What does your employees think about your business?

Employees are an integral part of an organization. They are the life blood of a company; its fortunes are entirely dependent upon their input. For any organization to excel, its employees must be motivated and feel appreciated for their contribution in the company.

There is a school of thought which says when employees feel appreciated, they tend to work harder and become loyal to the company. When your staff are happy, they will also transfer their appreciative mood when they are serving your customers. So it’s a win-win situation and the business will benefit immensely through repeat business from happy customers/clients who will continue to patronize its services/products.

Often times management decides on what they think will make their staff happy without consulting them. Some companies have employee of the month appreciation programs while others give different incentives to excelling employee as a sign of acknowledgement.

However, market research has found a disconnect between the type of appreciation employees want and what their managers think they want. A recent market research survey conducted by the International Association of Administrative Professionals found out that Managers ranked promotions and cash bonuses as the two most effective ways of recognizing employee accomplishments. On the contrary employees said they preferred an in-person thank-you or having a job well done reported to senior management.

In other words, though a decent bonus will always be a highly coveted form of recognition, employers often underestimate the degree to which workers value kind words delivered face to face. This sounds like an inexpensive way of showing appreciation to your staff, but the important aspect of this is thanking your employees regularly.

According to a survey in employee motivation spearheaded by Dr. Kenneth Kovach at George Mason University, the second biggest motivator for employees is recognition. Number one is interesting work- which requires an investment in staff training.

Having an open door policy where you discuss with your staff when they are doing well and when they need to up their game, provides a conducive channel through which various issues affecting the employee on a personal or business level will be discussed. Doing this will help them accept criticism better, when they are at fault as long as the feedback is specific.

What are the causes of employee dissatisfaction?

According to a survey conducted in 2008, by Probe Market research in Zimbabwe, found some key issues that cause employee disengagement. Some key nuggets are highlighted below:

• “My efforts are not valued. No-one tells me how I’m doing.”
• “I am criticized for mistakes, but never praised for doing a good job.”
• “I’m not making progress (learning anything) here.”
• “I never know what the rules are. They seem to change all the time.”
• “There’s no challenge any more.”
• “The boss is mean about little things but does not recognize my extra effort.”
• “ I’m not paid enough for what I do.”

It seems obvious, looking at this list, that all these things are easily remedied, and above all they come pretty much free of charge.

“How do you find out what your staff think?

The best form of getting information on what your staff thinks about your business is to do an independent Employee satisfaction survey. This is the best way to collect unbiased views. Professional market research agencies will advise on the best way of conducting this kind of survey. In my next post I will look at critical market research areas where organizations can leverage to get the best out of their employees.

What are your Customers saying behind your back?

The adverse effects of the economic recession are still making ripple effects across the world. Unemployment is soaring and many businesses have been forced to close due to in adequate cash flow. Companies which are surviving in these difficult times are those that are customer focused. These companies periodically get feedback from their clients/customers through market research surveys. Customer satisfaction surveys are critical in ensuring an organisation keeps abreast with what their external stakeholders think about their business.

Its high time to be customer focused

The reason to become customer focused is to achieve a competitive advantage that enables long-term sustained success. In order to achieve this management should spend some time with customers and be able to communicate their commitment to customers throughout the organization. Customer focus should start from the top down. It is management’s role to ensure a service culture is communicated across the organisation and it should be made part of a service offer through which staff will be evaluated in their appraisals

Implementing a customer service culture is not difficult and does not require capital expenditure. In a study of Fortune 500 corporations, market researchers found that the number one motivator of staff is recognition – knowing that they are appreciated. Customer Satisfaction surveys give managers a forum to provide recognition that’s not based on seniority – but on exemplary customer service. Perhaps even more important is that the recognition doesn’t just come from management – it comes from the workers’ peers. That means you’re creating a shift in culture right at the grass roots. Add to that a few words of open praise from the senior manager to the team, and everyone feels like they are part of a greater good.

Elements of a customer focused

Customer First is clearly ‘ingrained’ into the fabric of the business

• They know who their customer are, what their customers want now and in the future, and how they are going to provide that product or service
• Their strategies, plans, and processes are aligned with their customers’
• Customer satisfaction is an important metric, is tracked, improvement goals are set, and success is rewarded

In order to fully take advantage of valuable feedback from your customers and clients, it is important to note that periodic customer satisfaction surveys must be done across the organisation. This can be done through random customers satisfaction surveys and or mystery shopping surveys.

