It’s no surprise that the digital age has changed the English language. People now speak, write, and type in short-hand, using text language that shortens words and phrases. Think “Later” becoming “l8r,” “I don’t know” becoming “IDK,” and “I have no idea how to decipher text language” becoming “Huh?”
IMHO (In my humble opinion), this means it’s time for market researchers to re-evaluate. With surveys conducted through Internet mediums or via direct mail, researchers are left to analyze the words on the page—without any hints from inflection, vocal cues, or facial expressions of survey respondents.

Text speak isn’t the only type of millennial language you have to worry about, btw (by the way). The constant evolution of slang presents difficulties as well.

Deciphering qualitative research is hard enough as it is, but add in this new age of Internet-speak and market researchers need to keep Urban Dictionary on stand-by just to look up all of the shorthand words they don’t understand.

Need an example?

Well, imagine you distributed a customer service survey that asked the question, “How was your customer service today?” Seems like a simple enough question, doesn’t it?

Now imagine that these were the responses you received:

“The guy who helped me was totally sick.”

“Your company just can’t really hack it.”

“Your employees were so beast.”

“The manager I talked to was kind of a drag.”

When you hear “The guy who helped me was totally sick,” it’s up to you to determine what your customer means. Perhaps your customer service representative had a really bad cold and couldn’t stop coughing.  But most likely, in this context, the phrases “totally sick” and “hack it” probably don’t have anything to do with bronchial issues. “Totally sick” is a slang phrase—think of it as the equivalent of “really awesome” or “off the hook.” Those are good things, fyi.

Maybe you’re familiar with chat-speak and slang. Or maybe you’re comfortable enough using the Internet to look up words you don’t understand. But interpreting feedback from your customers is rarely as simple as throwing words into a slang dictionary. So, leave it to the professionals.

Our research team at Prime Contact can make sense of your customers, even if they seem to be speaking Gibberish. We professionally analyze and code text to provide you with information that’s actionable and easy to understand. WSTSH (We’ll skip the short-hand.)

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best: “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” But can a positive attitude really make a difference when selling a product or service? Well, it’s easier to sell a glass of water that’s half-full than trying to promote one that’s half-empty.

Imagine a scenario in which you’ve just discovered that a significant number of your customers are unhappy.  So unhappy, in fact, that they’re leaving you for your biggest competitor. They’re seeing someone else, and it’s not them—it’s you. But you don’t know why they’re dissatisfied, so what do you do? Probably develop a pessimistic attitude and worry that this problem is out of your control.

Until now.

Prime Contact will work with you to find out where the problems are so you can gain back your enthusiasm. For instance, by enlisting our help in conducting a focus group, we’ll show you people’s initial reactions to your products and services. By signing your company up for mystery shopping, you can hear from real customers about why they really aren’t satisfied. Whatever the results, we’ll help you look on the bright side of negative customer reactions to fix whatever it is that needs fixing.

Positive imaging has been used by psychologists for years to enhance performance. If you’re stuck not knowing where your customers are left wanting more, it’s going to be hard to stay positive—and this will impact your future performance.

So, I think we need to talk.

Prime Contact can assist you in getting your enthusiasm back. We’ll help you put on those rose-colored glasses because a little optimism goes a long way. If you’re not happy, your customers won’t be either.  Our team will show you how to keep your chin up, by putting actionable information right in front of you. We can help. I’m positive.

If you are involved in online research, there is a good chance you have heard the words “panel quality” a time or two. To make a long story extremely short, panel quality refers to the responsiveness and depth of research your panel provides.

High panel quality is a market researcher’s dream. In that dream, a researcher poses questions to an online panel and receives responses from highly engaged individuals. These individuals answer survey invitations consistently, honestly and provide insights through open ended questions.

On the other hand, low panel quality can be a researcher’s nightmare. Low response rates, weak answers and hurried participation can all skew the data that is trying to be collected.

Of course, everyone wants to have high panel quality, meaning their respondents answer openly and honestly, provide insights to open ended questions and answer each and every survey invitation. While this perfect respondent pool may exist for some, it’s usually the exception to the rule.

Thankfully, there are a number of things that can be done to increase the quality of a panel:

• Take a look at your surveys. Are your surveys long and tedious? Shorter, more concise surveys can help you drive down attrition rates and boost survey completes.

