Three times a DIY researcher should seek professional assistance.
November 22, 2010 at 6:12 pm | Posted in loyalty research, marketing research, online surveys, PR best practices, resarch techniques, research methods, Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: DIY, online surveys, surveys
The availability of free and inexpensive online survey tools and the ability to obtain member or customer email lists have turned many marketers, communicators and managers into instant researchers. Many of the survey tools even have examples of questions and encourage the DIY researcher to follow these. So, it’s possible to create and distribute an online survey in minutes.
If you are a DIY researcher but don’t have formal training in statistics or survey design, there are still many times when the results you get will be just fine for your organization. However, there are at least three times when you should consult a research professional.
First, ask a professional for assistance if you or your organization plan to make a decision that could impact your organization by financial loss, reputation damage, or customer loss if you make a wrong decision. For example, let’s take a 80,000 member alumni organization that needs to know whether members would accept a $50 dues increase and under what circumstances and wants to know which services could be discontinued. The decision to be made involves at least $1.6 million. That is when a research expert would be well worth the investment to ensure the survey wording meets the objectives and that the results are accurately interpreted.
Second, seek professional assistance if the subject matter of your survey is controversial and if the outcome could show the status quo is not working. If you expect proponents of either outcome to question the results, then seek help. For example, imagine that business wants to know whether customers would prefer that staff wear easily identifiable clothing such as a short with logo or carry a name tag. Some management team members who say the cost and process to the clothing are out-of-line are likely to find fault with the survey after the fact if it shows customer would prefer the more uniform look. By bringing in a reputable experienced researcher, you can avoid being put on the defensive.
Third, get assistance if the results need any analysis other than simple frequency reporting. For example, a wine store wants to survey its customers about when to hold free wine tastings. They are interested in times that would attract new customers, that could encourage minimal purchases to increase the frequency of their purchases and that would be convenient for frequent purchasers. In this case, the survey would need to be carefully designed to include appropriate demographics questions such as age, distance from store, frequency of purchase, and type of purchase/wine. The data would need to be statistically analyzed and someone who understand how to interpret statistics would determine whether there are differences in preferences for time of day, day of week and other factors.
While there any many times when a DIY online survey will provide an adequate answer, these are three of the many times a professional should be used.
Three easy informal research techniques for communication pros
November 12, 2010 at 1:30 am | Posted in informal research, marketing research, measurement, resarch techniques, research methods | Leave a commentInformal research is useful for getting quick feedback or a general sense of how people respond to an idea, action or product. Here are three brief examples of what a communication/pr/marketing pro can do with no-cost informal research.
Idea one: Talk to your front-line customer service staff, whether they are face-to-face with customers or talk to them on the phone. Let’s say your business reduced the hours it is open and you want to know about customer reaction. Meet with your customer service staff. Collect a short list of the most frequent comments. Then over the next few hours or days have each rep tally the times he or she hears each comment. This will give you a general sense of the feedback; while it is anecdotal, it is useful information.
Idea two: If you have on-site traffic to a bricks-and-mortar business, set up a very short, and I mean VERY short, three question intercept survey. Use a five-point Likert scale to adress your main issue in two questions. Use a third follow-up question to get verbatim comments to explain the answer. Use observation to code demographics such as gender, age range, etc. Have an inexpensive give-away or coupon to encourage customers to take the survey. Keep the contact to less than three minutes. Don’t try to capture people in a group. Space out the interviews over the hours of business. Add the time of each interview to the data. Then you can do some frequencies as well as cross-tabs. If you do this yourself, be sure to be neutral and friendly in approaching people and don’t try to influence their answers. Try to collect at least 50 completed interviews. Code the verbatim comments into major categories and tabulate the frequencies.
Idea three: Carefully write out three questions that having the answers to would help your decision-making. Call your mother or your best friend or someone you trust but who doesn’t work in your company. Test your wording with them. Can they understand the questions. Make the questions open-end such as “When you read the names the new chicken dishes on our menu (Heavenly Harvest Chicken and Cheesy Almond Chicken) what words or images first came to mind?” Have follow-up questions so that you can conduct the interview in three minutes. Call about 12 customers randomly and ask the questions. (We’re assuming you have a customer database. If not, develop one.)
These are three quick ideas you can use. Remember, this type of research is NOT representative of all customers, but is useful in obtaining insight. If you discover major issues you may want to follow-up with a more extensive survey with a larger sample.
Let me know if you try any of these. Tell me how it works for you.
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