Best Practices
Wanted: A Fresh, Competitive Edge
Talking to competitors’ customers is a great form of market research and it is surprisingly feasible in many markets.
May 1, 2009
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Talking to competitors’ customers is a great form of market research and it is surprisingly feasible in many markets.
Have you found yourself needing to forecast a new product’s adoption potential? Sales volume by region for the next 3 years? How about the potential upside of a new distribution
Do you need a little help identifying places where potential savings may exist in your market research budget? If so, here are some great questions to ask.
The day I beat my data to death: I poked it, pulled it, pummeled it. I sliced, slashed and skewered it. I tore it up into a thousand pieces and glued it back together into a Frankenstein mess. I abandoned it. I restarted from scratch. Seven times. I created 43 new variables, each of them a total waste. It wasn’t analysis any more; it was an act of violence.
Has your market research budget been cut? If so, one of the programs most often impacted is Customer Satisfaction tracking. For firms accustomed to tracking on a continuous or quarterly basis, cutting back on this program is often a necessary, though unfortunate, reality.
Q: Our market research budget has been slashed. The greatest impact is on our Customer Satisfaction tracker, which we had to reduce from once a quarter, to once a year.