• Analyze your incentive. This is just a fancy way of saying, “Is it really worth it to take your survey?” Each time a respondent sees your survey invitation, do they think that they are receiving a good value for their time, or would they be better off doing something else? Making your incentive proportional and rewarding for the respondent will help increase your response rates.

• Survey your surveys. Do you know what your panelists think about your surveys? If not, you could be missing out on some of the most valuable information on how to improve your panel. This can be done by doing a simple follow up survey asking your panelists what they like and dislike about the process, what they prefer in terms of incentives, and why they choose to not complete a survey.

A high quality panel does not have to be just a dream. Better survey results, actionable insight and engaged consumers can be a reality.  Let us help you wake up sleepy panel members–use the contact us form to get in touch with a Prime Contact researcher.

Summer is here, and so are the dos and don’ts of the season.

Gone are the winter boots and the heavy parka we wore for what seemed like an eternity. Instead, as fashion would dictate, we are bombarded with images of new flip flops, beachwear and the latest sunglasses.

Just like summer fashion, there are a few dos and don’ts when it comes to your online surveys.

Take a look at the list below to see what crimes against research have been deemed dos and don’ts this season.

Do:

• Make sure your survey is relevant to the respondent.
• Keep it simple
• Offer an incentive
• Send a reminder email
• Send a thank you email once the survey is completed
• Have a privacy policy on hand

Don’t:

• Add questions to your survey that won’t add value
• Make your survey overly complicated
• Ask questions that are too personal
• Offer an incentive, but do not deliver
• Fail to respond to inquiries about your survey

Whether you found yourself in style or guilty of a survey crime, Prime Contact can help. Let us put together a survey look that is all the rage this season, complete with actionable insights and matching cross tabs.



Myth 1: Mystery shopping is a scam.

Fact:

Unfortunately, some mystery shopping services give others a bad name. The news stories play to the deceitful nature of mystery shopping programs in which shoppers are taken advantage of or don’t receive compensation.

Our mystery shopping program is run by real people. We issue assignments, gather data and then pay our independent consultants via an accounting department. Unlike fraudulent companies, we can be contacted by various means of communications. Our clients use the information provided from mystery shoppers to enhance their customers’ experiences.

Myth 2: Mystery shopping won’t work for my business.

Fact:

Do you sell a product or service? Do you have customers or clients? Chances are if you answered yes, mystery shopping could help you better understand how your customers are interacting with your employees and products.

We work with our clients to actively pursue the information that can impact how consumers see your product or business. This actionable information gives franchisee owners, managers and store owners alike the tools they need to enhance the customer experience and drive sales.

Myth 3: Mystery shoppers only want to get my employees in trouble.

Fact:

It is no secret that mystery shoppers are are trained to be exceptionally observant. Their ability to remember a multitude of information and nuances make them especially tuned-in to the customer experience. It’s a common misconception that mystery shoppers are tattle tales. Yes, they are trained to report the not-so-great aspects of an experience, but by the same token, they are also trained to explain the excellent employees, exceptional service, and more than satisfactory products that they review.

Myth 4: You have to pay a fee in order to be a mystery shopper.

Fact:

This couldn’t be farther from the truth! Mystery shoppers for Prime Contact Research will never have to pay a fee to be a part of the mystery shopping program. Participation in our program is completely at-will.

Are you looking to utilize mystery shopping for your business? Please email coach@primecontactrsearch.com to explore how this unique research method could be a fit for your business.

When I was in elementary school, my best friend and I built a time capsule where we placed all of our favorite mementos from our 90s childhood: Pokemon cards, pogs, beanie babies, etc. Then, we wrote a letter addressed to our “future selves” about our lives at the time and placed it inside. Once everything was in the time capsule, we dug a hole in her backyard and hid it. Our hope was that years later we would return to that spot, dig up the time capsule and form opinions about our elementary selves based on what we find.

Researchers do a similar kind of digging: Qualitative data mining. When surveys ask people open-ended questions that produce qualitative, rather than quantitative, responses, the researchers must find a way to make sense of the information. Essentially, you’re digging up the information and analyzing what you see. While the process is a bit more complex than analyzing quantitative research, it provides extremely valuable results that are not possible to achieve with numerical data.

So, how’s it done? Interpreting qualitative data requires text sentiment analysis. This means that the researcher reads the open-ended response and tries to categorize the sentiment into groups with other open-ended responses that express similar sentiments. This categorization, or coding, allows the researchers to quantify and simplify the qualitative results.

