What is Pricing Research?

Pricing research is a method of research that measures and evaluates the impact of changes in price of a product on its demand. It is used by organizations to help determine an optimal price for new products, in order to maximise revenue and market share. This type of research is quantitative in nature.

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Techniques used within Pricing Research

Pricing techniques help organizations determine what price their target audience is willing to pay for their product. There are four key techniques used within pricing research, and they are:

• Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM)
• Gabor-Granger Technique
• Conjoint Analysis
• Brand-Price Trade-Off (BPTO)

• Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM)

This price sensitivity meter was developed by a Dutch economist named Peter Van Westendorp. The Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter constructs a range of acceptable price points for a given product, determining the expected price range at which consumers will be willing to purchase it. This range is constructed by having customers evaluate a product and then respond to the following four questions:

• • Too Expensive: “At what price would you begin to think this product is too expensive to consider?”
  • Expensive: “At what price would you begin to think this product is expensive but worth considering?”
  • Cheap: “At what price would you begin to think this product is a bargain?”
  • Too Cheap:“At what price would you begin to think the product is so inexpensive that you would question its quality?”

Once responses are collected, the cumulative frequency of the different answers are charted in order to determine a series of acceptable price points. These price points will range from a lower threshold to an upper threshold, and will also include the optimal price point.

PSM is used to understand customers’ pricing expectations, rather than their willingness to pay or their likelihood to buy. It is used to identify how much respondents would expect a product to cost.

• Gabor-Granger Technique

The Gabor-Granger technique involves testing four to five different price points by asking respondents their likelihood to purchase the product at each one of these points.

Respondents indicate their likelihood to purchase at these predefined price points, and this data is used to determine an optimal price point for the product within the market. In contrast to the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, where respondents invent prices in response to the questions, the Gabor-Granger technique asks respondents to evaluate predetermined price points that have already been vetted by the company. It identifies the optimal price range for a product, considering it in isolation.

• Conjoint Analysis

Conjoint Analysis, also known as discrete choice analysis, is a pricing research technique that is considered to be the most reliable way to determine the price of a product. It uses a form of conjoint analysis, known as discrete-choice modelling, using which researchers can determine the influence of price, as well as product features, on a customers’ willingness to purchase the product.

In this technique, respondents are given a choice of two to five product profiles, each with different configurations. Respondents are asked to choose one of these profiles. The data collected from respondents allows researchers to create pricing and packaging models that are most likely to appeal to customers.

Discrete choice analysis provides meaningful insights on the complexity of pricing and product preferences. The main drawback of this technique, however, is that it requires specialized expertise to execute, and tends to be more expensive to conduct than other pricing research techniques.

• Brand-Price Trade-Off (BPTO)

BTPO, or Brand-Price Trade-Off, is a statistical tool that is used to identify the effect of price on different areas such as profitability, revenue, market volume, and brand awareness. It is a choice-based pricing technique that depicts consumers’ differing preferences for brands based on their pricing.

Survey respondents are shown a range of branded products, each with a price associated with it. The range usually consists of 3 to 5 products. Consumers are then asked which “offer” would be most appealing to them in a hypothetical buying scenario.

BPTO is useful in situations where you want to understand the relationship between a brand and its prices.

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FAQs on Pricing Research

What are the different pricing techniques used within pricing research?

There are four key pricing research techniques, and they are:

• Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter (PSM)
• Gabor-Granger Technique
• Conjoint Analysis
• Brand-Price Trade-Off (BPTO)

What are the benefits of conducting pricing research?

The key benefits of conducting pricing research are:

• It can predict consumers’ responses to price change

This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevantAn Ascribe Rule Set lets you programmatically alter the results of linguistic analysis.  To learn more about Rule Sets, see Introduction to Ascribe Rule Sets and Authoring Ascribe Rule Sets.

Your Rule Set may process thousands of findings when you use it in an Inspection. Therefore, it is very important to test your Rule Set carefully to avoid disappointing results.
Suppose we want to create a rule to uppercase our brand name when it appears in the topic of a finding. We write this simple Modify Finding rule:

// Uppercase our brandf.t.replace("ascribe", "Ascribe");

We intend for this rule to find all occurrences of the word “ascribe” in the topic and replace it with “Ascribe”. We need to test this rule, because it is not correct!

