One of the biggest challenges in market research is getting a sincere, truthful response. Lack of confidence, tendency to impress, overestimate or underestimate – these are the natural enemies of every quantitative study.
Along with frolic intentions to slightly bend the truth, respondents sometimes prefer to give any answer rather than admit that they do not know or do not remember something.
Cultural and gender differences also take their bite off the true data. Some nationalities are proven to be comparatively more polite, so a market researchers need to do some hard work to explore the real reasons behind the responses, as opposed to taking the sugar-coated responses for face value.
SPY
One of the obvious solutions to the problem is to watch what customers do, rather than ask them. There is no better way to learn about customer preferences than tracking their actions. Collection and ongoing analysis of customer data will give immediate and up-to-date insights on how people feel and what they think. Of course, not all branches of traditional market research can be substituted by data mining, so a wise move is to combine these two sources.
ENCOURAGE
Genuinely interested respondents give sincere answers; it is as simple as that. Explain how their contribution to the research will change their life in future. Engage them into making the world a better place.
BE SUBTLE
Another way to get the real view on situations is to transform direct questions into delicate tasks, involving decision making. Moving the respondents’ focus away from the main point of the questions and capturing their interest places them in a comfortable environment, where there is no need to imagine or exaggerate things. Additional perk of this approach is that it makes the survey an easy and pleasant thing to do.
Written by
Anna Usupova – Quantitative Specialist, THINK Global Research
For further information on THINK Global Research, please contact Kristy Ihle (Managing Director) at info@thinkglobalresearch.com.