The tricky part is taking a text and determining how the person meant that text to be read. For instance, a survey respondent might say “I guess I was pretty satisfied with the service.” Now, look at read this sentence, emphasizing the word in italics.

I guess I was pretty satisfied with the service.

I guess I was pretty satisfied with the service.

The sentiment could easily be perceived as positive or negative, since the person’s intentions cannot be known. But that’s where the digging comes into play. And you can leave that to us.

Prime Contact balances quantitative and qualitative research in order to give you the most valuable information possible. We understand that the numbers are important, but so are the explanations behind those numbers—which is why we ask your customers for both. Our surveys utilize a mixture of both open-ended and close-ended questions so we can truly dig deep and provide insight into what your customers are thinking.

In addition to providing you with verbatim customer reactions, our text sentiment analysis will summarize the data, providing you with actionable information so you can better make sense of what your customers are saying. So put away your shovel and let us do the digging for you. We don’t mind getting our hands dirty.

I think I was in fifth grade when I learned how to check my pulse.

At first, I couldn’t find it. I jabbed myself in the neck over and over trying to prove that I was indeed alive. After what seemed like a few agonizing seconds, I found the steady beat (which had rapidly accelerated, since I had the fleeting thought that I may be a zombie.)

In market research, like in elementary school, it seems that everyone is looking to find the pulse…of their consumer. (Not that they need worry.) Fortunately, it’s not a bad thing to take stock of your brand’s heartbeat.

In the medical community, there are many reasons to check for a steady rhythm. For instance, in order to reach maximum cardiac benefit, people are encouraged to exercise in their target heart rate. How do they know if they are within their range of optimum beats per minute? They check their pulse.

“Checking one’s pulse” or rather, the pulse of a brand or a  customer, has been in high demand since the economy took a turn for the worse.

Although we definitely aren’t doctors (some of us took a wrong turn on the way to the biology lab into the marketing department), we can appreciate checking for a pulse. In fact, as researchers, we do it all the time.

However, unlike doctors, we don’t check for beats per minute. We check for things like spending habits, likelihood to purchase, and willingness to recommend. We live for the miniscule changes and variances in month over month data and year over year analysis. These check-ins, whether large or small, give us the data needed to analyze the health of various markets.

Surprisingly, you may already be checking your customer’s pulse.

Remember that quick poll you did the other day? Or that survey last month? Or those interviews last year? You were checking their pulse without even realizing it.

Need some help checking your customer’s pulse? We are here to help. Please use the “Contact Us” tab to get connected with one of our researchers.

In the marketing biz, you’re constantly reminded to gear your brand toward your target audience. If your product or service is the figurative arrow, your target audience is the metaphorical bull’s-eye.  Now, I may not be an expert in archery, but I know that if you narrow down your target to the one tiny circle in the center, you need to have mighty good aim.

Metaphors aside, you shouldn’t neglect anyone that’s interested in what you’re selling just because they don’t fall into your “target” demographic.

Does your product/service mostly impact females, ages 18-30? Then ask yourself if it’s possible to make your product desirable to middle-aged men.

Does the majority of your business come from a single city? Do some digging to discover ways you can expand to other locations.

Capture the interest of the people to whom you never thought of targeting your brand. After all, if you increase the size of your target, the bull’s-eye gets bigger too.

How to Make Your Target Bigger

Generally, focusing on a specific target audience narrows the field down to:

a) A related demographic (age, gender, income, etc. geared toward your product/service)

b) A geographic location associated with your product/service and

c) People with a common connection to your product/service.

These people are a great target audience. But, chances are, if your target audience is the group that’s most benefited by what you have to offer, they’re going to be interested in what you’re selling no matter how you market it. If you focus your marketing on those that need your product/service the most, you’re convincing consumers that don’t need convincing. In the meantime, those consumers who might make up a more challenging audience are taking their business elsewhere—to the brand that has targeted them.

That being said, “target marketing” has been hyped time and time again for good reason. It’s important that you develop your brand and market your products and services with your customers in mind. If your target audience is “everyone,” it may be difficult to create a customer-centric brand. Unless you’re selling oxygen, your product is probably not desirable to everyone. So don’t eliminate your target audience; Just don’t neglect other potential markets either.

Do some extra research. Survey your customers to determine who you should aim for. Prime Contact will help. We are qualified to survey your customers to give you the information you need to sell your services.  By collecting information from potential or existing customers, we can help you determine if you’re neglecting critical clientele that could build your business. We enlarge your target. You expand your brand.

