ARE YOU ASKING?
EVEN TODAY'S masses of new technology data cannot make market surveys redundant. That simple process of asking questions has been an integral part of business strategy for generations. What do people want, why, and at what cost? What are their favourites? Which products would top the wish-list? Could simple changes bring about breakthrough market share?
Answers to such questions have always been essential for planning and development. Without collecting customer attitudes, decision-making is likely to be blindfolded.
However, technology offers businesses an endless range of alternatives when seeking consumer insight and behaviour patterns. The claim is for accuracy, as opposed to the overriding weakness of survey research – people give the wrong answers, wilfully or unwittingly.
Traditional surveys can be too long. Prospective respondents are not prepared to surrender half an hour or more to answer questions that are of little interest to them.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Pressures on market research, therefore, include keeping it simple and making it more affordable, without damaging usefulness to the bill payers. Surveys are not perfect, but they aren’t being abandoned.
Almost half of all market research carried out remains survey-based. Big business that invests in newer techniques still allocates a budget share to surveying. The head of research at eBay, for instance, was quoted recently as saying: “Between a quarter and one-third of the research budget goes on surveys. We have access to a huge amount of user data, but surveys help us to understand the ‘why’ as well as the ‘what’ out there.”
It is no longer all about clipboards in shopping centres and high streets. Increasingly, surveys are online, optimised for smartphones and tablets. There are fewer questions and explanatory or appealing imagery.
HERE AND NOW
There’s more emphasis on the here and now, rather than recalling the past. Focus is on current and emerging trends, to give a rounded view of today’s customers. Nowadays, surveys look for whatever might be new rather than recording validation of past decisions.
Organisations still have to reach out to people and ask for their feedback. To ask the right people the most relevant questions. The results can be the provision of a rounded picture of what is happening in real time and what might be on the horizon. Ammunition provided should include actionable insights for every department.
Surveys will continue to gather opinions and log attitudes to help provide a much fuller picture of the marketplace. They’ll continue to help define demand: to let clients feel the depth of human reaction.
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