Research Biz is your way to obtain high-quality market research services at a very affordable price. The founder has worked in the practice of survey research and qualitative information gathering for 30 years, which means we eliminate the mistakes and complications you might experience if trying this on your own. And our company is home-based and supported virtually, which means you’re not paying for the overhead of a fancy building or human resources department. Please explore what we bring to the table when your organization seeks support in market research. You want expertise that works!
Quantitative surveys
Let’s face it, with a couple dozen different web survey tools saturating the market now, one could easily form the impression that anyone can execute market research. But imagine your frustration of learning that the survey platform you selected doesn’t offer the question type that you realize you need to deploy. What if your business problem is best answered with data from a conjoint exercise — does your software plan include that, and do you need a statistician to properly evaluate the results? If your research demands a telephone-based data collection mode, do you know who the best suppliers are, who will comply with federal telecommunications regulations related to contacting cell phones or using auto-dialers?
Questionnaire design is another skilled area where a novice researcher will make some mistakes, and we’ve all seen them in action, haven’t we?
- Tedious surveys that never seem to end
- Massive multiple-choice question grids that respondents can’t help but to fill in randomly like lights on a Christmas tree
- Rating scales that don’t match the wording in the question or are not symmetrically balanced
- Answer choices that contain multiple presumptions (“delicious food and quick service”)
The founder of Research Biz has written over 1,500 web- and telephone-based questionnaires, and he has gathered survey data from well over 1 million respondents. He has also served as an expert witness in civil litigation involving consumer surveys. We will guide you with our expertise, so that your quantitative survey uncovers the actionable insights that you seek.
Qualitative research
When the primary questions are not “how many” or “in which order”, but rather “why do you” or “how did you feel when”, it’s probably time to consider conducting qualitative research instead of a quantitative survey. There’s nothing wrong with asking your friends to share their deeply-held opinions with you, but understand that you bear the risk of reinforcing your preconceived notions, because you tend to choose your friends by how much their personality and viewpoints match your own. So, the purpose of qualitative research is to assemble individuals or small groups of people who represent a wider range of personalities and viewpoints and walks of life, so that when you talk about deeply-held opinions, there is a discovery of new insights that you may otherwise have never considered.
Focus groups and in-depth interviews are sometimes accused of stifling innovation. We encourage clients to think about the idea that “enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius”. When conducting qualitative research, be ready to embrace ideas that are quirky and clash with your own. A leader’s gut instinct can be ridden to ruin if they are unwilling to admit that their gut was wrong. See Blockbuster video (gut focus on retail stores, not mail or streaming), Nokia phones (gut focus on hardware, not software), or Kodak (invented the first digital camera, but management’s gut instinct was to suppress it because it didn’t sell film).
The founder has overseen the completion of more than 250 focus group sessions and in-depth interviews with experts. With a trained and certified focus group moderator or IDI specialist, unlock your understanding of how and why your customers feel the way they do.