Rule Editor Dialog

On the Rule Sets page of Ascribe, we create a new Modify Finding rule and enter our code:

To test our rule, we need to make sure the Test part of the dialog is expanded as shown above. If not, click on the word Test to expand that part of the accordion. Now enter the properties of the finding you want to use for testing in the top part of the Test pane. I have entered “ascribe” there for the topic.

Click the Test button below the properties you entered. The properties of the resulting Finding after your rule runs are displayed below the Test button. They are shown in grey if they have not changed, which is what you see in the picture above. Our rule is not working! The resulting finding still has a lower-case topic:

The problem of course is that the replace method of a string returns the modified value. It does not change the value you pass in, so our topic is unchanged. To correct the code, we add an assignment to f.t and retest the rule:

Success! We can now save the rule by clicking the OK button.
You probably noticed that I entered properties for f.r, f.t, f.e, and f.x, even though only f.t is needed for the test. This is because if any of f.t, f.e, or f.x are empty after the rule runs the result of the rule will be ignored. You can try this in the dialog to see for yourself.

Testing Class rules requires a bit more work.  See Using Class Rules in an Ascribe Rule Set for more information.

Testing Edge Cases

Happy with the result of our Modify Finding rule we may decide to add a Modify Response on Load rule to do the same thing. That way our comments will display our brand name with proper case in the Verbatims pane of CX Inspector. We copy our code into a Modify Response on Load rule, change it to operate on f.r instead of f.t, and give it a test case with a lowercase brand mention. This type of rule receives only f.r when it runs. That’s why the other properties of the finding are not shown in the Test pane:

The rule still handles our test case properly, and we may be tempted to consider it completely tested. But we need to test it more. It fails on each of these test cases:

Wow, ascribe is great! I recommend ascribe. ⇒ Wow, Ascribe is great! I recommend ascribe.
Wow, AScribe is great! ⇒ Wow, AScribe is great!
I ascribed his success to luck. ⇒ I Ascribed his success to luck.

The first is because our rule replaces only the first occurrence. The second because our text matching is case sensitive, and the third because we are not replacing only whole words. The simplest fix is to use a regular expression. We can write our rule instead as:

// Uppercase our brandf.r = f.r.replace(/\bascribe\b/ig, "Ascribe");

The ig flags on the regular expression correct our first two problems, and the use of \b corrects the third problem. Our rule now handles all our test cases correctly.

Rule Debugging and Validation

Using Print()

As you are testing your rules it can be helpful to print out information for diagnostics. The finding object has a Println() methods for this purpose. Here is a rule that captures words in the response and prints each to the test pane when the rule runs:

var m = f.r.match(/\b\w+\b/ig);for (var i = 0; i < m.length; i++) {  f.Println(m[i]);}

If f.r == "Wow, Ascribe is great!", this will print:

"Wow""Ascribe""is""great"

to the Test pane.  The Print() and Println() methods are identical, except Println() appends a newline character to the output. Both methods accepts zero or more parameters. If the parameter list is empty a blank line is output. The Print() and Println() methods have effect only in the Test pane. When the Rule Set is actually used in an Inspection the methods do nothing.  These examples demonstrate the behavior of these methods:

f.Println("Hello world"); // "Hello world"f.Println(null); // ∅f.Println(f); // Rule.Findingf.Println([1,2,3]); // 1,2,3f.Println(new Date(2018, 0, 1)); // Mon Jan 1 00:00:00 PST 2018

In general Print() writes the result of calling the toString() method on the parameter passed.  However, if the parameter is null the character ∅ is written, and if the parameter is of type String the value is enclosed in quotes, as in the first example above.  If there are embedded quotes in the string they are escaped in the output:

f.Println("Is \"Jane\" your name?"); // "Is \"Jane\" your name?"

