Avoiding your research pitfalls & embracing a visual world
So many things can go wrong with your research. Any experienced researcher will be able to regale you with tales of research pitfalls they’ve fallen into in the past.
I’m sure you agree from your experience. The Customer Insight Leader’s role has to avoid many risks along the road to real insights.
Keeping up to date with best practice, or problems others have experienced, can be time-consuming. So, here is another quick round-up of helpful advice on pitfalls to avoid and opportunities to embrace.
The first to catch my eye this week is this timely warning from the ever reliable GreenBook blog. Here Allan Fromen argues for the importance of sample quality and the risk of this being overlooked in current focus on faster delivery and more sophisticated interaction. As Allan rightly says, even the most modern research tools won’t mask the fundamentals of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Data quality for research, starting with sample, still matters & is one of the early stage research pitfalls to avoid.
http://www.greenbookblog.org/2015/08/11/heal-thyself-when-will-market-research-get-serious-about-sample-quality
Another quality research publication is the Quirks magazine/blog. In the following article the 3 authors take on the thorny topic of defining what we mean by the Voice of the Customer (VoC). As they rightly point out, in many business this is now owned by the Customer Experience (CX) team or delivered by automated feedback management (EFM) capturing NPS etc. Both these changes can mean that research/customer insight teams lose control and any input to what is viewed as VoC. Although some of their recommendations may be controversial there are some useful ideas here for driving real change from improved tracking and complementary action in Insight & CX teams.
http://www.quirks.com/articles/2015/20150806.aspx
Given the popularity of our posts on the topic of data visualisation, I couldn’t pass up on this article about use of visual communication within research. At the risk of sharing from GreenBook once more, in this post, Parry Bedi shares how research needs to respond to a consumer world increasingly filled with visual communication on social media. He includes an interesting example of use of visual stimuli and response using mobile channel. Well worth considering.
Visuals Are The New Language Of Consumers And Market Research
By Parry Bedi Many articles have been written about the impending implosion of the market research industry, and many have questioned if the industry is still relevant in the age of big data. Compare practically nonexistent growth rates in the research industry to the meteoric growth we have seen in other data (primarily passive) collection and analysis methods, and you’ll probably find that these criticisms ring true.
How do you ensure sample quality? Are you joining up effectively with CX teams to drive action as a result of joint Voice of the Customer initiatives? Are you using visual stimuli through mobile as part of your research innovation? Please do share your experience and research pitfalls for our community to avoid.