What is important for your customer, what preferences does he have? If you act on them customer satisfaction will follow. Here are some hints how you can quite easily find them out.

1. Firsthand Account
The traders and the vendors are in close contact with the clients every day. Benefit from the contact establishing reporting models. So, the salesmen are able to give their firsthand account. E.g. in periodical meetings.

2. The Chance of Criticism
Nominate a person tending to the complaints’ processing. The person registering the complaints reports the management on the most important results. And don’t forget last week’s No. 5: negative results are to be corrected consequently and immediately. If not, you are wasting the money for this person.
Another possibility ist to read the forums and web communities diskussing your products. Analize the results and draw the conclusions from the clients`opinions. 

 3. Self Made
Connect the next giveaway promotion (e.g. during a trade fair) to a short questionnaire. This connenction guarantees a high rate of return. In the questionnaire can be asked about the common satisfaction with a product/service:

1. How much content with the delivery service are you? (Scale 1= very content up to 6= very discontented)
2. Do you have proposals how we could improve our product?

Accessory sex, age, habitation etc. questions help sorting the answers according to the sociodemographic data afterwords.

4. Guide Michelin
How does the Guide Michelin come to know the best reataurants? The food critics tell it. Why shouldn’t you manage it in a similar manner? Most of the products are bought from the traders. There, the product’s qualitiy not only depends on the product itself but also on the vendor’s friendliness, his Know-how, the payment options etc.. Nominate a colleague doing the so-to-say mystery shopping. Thus, your company can see itself with the clients’ eyes. The observations ought to be fixed in written form for the management. Of course, you also make an effort to to be admitted in the "Guide Michelin".

5. Networking
Use your website for the customer loyalty’s buildup and its upgrading. Install a communitiy area customer can use to communicate.
In Fred Reichheld’s book "The Ultimate Question" you can read: How likely is ist that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague? This question helps you cottoning to the customer preferences, too.

Source: http://www.markt-studie.de/studien/Kundenzufriedenheit.php
Author: Mag. Holger Sicking 

It takes a lot more to find a new customer than keep one. So, it is important to know the customers’ requirements and expectations. Nearly every company has already comissioned customer satisfaction studies. But, how significant was the study, did you identify the measure of satisfaction? Here some thoughts of this topic.

1. The Customer Group
Do you know Pareto’s Law? In a company, 20% of the customers cause 80% of the sales volume. So it is of vital importance to satisfy these select customers. Of course, at least a big respondents’ percentage should come from the 20%-group. In this respect, the respondents of a customer satisfaction study may be a representative population cross-section being still misleading for your company.

2. The Questions
A close customer relationship is composed of several components, e.g. identification with the brand, the purchase, the pricing, the sympathy for the company. It is concerned with emotions, not only with defined product, service or employee features. Normally, satisfaction surveys query concrete transactions and features: how important are the following product characteristics for you? How much content have you been with the employees’ friendliness? These questions are only one part of the customer relation.

3. The Responses
Do you know now the customers’ requirements? Market research institutions often enlarge the surveys underlining the customer satisfaction studies’ importance. They have created Customer Satisfaction Index, Customer Satisfaction Tool, Customer Loyalty Index, etc., etc.. Instead of direct feedback the analyses are getting more and more complex until the results are scientifically knotty. It is suspicious whether the study still benefits a marketing manager or an executive director.

4. The Recommendations
Satisfaction surveys creating a connection to the real customers’ behaviour are necessary to correct the points of criticism. After all, you want to select fascinated and disappointed customers. The first group acts as a multiplier for your company (word of mouth recommodation), the disappointed customers are a real handicap for your corporate success. Unfortunately, many customer satisfaction studies scanning a large number of product or service features make nevertheless woolly recommendations. Assuming that you have five service attributes to choose from. The results are between 2,3 up to 3,2 (per se, a singular study has a bigger uncertainty scope). From what number the customers are satisfied? Is the differenz between 2,3 and 3,2 as big enough as to speak about "satisfied" and "less satisfied" customers? For that, customer satisfaction studies should be conducted regularly. Then conclusions can be drawn from the studies.

