amount of reading, and it happens to be the thing I most need to learn.
  • The findings survive the handoffA contractor gives you a report. Doing them myself means the language, the hesitations and the throwaway lines go straight into the copy.
  • It costs nothing but calendarTen interviews is about fifteen hours including scheduling and notes.

When to outsource instead

  • If we need more than twenty interviewsPast that it stops being onboarding and becomes a job. A freelance researcher runs roughly $2,500 to $3,500 for fifteen interviews including synthesis.
  • If we specifically want the unhappy onesA truly neutral third party gets more from a customer who is still annoyed. Worth paying for if the cancellation number turns out to be material.
  • What must not happen either wayThe salesperson who closed the deal should not conduct the interview. Not because anyone is dishonest, but because no customer tells the person they liked that the experience was poor.
  • The survey can be outsourced regardlessPhase C is mechanical once the questions exist. That is the part to hand off, not the listening.

Practical

Getting people to say yes

How to ask

  • Lead with the next van, not with feedback"We are designing the next generation of Papago builds and we want the people who already own one to shape it." True, flattering, and far more interesting than a satisfaction survey.
  • Be specific about the timeForty minutes, on the phone, at a time that suits them. Vagueness is what kills response rates.
  • Come from a person, not the companyFrom the new marketing manager, signed with a name, not from an info@ address.
  • Expect a good response rateThese are people who spent six figures on something they chose carefully and mostly love. Being asked their opinion is the incentive. Do not over-engineer a reward.

Things that would ruin it

  • Making it feel like a sales callNo upsell, no service reminder, no referral ask inside the interview. Ask for the referral in a separate email a week later if at all.
  • Only calling the happy onesThe most useful conversations will be with people who were frustrated. Deliberately include cancellations and anyone who left a middling review.
  • Leading the witnessNever name a competitor, never suggest a trigger, never offer a list. The moment we supply the vocabulary we stop learning anything.
  • Recording without askingAsk at the start, plainly, and accept no. Arizona permits one-party consent but several of these customers are on the East Coast, where some states require both parties to agree.
What this project is actually worth. Every number on the target audience page, every creative territory aimed at an avatar, and the entire argument for who Papago Collection is for currently rests on inference. Nine weeks and a few thousand dollars replaces all of it with description. It is also the cheapest way to find out we are wrong, which is considerably better value than discovering it after a year of spend aimed at a person who does not exist.