Considerations in esigning Your esearch roect This uarter you finally corralled the budget for the maor customer research proect that youve been trying to push through the executive suite for the past three years. The interviews have been completed, the report has been compiled and now...now whatow you know what customers who already are buying your products think of your company. So whathat will you do with the resultsHow will you use themThe biggest mistake companies make in designing a research proect is that they fail to answer that So whatuestion, according to arlene Stone, president and Cof Intellitrends, an Airfoil partner firm that advises companies on research strategies. Sometimes uestions are asked that are nice to know, but they dont lead to actionable informationthey dont lead to improvement,Stone says. oreover, the group within a company that plans the research usually keeps the process and the results isolated. They think of it as a marketing survey or a newbusiness research proect when, in fact, the findings can help the entire corporation. Stone recommends that stakeholders from a number of units within the company be involved in determining how a research proect can influence the way they operate. If research is designed properly from the beginning, the results can focus the companys marketing efforts, its efforts, its customer service, its operationsit can pull them all into alignment to create the optimum fit with customer needs and provide a consistent vision that everyone can work from,Stone explains. Include your competitorscustomers ot only should executives broaden the scope of their research base internally, but they need to look beyond their own sphere in considering who should participate in the research. Surveying only your current customers doesnt tell you much about those who have left, why you lost them, or what has changed in the marketplace that influences your business potential. Companies should be involving their competitorscustomers in their research,Stone asserts. They need to broaden their reach to understand the marketplace as a whole.ften research discovers that what a company perceives to be true about the market is not necessarily so, and what it views as its competitive advantage is not as much of an edge as executives believes it to be. esearch must employ a sufficiently broad view to verify a companys value proposition or raise flags that reuire attention. Instant feedback To get faster, more meaningful results from a wideranging market, researchers are using new methods. The postpurchase survey initiated six months after a transaction is being replaced by instant surveys. Consumers are contacted often within 4hours of a transaction, while the buying process is still fresh in their minds, to gain a more accurate assessment of their experience. esearchers are looking more closely at what Stone calls little defining momentsduring the time the customer has interfaced with the companya phone call, a rapid response to a uestionto analye the individual elements of the sales process and discover precisely where the consumer was persuaded or where the process broke down causing defection. esearchers also are doing more observing and less uestioning, watching firsthand the habits of customers in stores and malls and tracking consumer behavior online. To obtain the most from a research proect, Intellitrends has developed a checklist for designing the research effort. This list focuses on twelve key areas to help ensure that the information the proect produces will help regenerate your entire company. Checklist for esearch esign Business bectives • hy is the research being conducted• How is it going to be used• How and to whom do the results need to be communicatedInformation bectives • hat specific information is needed to meet strategic business obectives• How can we most effectively obtain itreviously Conducted esearch • hat was learned from past studies• Are there any findings that should be integrated/tracked in the new processCurrent Internal easures • hat mechanisms currently exist to track performance• hat standards for performance are already in placeesearch esign Structure • hat areas do we want to measure• hich areas or segments reuire separate analysisCustomers and Customer roups • hat geographic area are we coveringlobalationalegional• hich customers should be surveyed• ho within each customer organiation represents the most appropriate contactStatistical euirements • hat is an acceptable margin of error• How can the data most effectively be reportedTiming and Scheduling • hen will the baseline results be reuired• How uickly can customer lists be made availableTracking and onitoring • ill we track customer relationship performance over time• How freuently will we need to update our information base