Some of us like our tools. There’s no shame in that.

Some prefer power tools. For others, a good old screw driver will do the trick.

Online surveys can be a great tool to extract the opinions of many respondents, often for a fraction of the cost of a traditional focus group. However, this is really only true if an online survey is the best way to gather the data that you need.

Abraham Maslow said, “If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.” Online survey software is budget friendly, and with content only limited by the scope of an imagination, it’s easy to see it as the go-to-tool for customer insight and opinion. However in limiting the scope of data collection to only online surveys, there are restrictions placed on the kind of data collected.

Although extremely cost effective, online surveys were not made for expressive data collection. Surveys in which emotion, expression, body language and vocal inflection are all important simply should not be transferred to an online model. Yes, emotion and vocal inflection can be conveyed somewhat in an online survey (WRITING IN ALL CAPS or excessive punctuation aside!!!!), but the expressive data lies in the real-time observation of subtle movements, eye contact, vocal volume and subconscious movement. In keeping with Abraham Maslow’s thinking, it would be like using pliers to do a hammer’s job. The concept is there, but one minor detail can throw a wrench into the problem.

Online surveys can be the most cost effective and efficient data collection option for surveys that don’t require the personal observation of respondents. Surveys where customers are inputting demographic information for a mailing list or responding to a short customer service evaluation are perfect examples of online survey use. The development of online panels also makes online survey use a great vehicle for collecting data, organizing it and enabling search criteria to sort respondents. Online data collection can also provide a range of respondents from different geographic areas. Again, this is another advantage over the traditional focus group setting.

In seeking to gain the most knowledge for a client or your own business, it is crucial to use the right tools at the right time to achieve the most relevant, actionable information. In this situation, the key to hitting the nail on the head is assessing the tools that are available and selecting the one that best fits the job.

Grab your imagination cap for a moment and picture this scene. You’re sitting in your car, stomach-rumbling -ready-to-eat-your-own-hand starving, so you drive to a new restaurant that’s gotten rave reviews from several of your closest friends. Unfortunately, when you get to the restaurant, it’s packed. Apparently you weren’t the only one getting recommendations for fine dining in the area. After a long, stomach-panging wait, you get seated at a cramped table in the corner, with lighting so dim you can’t even read the menu. You waste no time and order the first food you see, only to have your waitress disappear for half an hour. Needless to say, you’re not impressed with the place so far. In fact, while you wait for your food, you rehearse a small complaint speech in your head in case the manager happens to walk by your table.

But eventually, your food finally arrives—and when it does, it’s delicious. And yes, everything tastes better when you’re starving, but this food seems almost worth the excruciatingly long wait. Almost. So, what do you do? Well, if you’re like the average restaurant-goer, you scarf down every last scrumptious morsel, leave a bad tip, and stop trusting your friends’ taste in restaurants.  But when the manager finally does greet you to ask how you’re “enjoying the food,” do you complain? Did your bad customer service experience impact your impression of the product, despite its delectability?

Researchers David Gal and Derek Rucker of Northwestern University say this is a very real possibility. Gal and Rucker conducted a study finding that customers often vent their frustrations about a product or brand, even if the product/brand is not the source of their dissatisfaction. So, in the above instance, you may tell the manager that the food was terrible, even though it was above average, due to your frustration with the quality of service. Why does this happen? It’s like leaving a bad tip for your waitress when you don’t like the food she served you. The waitress may have been friendly and accommodating, but even though she had no role in the cooking process, a 10% tip is the customer’s revenge for receiving sub-par pasta. Customers like expressing their dissatisfaction, even if the venue in which they do so is unrelated to their dissatisfying experience.

Fortunately, Gal and Rucker’s study discovered the solution: When asking customers about their dissatisfaction, provide adequate venues for opinions to be expressed. If the manager at the restaurant asks about the quality of the food AND the service, perhaps the customer responses will more accurately reflect their feelings.

At Prime Contact, we make sure to ask all the right questions. We weed out customer bias by covering all the grounds—making sure to address each area of concern for more detailed results. We’ll determine whether the bad taste in your customer’s mouth is a result of the service or the product.  We also make sure to incorporate open-ended questions to dig deeper. Rather than asking the customer for “yes” or “no” answers, we ask them to explain their responses. This way, you can understand whether your customer is venting after a bad experience or genuinely dissatisfied. Just some food for thought.