In Thomas F. Stafford’s and Dennis Gonier’s article “The Online Research “Bubble” – Seeking to improve the commonly used online
survey sampling approaches” they seek to offer some improvements to the current online survey sampling methods which are in vogue with market researchers. The practice of large online consumer panels is posing a serious threat to the industry due to the fact that there is an emerging phenomenon of quasi-professional survey takers. Research from one large panel has shown that 1% of the panel was responsible for 30% of the online surveys completed. These survey takers are less likely to be fully employed and spend a disproportionate amount of time online.

The solution that Stafford & Gonier suggest is to look beyond the panel. They make the point that it is worthwhile considering other alternatives. They argue that To get your online research one quickly, you’ll either have to sacrifice cost or quality. It’s an easy choice: two of three important characteristics are available. You just don’t get it all, because the free lunch” of cheap, quick, and valid results doesn’t exist in online studies any more than it did in the world of offline research. Good sampling takes time or money; take your choice.

One thing that I do think that is worthwhile considering is designing purpose built panels. Custom online panels can can offer a pretty neat solution and at a reasonable price. While not suitable for all research problems instances they do particularly well within closed groups i.e. customer research, citizens panels.

In the Marketing Science article“The Impact of Survey Participation on Subsequent Customer Behavior: An Empirical Investigation” a causal link is made between customers satisfaction surveys and an increase in an organisations revenue.

The findings from this research are important because they suggest that survey-based marketing research projects do not simply incur costs for the sake of gaining insights into customer perceptions as is conventionally believed, but they may also bring in additional revenues through such avenues as increased sales, reduced customer defection, and other positive behaviors by the respondents.

The research found that that customers who completed a customer satisfaction survey were more likely to become more engaged customers and more responsive to a firms promotional materials. It would seem then that the traditional marketing view of the marketing research as a cost centre may be misplaced as customer satisfaction surveys appear to have a key role in the generation of revenue.

The authors acknowledge the recent concerns that have been raised over the growing resistance of consumers to participation in commercial surveys yet found that, for the satisfaction surveys studied customers did not appear to be so negatively disposed, at least as reflected by their subsequent behaviors.

It is likely that organisations that conduct regular customer satisfaction surveys may already be aware of these additional benefits and this research presents an opportunity to refine their survey process. For those organisations that do not currently survey their customers the findings provide some sound financial justification. Not only will you retain your customers, they will buy more from you.

Research suggests that having a customer review site will increase websales. It stands to reason that this would be the case. Like the guys at Church of the Customer I know that whenever I am about to make a purchase plugging into Google “[product name]” “review” is the best way to go to figure out whether you are about to purchase a dog or lemon.

Caution has to be taken though. If I had listened to a lot of the chattering I would never have purchased my Dell notebook (I made my purchasing decision just after Dell’s machines started spontaneously combusting) My notebook is now twelve months old and my fingers are singe free.

In addition, it is worthwhile considering that not all review sites are what they appear to be. SurveySoftwareReviews.com has been indentified by MarketResearchTech.com as a sham review site.

After doing a little research they identified the following reasons why they considered SurveySoftwareReviews.com to be a sham review site:

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The call has come out from ‘Church of the Customer’ for an example of remarkable customer service from the telecom/wireless industry. Coincidentally just as I read this I received a call out of the blue from Telecom checking to see if I was satisfied with the speed of my Internet connection.

Now there is a background story to this, I am on the infamous GO LARGE plan which promised uncapped Internet as fast as your line would allow. The plan failed as people were in fact getting slower speeds than their line would allow.

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Word of Mouth Marketing is acknowledged as being an important component of an organisations success. If your customers like you they are more likely to refer your business to their colleagues or friends. If they don’t like you – they won’t.

In “Anatomy of the new customer complaint meme” the case of Terry Heaton is discussed and how his shoddy treatment as a customer has been quickly communicated throughout the global community.

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