If a JavaScript object is passed (not an Array, but a pure Object) it is printed in a style similar to JSON, but only for the top level properties:

f.Println({a: "foo", b: 22, c: [1,2], d: {f: 5}});

produces

{  "a": "foo",  "b": 22,  "c": 1,2,  "d": [object Object]}

The behavior changes when more than one parameter is passed.  In that case the values are written sequentially to the output, separate by space characters.  This is useful for annotating the output:

var x = 5;f.Println("The value of x is", x); // The value of x is 5

Validation

When you click the Validate or OK button in the rule editor dialog, Ascribe runs a few test cases through your rule to guard against rules that will throw errors at runtime. Among the test cases are zero length strings for the various properties of the finding.  Returning to our example above:

var m = f.r.match(/\b\w+\b/ig);for (var i = 0; i < m.length; i++) {  f.Println(m[i]);}

If you try this you will find it works fine when testing, but causes a runtime error when you try to save the rule by clicking OK.  In the rule above, validation using zero length strings will cause the variable m to have a value of null. In the for statement this will case a runtime error of Exception: Object required. As a result, the rule cannot be saved as written. It must be corrected by testing m:

var m = f.r.match(/\b\w+\b/ig);if (m) {  for (var i = 0; i < m.length; i++) {    f.Print(m[i]);  }}

In general, when you receive the error Exception: Object required at validation time, you likely need to add a test for a valid object before you access a property or method of the object.

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Your brand name is the first point of contact for your target audience. It conveys the essence of the brand’s value, personality, and promise. It helps distinguish your brand from competitors and builds trust with customers.

In this blog, we will dive into the steps of effective brand name testing and explore how a strong brand name aligns with the brand’s objectives and identity.

What is Brand Name Testing?

Your company’s brand name will play a significant role in shaping your brand image and will also act as an identifier that distinguishes your brand from competitors. As your brand name can play such a big role in shaping your brand image, it is important to pick a name that will resonate with your target audience and will fit the brand image that you want to portray. This is where brand name research comes into the picture.

Brand name testing involves presenting your target audience with a variety of brand name options and asking them to provide feedback on each one. This research helps you make an informed decision while choosing a brand name that is best suited to your company using qualitative and quantitative backing.

Why is Brand Name Testing Important?

Brand name testing helps determine a name that resonates with the target market. The process offers several key benefits. Let’s look into some ways it is important to evaluate potential brand names.

1. It can significantly impact brand perception. A well-chosen name can make your brand more appealing and memorable. Conversely, a poorly chosen name can lead to a lack of trust in the brand.
2. A strategically evaluated brand name that aligns with brand values will help build strong brand-consumer relationships and drive loyalty over time.
3. Choosing a brand name without testing with the target audience will lead to a lack of interest and engagement with the brand. This can also lead to misinterpretations and damage brand credibility.

Also read: What is Concept Testing

Steps to Take to Conduct Brand Name Testing

Now that we have explored the importance of brand name research, let’s look at how to pick a brand name.

1. Pick the brand names you want to test:

The first step in brand name testing is to create a list of brand names that you want to test. These brand names should be ones that you and your coworkers are already confident of. The number of brand names you choose to include will determine the kind of survey design you select.

One effective tool to aid in the early stages of selecting prospective names is using a brand name generator. This tool helps generate name options that align well with your brand’s identity and maximizes creativity, especially before moving into formal testing.

These are some of the most common survey designs:

Monadic Testing:

This research design involves showing participants a single stimulus in isolation. It gives you a measure of how appealing a certain brand name is without skewing the respondent’s perception with the influence of other stimuli/brand names.

Sequential Monadic Design:

This research design involves asking respondents for feedback on multiple stimuli. However, each brand name shown must be evaluated separately rather than evaluation through comparison.

2. Select the parameters by which you will assess the brand names:

The next step is to select the parameters, or metrics, by which you want respondents to assess your brand name. These are a few metrics by which you can measure how good a brand name is:

• Uniqueness: Does the brand name stand out against competitors, or is it easily confused with other brand names?
• Pronounceability: Is the brand name easy to pronounce, or is it common for people to mispronounce it?
• Appeal: Is the brand name appealing to your target audience?
• Purchase Intent: Does the brand name motivate people to purchase the brand’s products/services?

The metric(s) you select should depend on what your goals are for your brand name. If you want a brand name that is memorable and stands out, the most valuable metric for you to measure would be uniqueness.

3. Gather data for brand name testing:

Once you’ve chosen the metrics by which you want your brand name assessed, you can create your brand name testing survey and send it out to your target audience.