5. The Consequences
A company needs satisfied customers for growing sales volume. For that, negative results are to be corrected consequently and immediately. The customer satisfaction ascertainment is no compulsory task consuming the annual budget.

6. The Comparability of the Studies
Worldwide, a company conducts a customer satisfaction survey. All in all three different institutions are engaged. Three different questionaires with five differing scales (school marks up to five for Austria, up to six for Germany, index scales from 1 to 100, and so on) How to find in which country the best work is done for customer satisfaction? In the following year the institution is changed because of bad experiences. New questions with new Scales.

7. The Profit from the Studies
Assuming that you conduct regularly satisfaction surveys being comparable among themselves: relate the results to your corporate success, e.g. the sales volume per client. If there is no correlation perhaps because of the following reasons: a) May be there is no correlation. Bain and Company could not detect direct correlations in several studies. b) Errors in survey, problems with the sample, the interview, the questionnaire etc. came up c) The results didn’t cause concrete measures. Variations in satisfaction were fortuitous. What point would you choose? A, b or c?

Next week we present some hints to determine customer satisfaction in a short time.

Source: http://www.markt-studie.de/studien/Kundenzufriedenheit.php
Author: Mag. Holger Sicking 

Citation: A prosperous enterprise has the same clients for three years.(Chinese lore)

Market Research, especially market share surveys needs reliable suppliers. But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? If you are not familiar with the market (e.g. estimate your competitors’ sales volume) you will hardly uncover dubious market surveys. Therefore, here are some helpful hints for you.

1. Professional Experience
Bringing out sales figures is a sensitive matter für every company. Hence, a market research institut needs time to build so much confidence that the companies release sales figures. Address yourself to a market research institution with professional experience enjoying a good reputation in your line of business. In this case, the quality criterion professional experience is more important than know-how.

2. Continuous Feedback
A reliable market research institution having irregularities (e.g. in data collection) informes its clients. Though a following survey termination and alternative questioning modes may be possible, this alternitive is still better than a survey without significance. 

3. Different Data Origins
The market research institution should have several data origins. For instance, if producers are interviewed then also suppliers and traders. A questioning’s check up should be a matter of course (keyword: combination of methods). Perhaps a plausibility check shows that a company being top 5 is barely listed with the traders.

4. List of References 
Make declare the sources. In case of doubt, you are able to check them.

 5. Average Prices
Compare the relation between value and volume. The subsequent average price should be realistic and coherent. Knowing the market’s product prices it is normally easier for the client to compare the average prices.

6. A Fact is no Estimation
Be insistent that estimated data are declared as estimated data.

7. Prognoses
Based on several influencing factors prognoses are generated. Make them be listed and illustrated. Make sure that the prognosis method is explicated ( time series analysis up to multiple regressions of several models).

 Source: http://www.markt-studie.de/studien/qualitaet_mafo.php
Author: Mag. Holger Sicking 

Citation: Prognoses is a difficult thing. Espesially for the future. (Mark Twain)

The 42nd Congress of the German Market Research Industry 2007 has just closed the gates. So we use this opportunity directing our focus on the market research this week.

Suppose you commissioned a market research institution to conduct a survey, how can you distinguish between reliable and unreliable suppliers? Here is the checklist.

 1. References
Does the market research institution comply with universally valid guidelines? The ESOMAR (World Association of Opinion and Marketing Research Professionals) membership is an important evidence. Each member has signed the ESOMAR code of market and social research practice.

2. Contact
Especially commissioning a large survey contact your contact persons. Visit the institution and get acquainted with its office and working methods. Finally, it is your investment.

3. Prices
Surveys are labor-intensiv and so cost-intensive. For that, look out for tremendous samples being offered at favourable prices. Compare several offers. Particular attention should be paid to the methodical approach of your remit.