Results from these surveys will be used to close service gaps identified and to improve in service delivery.

Coca-Cola, Ogilvy, Unilever unveil their Online Strategy

According to GDS International, online sales have shown a significant increase this year capitalizing on the return of consumer confidence across Europe.

European shoppers spent £11.2 billion online in July, 15.7% more than was spent in June and 16.8% more than July 2008.

The driving force for the increase appeared to be the clothing, footwear and accessories sector, which showed growth of 18% month on month and 17% year on year, the latest IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index said.

Retailers across Europe are predicted to sell $97 billion in goods and services online in 2010, up 37% from last year.

Owing to this unprecedented growth Retail Giants will join forces at the iStrategy program this October in Berlin to capitalize on the growth of the Online Dollar.

Visionaries such as Babs Rangaiah, Global Director Communications Planning Unilever, Rikke Wivel, VP Global Advertising and Media Monster, Michael Donnelly, Group Director The Coca-Cola Company, Michael Buck, Global Head SMB Online Dell, Sarah Evans, Head of Mobile Advertising O2, Thomas Marzano, Creative Director Phillips will be sharing the innovative steps they have all taken to drive value through online investments.

This meeting further illustrates the migration to new media for retail giants.

The growth of Web 2.0 has lead to far greater opportunities for such retail giants outside to the obvious sales growth.

With more of us sharing personal information online through sites like Facebook, Linkedin, MeettheBoss and Xing, companies can monetize online investment through analyzing consumption patterns, behavioral targeting, cost effective online product testing and having direct contact with the consumer.

Online is still the key growth market and in the midst of a Global recession it seems to be the main focus for European retailers.

CEO Steve Jobs most admired Entrepreneur by Teens

In a survey by Junior Achievement USA, 1,000 teenagers age 12 to 17 chose Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs as their most admired Entrepreneur.

Perhaps surprisingly, Jobs beat out contenders with typically more star power among teens, including Oprah and skateboard wizard and video game entrepreneur Tony Hawk.

Further down the survey were Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Ashley and Mary-Kate Olsen, owners of their own clothing line.

According to Junior Achievement USA President Jack Kosakowski, “We live in a celebrity-obsessed culture, so it’s no surprise that teens admire famous entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey, who have built brands around their personas as well as around their products.”

Source: zeromillion.com

How to gain competitive advantage through market intelligence

In order to survive in today’s cut-throat business environment, all businesses need information to guide their decision making. As an entrepreneur or business manager you need fresh information everyday to aid your decision making. This information desperately needed by managers to make informed business decisions can only be supplied by professional market researchers. Because of this, the research sector plays a valuable role in the commercial, social and political world today.  In a world where technological superiority is gaining momentum, commercial success is dependent more than ever, not on technological superiority alone, but through understanding of customers’ behavior i.e. their needs and using this information to guide your decision making. Sometimes research needs are obvious. For instance if you are planning to launch a new product, you will need to know your target customers’ reactions to your proposed offer. Will they like it? Will they buy it? How much will they pay? How much will they buy? What will trigger their purchase? Launching a product without understanding your target customers’ reactions and basing it on your gut feel and opinion could prove to be disastrous and a sheer waste of time and resources. There is a misguided notion that market research is expensive and sheer waste of time and money, many businesses and managers have learnt the hard way as product launches and brand extensions have proven to be disastrous and a waste of resources without insights from the market. Apart from commissioning a market research survey, there are many ways you can use to gather vital market intelligence about your target customers.

The cheapest way is to use customer feedback forms. This is a sure way of getting feedback on what your customers think about your business. However, there are drawbacks associated with this method of data collection, most customers may not have time to fill and return the forms, and therefore, returns may not be robust enough to make concrete decisions. Feedback forms are very important even on websites, as this provides you with a platform where you will get direct feedback on what visitors to your website site think about your business. Feedback forms will help you to leverage valuable customer feedback to increase conversion rates, reduce customer attrition and to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. To get a free form up and running on your website, please visit: http://www.kampyle.com

Apart from Customer feedback forms, you can also use face to face interviews with your target customers. This can be done by administering a semi structured questionnaire to your target audience. This is the most effective way of data collection, as it ensures 100% strike rate. Face to face interviews usually cost some money, depending on the sample size, the amount is not much if you are focusing on one location only. Alternatively, if you have a robust contact list you can invite your target audience to participate in an online survey. This will not cost you a dime, but the survey will be limited to people with internet access. You can use a free platform to do online surveys by visiting: http://kwiksurveys.com.

