Posts Tagged ‘insight’

The Next Generation Wants to Ask You…

Thursday, May 9th, 2013

I rarely miss the world of academia after having jumped ship twelve years ago, but one thing I always appreciated was that teaching involved distilling ideas down to their simplest and most essential form.  Students often led the way for me, asking questions that forced me to clarify, deepen, and condense.  So it was again in Professor Alan Malter’s market research class for MBA students last month at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

My annual task is to offer a business-side view of market research.  But this year I asked students to imagine that you, dear readers—Versta Research’s valued clients—were standing in front of them instead of me.  What would they want to ask you about your work and about client-side research?

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The “Push-for-Story” Approach to Research

Thursday, October 25th, 2012

Last week when we took Google Surveys for a test drive, we did not mention one disturbing aspect of their tool.  It does not affect how you would use the tool, but it is worth talking about because Google unfortunately perpetuates the false notion that technology and tools can generate insights at the mere click of a button.  “Push this button, and voilà, your story!  Click this tab for actionable insights!”

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Dilbert’s Actionable Deliverables

Thursday, October 4th, 2012

If you ever feel like strangling the next research consultant who promises to deliver “actionable insights” then you can join me and the Dilbert team in making fun of it instead.  Not only is it a horrid phrase, but it is unfortunately meaningless now that every research firm claims to be different from others by virtue of their actionable insights, magically produced by actionable insight dashboards, actionable insight survey tools, or special actionable insight “methodologies.”

With so much actionable insight around, why is so much research ignored?  (more…)

60 Million Surveys Is Too Many

Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

How big of a sample size do you really need? A recent article in the New York Times cited the following statistics:

  • A small Voice of the Customer (VoC) research company called Mindshare Technologies collects satisfaction data from 175,000 respondents every day. That’s 60 million in a year.
  • ForeSee, a small customer experience analytics firm fielded 15 million surveys in 2011.

These numbers are believable. I get a pop-up survey from ForeSee at least two or three times a week.

And it is absurd. Granted, these companies (and hundreds of other similar firms) are collecting surveys for multiple clients. But almost certainly, nobody needs to collect that much survey data from that many survey respondents. Why not? (more…)

Do You Have a “Metrics” Fetish?

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

If there is a downside to the success of research in helping organizations make smarter decisions, it is the belief among some business colleagues that research is needed all the time, everywhere, and for everything.  It is manifest in an obsessive focus on dashboards, KPIs, analytics, customer satisfaction surveys, pop-up website surveys, net promoter scores, and one of our personal favorites (not really!), metrics.

“Metrics” is the buzzword for measures or measurements.  And the problem with focusing so much on measurement is that we lose sight of what we are measuring.  We were reminded of this in a recent New York Times essay by Robert Crease, a professor of philosophy at Stony Brook University.  Crease argues that in obsessively focusing on measurement: (more…)

42 Smart Applications of Marketing Research

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

We recently received and reviewed an excellent book summarizing practical findings from academic marketing research.  It is called Consumer Insights: Findings from Behavioral Research. It is published by the Marketing Science Institute and we highly recommend it.  Why is it so good and useful for corporate researchers and marketers?

  • It provides a quick overview of what we know in various areas of marketing
  • It is organized into 42 useful topics, most of which are relevant to nearly all marketers
  • Each topic provides universal findings based on research from hundreds of studies, not just one or two
  • Each topic/chapter is short and to the point (just two or three pages)
  • Each topic outlines insights, the evidence base, and managerial implications

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The One Question You Need on Your Survey

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Friends often solicit from me quick advice about conducting do-it-yourself customer satisfaction surveys.  What questions should they ask?  How many questions should they ask?  What measures and scales should they use?  And, of course, shouldn’t they be using NPS (Net Promoter Score) like everyone else?

I tell them that, by far, the most useful question they can ask is an open ended question that would be something like this: (more…)

Nielsen’s Legacy: Tons of Data

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

Earlier this month Arthur C. Nielsen, Jr. died.  He left behind a giant and reputable market research company and a brand name recognized throughout the world.  The A.C. Nielsen company was started by his father and in its early years tracked the sales of goods through grocery and drug stores.  The company then moved into media tracking and became the authoritative source for measuring audience size and demographics.  Nearly every company with an advertising budget continues to rely on Nielsen data to determine where to advertise and how much to spend.

Nielsen’s legacy is that he demonstrated the value of collecting and tracking data, and lots of it.  Every item we purchase is now logged, counted, and tracked.  Every television and radio show is tracked for how many viewers it has and in what markets they live.  And of course everything we do on the Internet is recorded and tracked.  Even our bodily locations are tracked via GPS or cell phone signals.  Most market research firms today generate the bulk of their revenue simply by collecting, tracking, tabulating, and reporting data.

This important legacy has left us with tons of data, growing at an exponential rate,  and a monumental challenge of how to synthesize it and move beyond mere tabulation and reporting.  The question is, how do we meet that challenge and take Nielsen’s legacy to the next frontier?  In our view, it will involve two key efforts:

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Using Avatars & Robots for Survey Research

Thursday, September 22nd, 2011

Two researchers at the U.S. Census Bureau recently outlined an emerging innovation in survey research that could reverse the trend towards passive, boring, self-administered surveys that characterizes much online research.  The idea is to use internet avatars in real-time interviewing with survey respondents.

Beyond just the heightened interest of having an animated survey, the avatars would be programmed to register and interpret respondents’ verbal answers, facial expressions, and body language through webcams.

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Have a Cookie with Your 401(k)

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Recent social psychological research on consumer decision making suggests that making choices and deciding among alternatives depletes mental energy.  With each choice we make, it gets harder and harder to make the next choice, and our brains start looking for “shortcuts” to make the task easier.  The research, reported this week in The New York Times Magazine, found that when our brains get fatigued from too many choices,

one shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the energy to first think through the consequences. . . .  The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing. Instead of agonizing over decisions, avoid any choice.

But give the brain a hit of glucose (the basic fuel that runs cell functioning), and our willpower and rational decision-making are restored.

The findings are from multiple experiments over the past decade that relied on a variety of scenarios that both academic researchers and marketing people care a great deal about: selecting (and paying for) options on new car purchases, buying computers, shopping in malls or grocery stores, selecting fabrics for customized products, and making critical financial decisions that involve trade-offs between short-term rewards and long-term gains. (more…)