CUSTOMER SURVEYS ARE BROKEN – SOME IDEAS FOR FIXING THEMSocial

Mobile

Digital

Marketing

Back in the Day

I ran Market Research Surveys with the big Market Research firms on behalf of my employers when I worked

in Marketing and Training at:

The Surveys Cost A Fortune

But they were fun!

We went to fun cities and sat in cushy facilities to

watch focus groups.

Statisticians and MBA’s interpreted

reams of data for us.

We got gigantic

reports with one or two

useful takeaways.

Then I Entered Start-Up Land

I joined a small start-up Mobile Gaming Company in 2011• Budgets Shrank• Timelines Compressed• Nobody wanted to do

things the ‘right way’• But everybody wanted to

find out what customers were thinking and what they wanted.

My Resources

An MBA from a Program with a Great Statistics

Curriculum

Experience Using Statistics for

Financial Modeling and to Interpret all

of that Market Research I had bought for my Fortune 500 Employers

No Choice

I Improvised A New Approach To Customer Surveys

I heard about something called Lean Startup Methodology

Basically, you do things with very few resources you used to do with a lot. And you are smart about leveraging technology. • I know I am not doing this whole movement service with my interpretation,

but that is what I got out of it. Tweet at me angrily, if you must @KovalevRachel

This inspired me to create a new way to execute Customer Surveys.

My New Way of Surveying –Needs Assessment

Step 1:

• Start with the assumption that the client does not need market research to accomplish their goals.

Step 2:

• Maybe there is research out there that will satisfy their needs. I am just as happy to take on a business research project as I am to do a survey project.

• I am not wedded to getting more survey business for my team.

Step 3:

• Only once we have exhausted all other options do we look at qualitative or quantitative customer surveys.

New Way - Recruitment

• This can be done with a targeted Facebook Ad A/B Test or Google AdWords Test using intelligent targeting and measurement tools.

• Costs are drastically reduced as are timelines. • Clients get the benefit of possibly advertising existing

products through the ‘dummy’ campaigns.

Panels and focus groups are great, but are the most expensive way to go. Sometimes a client just wants to test a concept or a name.

New Way - Recruitment

If I do use a panel, I

shop around.

Most of the big survey companies have contractual relationships with a few big panel companies. I don’t, so I shop around for the best

price.

When I can’t find a panel that has what I want, I do my

own recruiting using unconventional methods like

Twitter and Craigslist recruiting.

It is amazing what free pizza can get you for play testing

in a University town.

Creating The SurveyEvery Question is created imagining the action the client will take based on different ways their

customers answer.

Surveys MUST be focus group tested before going out.

An n of 300 is minimal. Between 500-1500 is ideal for quant studies.

Qualitative Studies vary in size.

Data Analysis and Recommendations

This is where the girls are separated from the ladies.

Descriptive stats are a must.

I use an SQL server to look for demographic and

psychographic clusters. If I don’t find any, I don’t share

any with my client. But I almost always find some.

Telling Clients the Truth

Clients often have a hard time hearing the ugly truth about what customers really think or want. There are often tough messages to convey.

Products and strategies may not look good based on the results of a customer survey. It is the job of a good market researcher to convey all the info - good AND bad in an unbiased and gentle manner.

• Maybe the client created their product for upper income Baby Boomers, but the survey reveals the people who love their products are Tweens. Once they know, they can tweak the product or the strategy immediately and control the bleeding.

Me

If you are interested in learning more about the Survey Business or any of the other Marketing Services I provide at Follow Us Digital LLC, please contact me at:

Rachel.kovalev@gmail.com

You can also follow me @KovalevRachel

And check out more content like this on my blog at

http://followusdigital.com/

Thank You!