To your success with data collection !!!

Free software to design surveys online

Today i have very exciting news as i stumbled on a very useful website, which anyone can use to design surveys. What is most interesting about this website, is that the service is completely free. What is required is to create an account, once you have done this off you go to design and invite respondents to participate  in your survey.

The software is 100% FREE and easy to use survey service. You can quickly create Web forms and Email surveys, collect & download results all for free. Kwik Surveys offers the following benefits over traditional subscription services.

1. Secure and Reliable service
2. Does not send unsolicited emails
3. It is very easy to use
4. Downloadable results CSV format (MS Word, Open office)
5. Customizable Surveys, Logo’s and themes
6. Embedded surveys directly into HTML webpages, forums etc..
7. Email Notifications upon survey completion
8. Surveys can be sent by email or linked to
9. Anonymous or tracked surveys
10. Results filtering
11. Updated question builder with question preview & spell checker
12. Star rating questions
13. Multiple choice matrix questions
14. Skip logic

The software is very good and provides a free platform for gathering useful feedback from visitors to your website regarding your  content, layout and graphic design. You can tailor make the questionnaire to gather information on pretty anything you want. It is however, important to bear in mind that questions must be precise and easy to understand in order for you to get useful feedback. Length should also be taken into account. I would suggest a maximum two page questionnaire will be ideal, as respondents may not complete if the questionnaire is long. Please kindly leave comments once you have interacted with this software. Before i forget here is the link to the website: http://kwiksurveys.com

Happy browsing

Step by Step Guide to launching FGDs

For any market research survey to be successful, there are steps that need to be followed. The same goes for qualitative research. I have therefore, outlined key points that must be considered when you plan to use focus groups as a research tool.
Define your research goals.
The first step is to define the research objectives. Here you need to clearly spell out what you want to achieve from the survey. The research objectives must be clearly defined and must also be straight forward. Based on these objectives, you will be able to formulate questions which will form the basis of the discussion guide.
Determine sample size and composition of focus groups
Since focus group is a qualitative research method and the results are descriptive rather than prescriptive, you don’t need to have a very big sample size. It is therefore, important to ascertain respondent characteristics such as:
• Age
• Gender
• Ethnic group
• Social Economic class
• Language Spoken
Invite participants to participate in focus groups
This process must be well coordinated to ensure that the right participants are recruited for participation in the FGDs. A screening questionnaire will be used to screen the participants based on demographic profile, product usage and or specified criteria.
Location
Location, location, location is everything. When planning your focus group it’s important to select a site
that is accessible for the target audience. Not everyone has access to an automobile or is able to drive.
The best location should be centrally located, near a subway or bus stop. For instance, If you were targeting the Latino/Hispanic community, the best site would be close to where the audience lives or work so that it’s more convenient.

Incentives
There are many incentives for encouraging participation in focus group. Snacks are a necessary factor. Again, being culturally sensitive to the type of snacks served moves to the top of the list. Avoid unhealthy snacks and remember that many participants may be vegetarian. When planning your menu include a variety of foods, salads and vegetables.

How many people should be invited?
In order to get enough feedback about your product or campaign, it would be best to host a group of 8
to 12 people. More than 12 participants could prove to be unmanageable when trying to collect adequate
information. Remember it’s key that everyone gets an opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas
without feeling rushed or cut off.

Timing
A focus Group discussion should not exceed 90 minutes. Participants should be encouraged to eat when they arrive or during the focus group as to not interfere with the group discussion. Output from FGDs vital consumer insights which can be further explored quantitatively inorder to see prevalece of the issues raised across a robust sample size.

FGDs – Cost effective way of gathering consumer insights

A focus group is a form of qualitative research in which a group of people are asked about their attitude towards a product, service, concept, advertisement, idea, or packaging. Questions are asked in an interactive group setting where participants are free to talk with other group members. Focus groups are seen as an important tool for acquiring feedback regarding new products, as well as various topics. In particular, focus groups allow companies wishing to develop, package, name, or test market a new product, to discuss, view, and/or test the new product before it is made available to the public. This can provide invaluable information about the potential market acceptance of the product.