Leverage a robust survey software that empowers you to design interactive brand name surveys. Use image questions, ranking, or rating question types to gather a holistic view of potential brand names. Customize the survey with brand colors and fonts to showcase the brand image to the respondents, helping them share insightful feedback.

4. Analyse results to select a brand name:

The final step is to analyze the responses collected in order to evaluate each brand name. This is the most important step, as it involves selecting a brand name that will appeal to your target audience and match the brand perception you want to create.

How brand name surveys can help you find the best options?

Your brand name sticks to the audience’s experience, emotion, and memory. Getting it right can help you nurture a strong brand image and reputation.

1. Brand name testing allows you to understand how your target consumers perceive each potential name. Through surveys, you can gauge factors like brand recall, likability, and uniqueness.
2. Testing multiple names allows you to assess how each name resonates with the market and stands out from competitors. By comparing each name, you can determine the uniqueness of each name.
3. The feedback from your target market can help you understand how to narrow down your options and make it more strong.
4. The process can help mitigate the risk of choosing a name that could have a negative impact on brand reputation. By gathering customer feedback, you can identify and address any potential issues with the options before the official launch.

Why Choose Voxco for your Brand Name Testing Surveys?

These are a few reasons why you should choose Voxco’s Survey Software to conduct your Brand Name Testing Surveys:

• Omnichannel Survey Solution

Our Omnichannel survey software allows you to create your brand name testing survey on a centralized platform before sending it through all channels. This saves time re-programming surveys for multiple channels. Additionally, all collected data is presented on a single integrated platform, allowing you to compare feedback received through all channels.

• Voxco IVR and Voxco Dialer

You can use our survey software in amalgamation with additional tools, such as Voxco Dialer and Voxco IVR, for the most seamless and efficient omnichannel survey experience.

• Powerful Dashboards

Voxco’s powerful and dynamic dashboards provide you with real-time visual presentations of your brand-tracking survey responses. This can help you make a quicker decision while picking your brand name, as our dashboard presents data from across all channels on one unified platform.

• Voxco Audience:

With Voxco’s market research panel, you can gather data from willing respondents representing the total population. With Voxco Audience, you can create your own sample audience to conduct brand name analysis.

A coding management system can organize and quantify comments from your customers, prospects, or other constituents.  Coding is all about gleaning actionable insight from textual comments.  Coding originated in the survey research industry and its terminology and technique come from that industry.

The survey research industry has elevated the art coding customer comments to a science.  These techniques are valuable to any company that wants to have an accurate understanding of what their customers are telling them – and what company does not?

To understand how you can use these techniques to keep your finger on the pulse of your customers, let us first introduce some concepts and terminology.

What is Coding?

Open and Closed End Questions

Think about the surveys you have seen.  There are two basic types of questions, such as these:

1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our business to a friend or colleague?
2. Why did you give us that rating?

The first of these is called a closed-end question because the possible answers are known in advance.  The second is called an open-end question.  There are an infinite number of possible responses to the question.

Verbatims

Perhaps surprisingly, we do not call the text that the respondent types for an open-end question an “answer”.  Instead, we call it a verbatim.  Yes, I know that “verbatim” is not a noun, but it has been adopted as one in the survey research industry.  Why do we not call the text an answer?  Well, because we cannot do much with the text alone. 

Coding

Imagine you have 5,000 responses to the short survey above and your boss asks you: What percentage of our customers rated us below 8 because of a product delivery problem?  Perhaps you would read each of the verbatims from the second question and make notes on a piece of paper, then tally up the results.  If you are more methodical you might put the verbatims in Excel and make a column for “Delivery Problem” and put a 1 in the column if the verbatim mentions a delivery problem.  As you do this, you would probably add other columns for other issues mentioned, perhaps “Product Quality” and “Technical Support”.  That way when your boss asks you tomorrow for how many customers gave us a negative rating for technical support, you could have the answer instantly, just by summing the Technical Support column.

In survey research we call what you just did in Excel Coding.  The columns such as Delivery Problem and Technical Support are called Codes, but you can see that in a certain sense we could also call them Answers.  When you put a 1 in the Technical Support column, you mean that this customer mentioned technical support as an issue.  

By coding the verbatims as you have done in Excel you have turned the qualitative data (the verbatims) into quantitative data (the codes).

