Welcome to Mingle

We specialise in helping businesses build EMPATHY with the humans they create products and services for. We do this through what is often called customer or consumer closeness.

What do we mean by consumer closeness? It’s any activity that gets your employees away from their desks and interacting directly with their customers, consumers or patients. Ideally physically, but in an increasingly connected world, this can also be virtual. No one-way mirrors, no relying on moderators. We put the power and responsibility for consumer interaction in your hands.

WHY? Because this type of interaction fuels CURIOSITY and drives cognitive EMPATHY for your consumers which is proven to lead to better, more consumer centric decision making.

We design experiences to suit your needs – it could be a one-off event to get your employees out and engaging with their customers face-to-face or a longer term programme that aims to embed a culture of customer closeness in the heart of your organisation through both events and capability development.

You can meet customers in their homes, in store, during consumption, during purchase… the possibilities are only limited by our imaginations.

Whatever you do, get out there and Mingle, be more connected.

What we do?

We work with businesses in a variety of ways, broadly speaking our mingling takes one of the following forms:

One-off events designed to get an organisation out and mingling with their customers. This could be as part of a conference, a ‘back-to-the-floor’ activity for senior leaders or as a kick off to an important project.

A longer term programme made up of ongoing activities to develop a culture of customer-centric in an organisation. Including developing the right tools to be able to connect with customers regularly, the skills and behaviours to embed and act on what you experience and the knowledge you build.

Often underpins events and culture programs. Short, engaging, interactive training events to give employees the right skills to get the most out of their mingling. From interviewing skills to discussion guide development and effective capture of observations.

Why it's important?

The science bit!

Many businesses are awash with data but employees still lack real empathy with their customers. And without customer empathy it’s far harder to make the right customer-centric decisions.

By ‘empathy’ we mean the ability to truly understand someone else’s world and their behaviours even though that world is completely different to yours. It’s the type of knowledge that comes from seeing things through other’s eyes and understanding in a way that a spreadsheet can’t.

Most market research relies on affective empathy – we have to absorb an understanding of our customers through reading a research report or observing discussions through a one-way focus group mirror.

It’s a scientific fact that what’s called cognitive empathy, the understanding we gain from actually doing/interacting directly ourselves, is far more effective at influencing our decision making. It also has a longer lasting affect.

And if that’s all a bit theoretical for you, a recent Harvard Business Review study laid out a pretty compelling fact: “Your company is 50% more likely to over perform if it incorporates direct employee-customer connection at multiple stages of the planning process”*

In short – get out and Mingle and you’ll be even more effective at your job!

*HBR 2016, “Building an insight engine”

How we work

We could argue that simply getting out there and connecting with your customers is going to have a positive impact on your business but we’re conscious that the investments you make (both time and money) need to deliver a tangible impact.

That’s where our 4C’s process comes in. Whether it’s a small one-off event or a longer term programme, we use it as the backbone to our planning and deliverables to you.

Case studies

A Mingle connection project can take many forms from getting into consumers homes, connecting virtually via a video or message platform or working in a customer’s business. It can be a one-off ‘event’ or a longer term program that puts customer connection at the heart of your business.

Here’s some food for thought based some recent projects we’ve run.

Who we are

The team behind Mingle have led insight generation within a number of global organisations. Unlike your typical research agency or brand consultancy we have lived the challenge of getting businesses to be more customer centric from within.

Morgan Arnell

28 years experience leading insight teams in global companies such as P&G, Boots, Allied Domecq and Kimberly-Clark.

Morgan also founded IO Consulting, a business that enable companies such as eBay, BP and Kenwood to access insight capability in a highly flexible way.  Most recently he also put his insight skills (and love for beer) into the creation of the B_Corp certified, food waste fighting beer brand, Crumbs Brewing

Morgan’s Best Connection Experience:

“As a 20 something research manager at P&G I will never forget getting a rather stern telling off from a laundry detergent consumer in Newcastle when I innocently asked why colours and whites needed to be separated. She loved the opportunity to demonstrate her know how in a category many assume is ‘low engagement’”

Craig Scott

Craig sadly passed away in early 2025 but his passion still drives what we do at Mingle.

30 years experience working in insight teams for global companies such as Kimberly-Clark and Johnson & Johnson as well as Accenture owned capability company Brand Learning. Craig was also the European Head of Research for Pfizer introducing patient-centric programmes inspired by his consumer background.

Craig’s Best Connection Experience:

“Easy. Taking the team out to meet patients who suffered from severe osteo and rheumatoid arthritis.  They thought they knew it all, had read every medical paper, but nothing prepared them for what they learned meeting patients and seeing their struggles with their own eyes.”

Get In Touch

Let’s mingle

Morgan Arnell
Director
m: +44 (0)7801 045864
e: morgan@mingleconnections.com

Get in touch!