Editor's Note

MR Perspectives is a twice-monthly newsletter that provides perspectives on market research topics of interest, best practices tips, emerging trends, quick case studies, and other useful information. 

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February 19-20, 2004 New York City 
Project Directors Training Conference 

This CASRO training program addresses study design, questionnaire design, sampling, and report writing for project directors and marketing analysts who have less than two years of experience in research. Participants will break down into smaller groups on Day 2 to complete a hypothetical case study and facilitate valuable interaction.

Feb. 25-27,  Miami, FL
Linkage Strategies For Integrating Customer Feedback

The Institute for International Research -- USA is sponsoring a seminar for the customer research professional about how to improve the integration of customer knowledge with financial, operational, brand and customer relation data. The conference is at the Wyndham Grand Bay in Coconut Grove.

Thrashers Tickets Giveaway

Polaris clients at BellSouth and NOVA Information Systems Inc. attended recent Atlanta Thrashers games with tickets provided by Polaris during the company's most recent ticket giveaway. Polaris President Jan Carlson has held season tickets since the Thrashers' inaugural season of 1999-2000. Clients and prospects interested in attending an Atlanta home game should contact Polaris Director of Sales and Marketing Cameron Cramer.

Improving Your Research ROI 

Here is a Top Ten list of ways to improve the return on your market research investment:

1.  Invest your time and money wisely. First define what information you need and the value of that information as specifically as possible. Assess your time and capabilities, and consider the pros & cons of outsourcing.

2.  Know your internal corporate audience. Make absolutely sure your research results get into the hands of front-line managers who can make the most difference. Take time in the planning phase to secure the best mode of communicating results. If managers are in multiple layers or geographically spread-out, consider secured online reporting for more effective information distribution.

3.  Bring the voice of the customer into your organization. Collect and listen to the voice of the customer by strategically probing respondents and collecting text or audio open-end comments. Share the voice of the customer with as many people as possible via email action reports or electronically available files (.wav).

4.  Organize company meetings and conference calls to gather employee and management feedback, obtain research program buy-in, and help management own the program. Have your internal/external market research partners present with you at regular intervals.

5.  For ongoing or multi-year tracking programs, make sure your program stays fresh by changing sections of your survey to meet new needs or explore new issues. Collect the relevant customer information and provide those results promptly to management.

6.  Provide a feedback loop to and from your managers. Then put into place a plan to resolve complaints or implement good suggestions.

7.  Take time to develop a sampling plan that makes the most strategic sense. This may include sampling along less traditional lines (e.g., profitable vs. non-profitable, declining accounts vs. thriving accounts, new markets vs. established markets).

8.  Promote accountability. Drill down to the manager, division or team responsible for the specific customer relationship.

9.  Use analytics to figure out key issues that drive customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction.

10. Enjoy your work and align yourself with internal proponents that will help champion the research results and drive change.

Common Errors For Small Businesses

• Not leveraging secondary research. Understand the difference between primary and secondary research and fully leverage your secondary research before moving onto primary research.
  

• Inaccurate questionnaires. Improper survey instrument design is the most common of all small business mistakes. The best survey brings in unknown and needed information for decision-making purposes. The worst leads to strategic decisions based on inaccurate or incorrect information.
  

• Incomplete questionnaire. Small businesses projects we revise often miss questioning on key strategic areas, either because they were not thought of or because the survey designer did not know particular survey capabilities were available to them (i.e., question type, online reporting). Discuss your project with as many leaders as possible for ideas and understand what survey tools are available to you!
  

• Surveying the wrong people. To survey only potential customers of a new product, and not talk with existing customers, can be a mistake. Make sure you are surveying the right group of people.
  

• Missing key groups. If you are trying to establish a 360 degree view of customer satisfaction and loyalty, don't just survey existing customers, consider the entire lifecycle -- new customers, current customers and lost customers.

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