Sources of Verbatims

In the example above we talked about a simple two question survey.  You may have recognized this as a classic Net Promoter Score (NPS®) survey.  This is a good place to start when learning about coding, because the technique of verbatim coding was developed and refined in the survey research industry.

But traditional surveys are certainly not the only source of verbatims for coding.  Verbatim coding is applicable whenever you want to get actionable insights from comments.  This includes such sources as:

• NPS surveys
• Employee satisfaction surveys
• Help desk inquiries
• Call center transcriptions
• CRM systems

Verbatim coding is appropriate whenever you need to quantify comments from constituents.

Reasons for Coding

If we think of coding as tagging comments with codes that attribute meaning to the comment, we see that there are two primary reasons for coding.

Quantification

Coding turns qualitative data into quantitative data.  Once our NPS survey is coded we can easily ask questions such as:

• What percentage of net detractors mentioned product delivery?
• How does the number of net detractors mentioning product delivery in Q1 compare with Q2?
• How does the number of net detractors mentioning product delivery in the Central Region compare with the Eastern Region?

Note that in the second and third example above we assume that we have some additional information.  In the second example we assume we know the time the comment was given.  This comes along for free; we just need to make a record of the date of receipt of the comment.  The third example assumes we know the region the customer is in.  We could of course get this information by asking a closed end Region question in the NPS survey.  But hopefully we can get this information, and much more, by using our CRM system to augment the data with known information about the customer.

Quantification and analysis of verbatims in this fashion is the bread and butter of the survey research industry.  But these techniques are equally applicable for in-house analysis – and far less costly than engaging a research company.

Classification and Indexing

Even after they are coded, verbatims remain a very rich source of insight into your customers thoughts and attitudes.  With coded verbatims you can get your hands on the verbatims most applicable for a business question you are considering.  For example, a product manager with a delivery problem in the Central Division might, and probably should, read a selection of verbatims from that region that mention delivery.  Once coded, finding these verbatims is trivial.

Classification of verbatims by coding allows product managers and others to keep their fingers on the pulse of the customer using the rich texture of verbatim comments, targeted at specific areas of interest by coding.

Coding Methodologies

We started by looking at coding verbatims using Excel.  That is not a contrived example.  There are small survey research companies that do just that.  But there are far more convenient and productive techniques than using Excel.

Human Coding

In the survey research industry verbatim coding is a profession.  People trained in coding read and code every verbatim in open end survey questions.  The industry uses Ascribe Coder to code over 200 million verbatims each year.

Human coding produces the highest accuracy and allows for nuanced differences in meaning between codes.  The construction of a well-designed code frame, which is the set of codes for a question, is part of the art of human coding.  Human coders have full control over the form of the code frame and can deliver results tailored to a specific survey research objective.

The accuracy and control afforded by human coding comes at an associated cost of labor and turn-around time.

Automated Coding

Advances in natural language processing today allow fully automated coding.  Ascribe CX Inspector can code thousands of verbatims in minutes, with no human involvement.  CX Inspector constructs a set of groups automatically by analysis of the verbatims and classifies the verbatims into those groups.  The groups are directly analogous to codes, although they are created by the machine rather than by hand.

Blended Approaches

To be fair, a market researcher would not call the fully automated approach verbatim coding because:

• It does not use a code frame constructed by the researcher
• The accuracy is lower than human coding

With the addition of some human labor, the results of fully automated coding can be massaged to resemble human coding more closely.  In CX Inspector you can edit the automatically created groups by merging and renaming them.  This gives you control similar to the code frame in Ascribe Coder while retaining the speed advantage of automated classification of verbatims.  The resulting groups can be saved as a taxonomy and used on multiple projects, just as you might use a code frame in Ascribe Coder for multiple projects.

Working in the other direction, Ascribe Coder provides the Coding Assistant.  Coding Assistant uses natural language processing to suggest verbatims to code based on prior human coding.  Coding Assistant confers much of the speed advantage of fully automated coding, while retaining full human control of the results.

Conclusion

Verbatim coding was developed by the survey research industry, but its usefulness is not confined to that industry.  Verbatim coding is applicable whenever you need to organize and quantify comments from your constituents.  Tools such as Ascribe Coder and CX Inspector allow you to reap the benefits of verbatim coding without engaging a third party supplier.

