Market Research and Consumer Behavior: A Comprehensive Guide
Study Questions 4.1
A lot of modern market research is about? A. Identifying customer needs and wants B. Developing new products and services
Exploratory research is used to help define the problem.
Data collection is the third step in the market research process.
The most difficult step in the market research process is defining the problem and research objective.
The study of whether redesigning an online site increases the sales to click conversion rate is cause and effect research.
A lot of data-mining of company sales records involves longitudinal research.
Study Questions 4.2
Hanging photos of customer visits in meeting rooms c) Keeps the focus on the customer.
Observational research led IKEA to design d) A whole new line of furniture for its Japanese customers.
Qualitative research is? d) All of the options are true.
Customer visits are very good for generating b) Options and new ideas.
When making a customer visit d) Talk amongst yourselves about what you saw.
One of the major weaknesses of using qualitative research to select new product development options is d) The small sample size.
The second step in focus group research is to choose a moderator.
You should run focus groups until you learn nothing more.
Focus groups can be used to make go-no go decisions when c) The reaction is extreme.
It is not a good idea to have management watch a focus group as they will want to interrupt and add new questions to be asked.
Study Questions 4.3
A probability sample is a sample where all respondents in the population or segment to be studied have a known (non-zero) chance of being chosen to be in the sample from the population/segment being studied.
Typical samples range in size from 400-1000.
A survey of a whole population is called a census.
Online research samples are not representative of the whole population.
If you increase the size of a sample four times you double the precision.
A convenience sample is a sample that is gathered from a convenient pool of customers or potential customers.
Non-response error is most effectively avoided by paying the respondents generously for their response time and effort.
Consumers are often reluctant to participate in survey research because d) All of the above.
The online chatter about your products, service and marketing is sometimes called word-of-mouth.
An advantage of online market research is all of the options are true.
Study Questions 4.4
According to Webster’s dictionary, culture is all of these options are correct.
Today’s cultures (defined as stages of civilization of a nation) are also very dynamic and largely changed by their developing economies and evolving trade with other countries.
Over the last 40 years, with many more female heads of household working, the median household income in the U.S. has increased by about 20%.
As income rises, more activities can be or have to be squeezed into leisure time. The result is that the perceived value of free time increases and produces what has been called the harried leisure class.
Most social influence today is through d) Person to person.
37% of 18-21 year old U.S. online users publish a web page, write blogs or upload videos.
The Rogers diffusion curve analysis of buyers has five categories.
According to Rogers, 16% of buyers are innovators or early adopters.
Study Questions 4.5
- All of the following are reasons why we develop habits:
- What has worked in the past (rewarded us) is likely to work again (reward us again) in the future
- Habits allow us to save time making decisions and be thinking of other things as we do them
- Habitual shopping routines can often be executed more efficiently than new behaviors
- Habitual shopping provides a sense of discipline, order and control in our lives
The best time to influence shopping and consumption values, beliefs and habits is when consumers are between 0-15.
Habitual behavior can be lost by a series of little mistakes.
Evolution has endowed us with habits and curiosity and boredom that influence our shopping search.
Our attitudes, opinions, interests, hobbies and passions are called our psychographics.
In complex searches, shoppers stop searching and purchase when they find exactly what they want or perceive that further search is not worth the effort.
Study Questions 4.6
A leading indicator of changing behavior is changing beliefs about the performance of products and services supplied to the market.
Consumer belief about whether they are going to be better off, worse off or the same in the future is called consumer confidence.
35% of consumers believe that within five years they will go strongly green in their lifestyle and purchasing.
The lawn care example teaches us that a very important growth and profit opportunity is advertising to consumers who hold uncertain beliefs about your product.
Canadian consumer confidence increased from 25 in February 2009 to 90 in June 2010.
Study Questions 4.7
It is not always important to fuss about the best measurement of customer satisfaction.
Increased customer satisfaction is a major creator of capital.
When customer satisfaction determines promotion, managers are delighted.
A decrease in employee benefits and wages leads to a decrease in employee morale is false.
“I will purchase again” is the gold standard measure of satisfaction.
The well-managed firm tracks and broadcasts truly unsolicited letters and e-mails of thanks across its organization.
It is always a good idea to ask an open-ended question as to how you could better satisfy your customers.
The number one determinant of website customer satisfaction is ease of navigation.
Study Questions 4.8
The purchasing agents in a buying firm are more sensitive about product performance, defect rates, service support, parts availability and user training. The end-users in a buying firm are concerned about price, purchase terms, discounts, legal contracts and delivery costs.
The way firms buy is influenced by all the options are true.
In selling to a business, a standard buying or bidding process may even be provided by the buying firm.
A systematic analysis of a business account should proceed through a step-by-step description of the people involved, the organization’s use of the product or service, the major decision-makers’ benefits sought and perceptions of the competitive offerings and their distribution system.
Purchase process activity rules include the following:
- Keep using current suppliers when their performance is satisfactory and the number of suppliers on the list is greater than one
- Toughen acceptable performance standards when the number of suppliers on the list is greater than two
- Drop the existing vendor with the worst performance when new vendors are included on the bid list
In a supply chain joint venture, the continued independence between the supplier and buyer enhances cooperation and keeps the entrepreneurial leadership in both the selling and buying firms happy.
JIT stands for just in time.
A feature of JIT is delivery is frequent and short.
Through tracking the performance of its 3,500 jet engines owned by its customers, Rolls Royce has extended the life of its engines ten times.
All of the following sociological characteristics of the business-to-business marketplace make word-of-mouth influence critical:
- They think in similar ways, which enables them to communicate more readily with each other
- Industry trade associations encourage the exchange of ideas and learning within an industry
- Executives who move on to a position with a competitor, supplier or major customer often maintain personal friendships with their previous coworkers
- Engineering consultants act as word-of-mouth megaphones; they often pass on what they have learned to others