Question

Name and explain three serious problems associated with consumer interviews or surveys. Give an example of each one.

Answer 1

Customer surveys can be powerful tools when used in the correct context, and when rigorously designed from the outset. They enable businesses to have a window in the minds of their customers, create opportunities for improved products and services and uncover new opportunities.

Similarly, surveys can be weak data collectors and potentially misleading when applied or put together poorly in inappropriate situations.

There are three types of issue where company surveys are minimal ways of collecting useful data:

1. Self-reporting of the reasons behind past actions- Consumers don't lie, but their minds tend to place order and process around decisions where there were different purpose and decision drivers – and asking similar questions about surveys can lead to bad data and incorrect interpretations. In this case, better results will come from non-traditional qualitative analysis.

2. To forecast future behaviour- Surveys are also normally quite poor in predicting future behaviour. That has more to do with survey methodology and design than with the survey being carried out by the client. For example, if we think about pricing, asking a consumer to choose one price from three choices available for a new product would usually lead the survey taker to choose the lowest price. Conjoint analysis is considered a better survey technique for dealing with pricing, which brings the survey taker through a series of trade-off decisions where prices are related to certain value elements such as product features or quality rates. Through a survey, customers can make smart decisions about money only in context.

3. Determine why and how the clients do what they do- Surveys are good at four of the five W's. Who, what, when and where? Such questions are usually fact-based, quantifiable or at least mutually exclusive, and on the part of the survey taker to a great degree free from judgment. 'Why' and 'how' are the opposite – they require thought, so they are difficult to place around numbers. Strong 'how' and 'why' data is difficult to obtain via survey. Here's a practical constraint. It is very tricky even though some qualitative research has been done in advance to inform the survey design to adequately list the reasons and answer the 'how' and 'why' questions options.