On the Voxco blog, we have been often focused on increasing response rates through survey design tactics.

That being said, simply “getting through the door” needs to be a key priority for market researchers wanting to drive response rates.

Without building that initial feeling of amicability and trust in phone surveys, the interviewer will have a hard time getting a complete. Here’s why trust matters in encouraging respondent participation and facilitating meaningful CATI survey results:

• It plays a crucial role in convincing respondents that the information they provide is highly valuable.
• It motivates the respondents to share sensitive or potentially embarrassing information which they won’t share otherwise.
• It assures respondents that their information is safe and will not be misused, mocked, or shared in any case.
• It promises respondents that they will not regret the time spent with a company (brand touchpoints) rather they’ll cherish it.

According to GRBN, “only 1 in 10 people have a high level of trust in market research companies.” Therefore, fostering trust is extremely important to garner meaningful results through your survey efforts. Today, we’re covering our top tips for increasing phone survey completes through inspiring trust in potential survey respondents.

Start Creating Surveys Now

Listen and Callback

Interviewers’ first instinct may be to get the person on the line to listen to them. However, it’s crucial that interviewers are listening to their potential respondent. Are they busy? Are they engaged with what you’re saying? Should you offer to call them back? These are questions your interviewer needs to be asking themselves.

At a bare minimum, there are two main types of callbacks: a hard callback where it’s clear the correct person was reached but they were too busy, and a soft callback in which it is uncertain whether the right person was reached or even interested. Of course, successful researchers strive to have the least amount of soft callbacks as possible.

You should ensure that the phone survey software that you’re using allows for callback queues, callback messaging and other call management tools.

Voxco’s survey software provides researchers with plethora of interviewer tools to improve productivity of phone survey projects. Book a demo for free consultation.

Pepper in Sociodemographic Questions

It’s very common for researchers to build surveys that ask respondents all their socio-demographic questions right off the bat to filter the respondent as quickly as possible. You should be careful about what questions you ask the respondent. Take a look at our expert written demographic survey template.

But, this may not be the correct approach to building trust and getting quality answers to the more specific questions in the study. The reality is that sociodemographic questions err on the side of personal and may turn respondents off to your study (eg: What is your age? What is your annual income? What is your religion?).

In the case that not all sociodemographic questions are answered, you can still use the semi-completed survey and weight it as less significant than more complete surveys. After conducting the demographic survey, all you need to do is segment your customers, we’ve got a survey template on segmentation.

Surveys are a Conversation NOT an Interrogation

Guiding interviewers to administer surveys with the proper attitude is certainly a challenge for those managing call centers. The idea, of course, is to have the interviewer and interviewee are genuinely interested in the back-and-forth conversation.

Beyond ensuring that your interviewer team is consistently motivated and your call center culture is inspiring, consistent feedback is key. Using a survey software with built-in reporting features for line items like general call monitoring, productivity, and call analytics will help managers understand the interviewers’ areas for improvement and address them quickly.  

Explore Voxco’s telephony features with a free demo with our team.

Step Up to the Plate, High-Converters!

When the time comes for callbacks, work with your high-converting interviewers to communicate with the potential respondents that did not complete. In these cases, the responsibility to re-engage these people rests on the interviewers’ side.

In many circumstances, people refuse to participate in surveys due to the time commitment of doing the survey. However, as two sides of the same coin, people are also inherently interested in giving their opinion on things that they deem important. In that regard, that’s why the interviewer approach is so important to getting the completes your study needs.

In most of the cases, you need to set up correct survey reward programs. But setting up a reward program can be a task. We have compiled a guide to simplify this process for you.

The Right Tool for the Job

While interviewing methods are a critical part of inspiring interviewee trust and survey completion, it all starts with the right software.

Researchers must ensure that their CATI software has robust callback organizing and scheduling capabilities (by shift, timeslot, etc.). It is also important to have the ability to set and manage complex quotas, in order to assign groups and roles – in the case that you want to employ a high-converting interviewer or an interviewer that speaks a different language.

In addition to these features, Voxco Survey Software has a fully integrated platform, with one unified database for online and phone surveys. Within the CATI software, you can also integrate a cloud-based or on-premise dialer, and an IVR system.

