Customer surveys are broken and some ideas for fixing them using the lean startup methodology
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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:
You can also follow me @KovalevRachel
And check out more content like this on my blog at
http://followusdigital.com/
Thank You!