4. Working Methods
The institution has the completed questionnaire already at its fingertips? It is more effective to approach a problem by considering several sides. Up to now, a combination of qualitative and quantiative market research has proved its effectiveness. A preliminary survey determines motives, problems and underlying thought structures. The following survey proves the hypotheses being formulated by the qualitative research or disapproves of them.

5. Briefing
A reliable market research institution sets a high value on a briefing defining issues and working methods. So, any confusion can be cleared up.

6. Pretests
Before the proper survey pretests should be conducted. Here, the respondents test the questionnaire for understanding and efficiency. If comprehension problems came up the questionnaire could be modified before the survey’s start.

 7. Sample Size
What is the size of the sample and what compound has it? The answers are important for your survey’s representativeness. So, always look out for the sample size of the visualised data or statistical interpretations.

8. Raw Data
The institution should send the raw data (SPSS-format). So you can randomly check the data and work out further analyses.

Conclusion: Reliable market research institutions and their clients have got the same issue: significant, top qualitiy surveys at conformable prices.

Source: http://www.markt-studie.de/studien/qualitaet_mafo.php
Author: Mag. Holger Sicking  

Citation: Sometimes it is easier to research the beings of the United Kingdom, their activities and faineances than the beings of the animal kingdom. (based on Stefan Wittlin)

Having already introduced the Conjoint Analysis as an important pricing tool in the latest article we present some practical examples this week.

The Schedule

• The caracteristics are determined.
• The questionnaire’s programming: in the general part buying behaviour, brand awareness and socio-demographic data
• The survey (online or computer-aided, with a representative sample size)
• The collected data are analysed by a specific statistic software.
• Simulation tool’s programming
• By means of the tool price-demand funktions can be calculated, several optimisation simulations are conducted, data are visualised.

The simulation tool is to be illustrated on hand of LCD TVs. Of course, the results are fictitious. The simulation tool works with excel. With the aid of the table several parametres are queried. So, a customer’s behaviour profile can be drawed up. Reducing the TV’s price in the simulation table companies (e.g. Sony) could watch the customers’s response to the price reduction.

Further questions could be: What abolut the disposition to buy after the price reduction? How many more customers would buy the product after the price reduction? From what competed brands Sony would entice customers away?

 The product characteristics are variable in the table, as to see in the graphic. Each variation of an product characteristic has an effect on its individual result. The end result is the so-called "Share of Choice", to see in the lowest column, which means the percentage of consuments buying the product with these characteristics.

Example: 7,2% of the consuments would buy the specified (1. row) Sony LCD-TV with 66cm screen size at a price of 999,- €. In comparison to that only 5 % would buy the Medion LCD-TV (7. row) though it is bigger an has a better contrast ratio. 52 % of the consuments would buy none of the (in the tool) presented products. E.g. it is now possible watching the customers’ behaviour after a price reduction. In this case, the Sony LCD-TV declines to 899,- €.

 Of course, it makes sense simulating a realistic competition and price environment. E.g. to compare all products being offered in a typical media market with its real prices. in the table, different product prices are simulated and the customer reactions are analysed. The result is a price-demand function being illustrated for a Sony LCD TV.

 As also mentioned last week, product variations being not yet on the market (e.g. different designs) can be simulated. Or, different buying behaviour depending on the sex. As a consequence, sales promotion, price, product and distribution policy could be modulated more specificly. The product developement gets important results for the following steps, too.

If I know that customer are willing to spend 120 € more for the first design than for the design No. 4 I can include the results in the product development. In a additional analysis I will come to know how important are the single product characteristics. On what criteria customers are judging mainly? What criteria are less important?

Source: http://www.markt-studie.de/studien/Preisanalysen.php
 Author: Mag. Holger Sicking 

Conclusion: Using these analysis data a company will get a tremendous advantage in knowledge and so in competition