Editor’s note : The blog was originally published in June, 2020 and is now updated for accuracy, comprehensiveness & freshness.

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What is an Exit Poll?

When it’s about the election, an exit poll is all everyone talks about. In simple terms, election exit polls are the poll of voters taken after people exit from voting stations on the day of the election.

During the time of the election, people are eager for information. Pollsters conduct exit polls using voter’s responses about their choices and project how the election turned out even before the ballot reveals the real result. Pollsters are generally private organizations or companies working in association with newspapers and/or media.

Exit polls, unlike opinion polls, gather information on who people voted in favor of instead of who they intend to favor. The pollsters or surveyors approach this direction of poll information because real outcomes may take hours or days to tally. Once the votes are added, the media and newspapers explain the outcome on the grounds of exit polls.

How reliable are Exit Polls?

Exit poll, while primarily used to understand the outcome of election results or predict them, is also used to figure out the reason behind their vote. Exit polls are rendered reliable to collect demographic data of the voters.

Election voting has always been conducted namelessly, but exit polls can confirm who has cast their vote. Exit polls also provide statistical data to understand the voter’s decision on why they cast their vote on the ballot. Also, exit polls have been used for a long time as a rough indicator against any decision misrepresentation and election fraud.

However, exit polls also face issues like the most popular of all, “1992 UK General Election”. The error caused by exit polls in this election was that the poll was predicted to have a hung parliament. Still, after the final result, John Major’s Conservative Party Government held the position.

Exit polls rely on the people who went to the voting station to vote. The surveyors can’t reach those who cast their vote by postal ballot and absentee voting. This often causes a vast difference between exit polls results and final results. Hence, pollsters must consider such factors to gather a more accurate exit poll result.

Functioning of Exit Polls

• The first step in conducting exit polls is to categorize sample size, which races to operate in, and what questions to ask. 
• The organization must also be equipped with a social research survey tool for gathering data and analyzing it.
• The organization will then research the polling station’s location, the voting duration, and what the rules are in those states or districts. 
• Next, the organization allots one or more (depends on the organization) interviewers in each zone from the time polls open until a little before they close. The interviewer conducts the exit polls on the voters. The frequency of how many voters are interviewed depends on the organization. 
• The data gathered by the interviewers are sent to the organization, where they are tallied and sent to broadcasting channels and newspapers.
• The questionnaires in exit polls primarily include questions on demographics, their opinion on candidates, and when they decided to vote. The voters themselves fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire and exit polls are confidential.

For example, the National Election Pool informs their interviewer to talk to every third or fifth voter. They aim to conduct 100 to 150 interviews. NEP will stop the interviewer three times a day and take the exit polls results to tally them. Edison Media Research conducts exit polls for NEP. 

When NEP conducts their questionnaires, the interviewers are instructed to record visually the age, gender, and race of those who declined to participate. This helps in the tally of the result. The NEP reports the exit polls data after the tallies, refusals, and questionnaires are processed.

Do you want to know how satisfied your employees are with their employment but don't know what to ask them? Don't worry, we're here to assist you.

How satisfied your employees are, depends on several factors such as the workplace, condition of everyday life at their office, their pay, the atmosphere at work, etc.

Ultimately, your employees are the ones who interact with customers on a daily basis and contribute to the success of your organization.

In this blog, we will discuss why you need to conduct an employee satisfaction survey. On top of that, we have provided you with a list of questions you should ask your employees.

Before getting started, let us understand what employee satisfaction actually is.

What is an employee satisfaction survey?

Employee satisfaction surveys are used to assess the degree of satisfaction of its employees with the organization and their jobs. Such surveys are carried out not only to determine how satisfied employees are with their positions but also to determine how dedicated and aligned they are with the company's goals, vision, and aspirations.

It explores how employees perceive business culture, employee growth, colleague relationships, superior recognition, and other significant concerns.

Why do you need an employee satisfaction survey?

Unsatisfied employees may become noxious over time, affecting employee morale, fouling the workplace, and increasing turnover. Employees who feel encouraged and happy are more willing to go far beyond.

Low satisfaction can have a negative influence on an organization's bottom line in a variety of ways. Now, let's look at why you should conduct an employee satisfaction survey:

1. Acknowledging employee skill gaps

Employee surveys are an efficient way for organizations to identify specific employee shortfalls.