Benefits/strengths of focus group discussions

• Group discussion produces data and insights that would be less accessible without interaction found in a group setting—listening to others’ verbalized experiences stimulates memories, ideas, and experiences in participants.
• Group members discover a common language to describe similar experiences. This enables the capture of a form of “native language” or “vernacular speech” to understand the situation

Weaknesses of focus group discussions

• However, focus groups also have disadvantages: The researcher/Moderator has less control over a group than a one-on-one interview, and thus time can be lost on issues irrelevant to the topic; the data are tough to analyze because the talking is in reaction to the comments of other group members; observers/ moderators need to be highly trained, and groups are quite variable and can be tough to get together. Also, the number of members of a focus group is not large enough to be a representative sample of a population; thus, the data obtained from the groups is not necessarily representative of the whole population.
• A fundamental difficulty with focus groups (and other forms of qualitative research) is the issue of observer dependency: the results obtained are influenced by the researcher, raising questions of validity.

It is important to note that Focus Group Discussions are a quick and cost effective way of gathering accurate information which can help marketers make a decision within a short time frame. There can be significant costs however: if a product is to be marketed on a nationwide basis, it would be critical to gather respondents from various locations throughout the country since attitudes about a new product may vary due to geographical considerations. This would require a considerable expenditure in travel and lodging expenses. Focus Groups are most suitable for generating consumer insights, which normally addresses when, why, how, where and what people do or do not buy a specific brand. This methodology is very effective in gathering data which enables marketers to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups.

In my next post i will provide a step by step guide on launching successful FDs.

To your marketing success!!!!

shielding your company from global recession through market research

Many adjectives have been used to describe the current economic turmoil gripping the world. Some people have described it as the worst economic down turn of this century, while some have likened it to past epidemics that ravaged this planet many years ago.    What is this thing called Global Recession? A global recession is a period of global economic slowdown. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) takes many factors into account when defining a global recession, but it states that global economic growth of 3 percent or less is “equivalent to a global recession”. By this measure, three periods since 1985 qualify: 1990-1993, 1998 and 2001-2002.With the current economic situation, many businesses need to understand consumer purchasing behaviour. As household and personal incomes continue to shrink due to increasing prices of basic commodities, a lot of consumers are now operating on a shoe string budget, which means spending habits are also changing faster than anticipated by sales and marketing people. The best way to understand and keep in sync with consumer habits is to keep in touch with the pulse of the consumer in order to understand product categories that are being affected by this sudden shift in their spending behaviour.

The economy has altered buying habits – creating more price sensitive consumers, who are looking for less expensive alternatives, reducing spending and increasingly buying only necessities. However, the question most marketing executives should be asking is whether these trends are secular, in other words are there permanent; or cyclical, meaning likely to revert to previous patterns once the economy improves? Moving forward, consumers are starting to replace some of that lost wealth by increasing their savings, and some of this increase in savings is often cited in one of the causes in the dip in consumer spending. As consumers reduce spending to recoup and reinforce their investments, it is important for businesses to be on top of their game to ensure that they get a share of the consumer’s purse. There are several cheap ways of keeping abreast with what is happening in the consumer’s world. The cheapest way is to use self completion forms to establish customer satisfaction levels. However, this method has its own pitfalls, most customers may not have time to complete the forms or staff may tamper with the forms. The best way is to hire a market research agency to run an independent survey to gauge customer satisfaction levels, establish existing gaps in terms of service and product offering. This data will help management in coming up with strategies that will ensure customers patronize the business despite  limited resources at their desposal.

Cheap way to conduct market research

When the chips are down as is the case at the moment. With the economy in turmoil, many companies are looking at ways to save money. Often times, in dire situations like this, in terms of resource alloacation, the marketing department often gets the lion’s share. The thinking behind this is that marketing will be able to come up with programs that will persuade customers to spend more to boost sales. Whenever, sales take a dip marketing guys will increase advert spending with the hope that this will increase the much needed sales, without finding out why the sales declined in the first place. The best way to diagnose a problem is to investigate its root cause. This is where market research comes into play. Market research is not always expensive as many people are made to believe.

Syndicated Surveys – Cost effective way to do market research

The best way to do market research on a tight budget is to join an omnibus survey (syndicated survey). The cost for this type of study is shared by various clients; hence, cost per interview is very low. Usually clients pay per question.  Most syndicated surveys are very robust; therefore, you will be able to get valuable information at a very low cost. Overall cost for running the project will be shared by various clients. Most syndicated surveys maintain high levels of confidentiality – hence, results will not be shared with a third party.

Syndicated surveys are ideal for both big corporates and SMES. I will extensively cover this topic in my next post.