Market Surveys

Market research

Continuing the theme of measuring stuff… Measuring things gives a number, numbers are factual and absolutes, thereby giving the illusion that the results are scientific and trustworthy. Science would say that if you repeated the experiment (measurement) again, that you were more than likely come to the same or a very similar result. 

Market surveys, are a measure of consumer behaviour are frequently so badly designed that I often wonder what they do with the results. Everyone thinks they can design a questionnaire and I’m sure that some are designed by idiots.

I get frustrated when I want to give my opinion on a subject and get a question that is ambiguous, irrelevant or partial.

Example:-

Do you trust shop assistants in Dixons? Yes or no. 

Does this mean trust their expertise, honesty, that they are a shop assistant, only while they are in Dixons. If it means expertise, that depends on what product I’m looking for, their confidence, and the advice/answers they give.   

If I trust a shop assistant in one shop do they think I homogenise their entire workforce as being trustworthy (or not). Sure some shop seem to train (motivate) all there staff to sell the most expensive thing as fast as possible. But just because they push the extended warranty (something I don’t believe in) doesn’t mean I don’t trust them. I realise this is company policy and it is the company I don’t trust.

So you see an apparently simple question has lots of possibilities… and there is more!

A classic mistake with a survey, that I was once told (urban legend or true?) was to be careful who you ask. During WW2 they asked the crew of returning Lancaster bombers where they had been attacked from, by the German fighters. They answer was “From underneath”. So they improved the defences under the planes and found that the losses increased. Why?

Well they asked the returning crews. The ones that had got shot down where attacked from above and it was the defences on top of the plane that needed improvement.

What kicked this train of thought off was, I go asked to complete a survey on distance learning by the 20th April. But I don’t start the course until the 23rd and I am unlikely to have an opinion of any value for several weeks at least.