Employee surveys, when carried out on a regular basis, assist management in developing training sessions for employees to overcome shortcomings and promote success.

2. Obtain honest and ethical feedback

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While procuring feedback, organizations prioritize a greater response rate in order to have more precise data. However, in employee satisfaction surveys, the quality of the information collected is more important than the responses.

With access to high-quality data, management may utilize additional insight to support business decisions and implement modifications to provide the best working atmosphere.

3. Improve employee retention

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Another critical objective of carrying out employee satisfaction surveys is to keep employees onboard for a prolonged period of time.

Organizations invest a lot of effort and resources in their employees from the time they are hired until they leave. This explains why losing employees in the initial stages could be overwhelming.

Now that you have learned the need to conduct employee satisfaction surveys. Let us now explore the questions you should ask your employees.

Top 10 Employee Satisfaction Survey Questions

You might have discovered the fact that asking the right questions is vitally important for creating a highly satisfied workforce.

We have created a list of the top 10 employee satisfaction questions. Let’s have a look.

1. Do you think your position permits you to learn new skills?

Employees seek out their own learning opportunities when they believe their employer is not assisting them in avoiding obsolescence. And such learning opportunities are usually found outside of their core firms. This question determines how satisfied your employees are with the training possibilities available at your company.

2. Is your management open to assisting you in completing your work?

Managers should recognize an employee's distinctive skills and give them projects that focus on them. If your survey findings suggest that employees do not feel motivated, you have the evidence you need to call for extra training for them.

3. Do you get along with your coworkers?

Employees spend a substantial amount of time with their coworkers, and therefore they have a major impact on their job satisfaction and inspiration. Being surrounded by passionate and productive people makes work more motivating and enjoyable. This question might reveal communication problems between the employees.

4. Do you agree that you are being fairly rewarded for the position you hold?

While engagement and gratitude are important factors in retaining employees, so does remuneration. Every employee wants to be compensated and enjoy benefits in addition to their income. It's a good idea to include questions about your company's salary and benefits package in your survey.

5. How likely are you to recommend our organization as a wonderful place to work?

Your company's success is dependent on its ability to recruit qualified individuals in a competitive marketplace. Understanding whether or not your workers would endorse your organization is critical, not solely for retention efforts.

However, it also implies that you may reduce the expense of recruiting by encouraging references. It also implies that they are definitely satisfied with employee engagement.

6. Does your management appreciate your opinions?

Employers who do not promote open discussions with their employees or who tend to prioritize the opinions of some employees above others can be a big cause of discontent.

Secondly, it might hinder employees from making a stand about serious concerns and contributing useful ideas. For successful management performance, it's crucial to modify a management style accordingly.

7. Do you consider yourself to have a great work-life balance?

Employee surveys are an effective method for determining the overall level of employee stress. Inquiring about employees' feelings about their current work-life balance might provide useful information. It is a critical aspect of ensuring long-term employee happiness.

8. Where do you see yourself in this organization in the near future?

If your organization has a poor level of engagement, it is unlikely that your employees will be dissatisfied in the long run. As a consequence, engaged workers are convinced that they will be prepared to thrive and grow with the company, ensuring a bright future for both.

Asking this question provides better insights into retention issues and potential turnover.

9. Do you feel your accomplishments are acknowledged?

If your employees do not feel valued and acknowledged, they will often leave your organization. If a survey reveals that employees lack a sense of achievement, you have a chance to prove the real-world worth of your company's work and develop measures that acknowledge the necessary contributions.

10. Is there a clear understanding of the organization's strategic objectives?

Employees that have specific objectives can take the necessary actions to achieve success. If goals and objectives are unclear and yearly performance assessments are unsatisfactory, employees who feel let down by a company's evaluation system may develop bitterness and disappointment.

Key Takeaway

We think that these questions will be extremely beneficial to your organization in terms of employee satisfaction. You need to include a variety of question types to obtain a thorough picture of the retention of employees at your firm.

Segmentation, you may know means grouping of people. Psychographic segmentation likewise means a grouping of people based on the psychological traits that influence their consumption habits. Market research tools can allow analysts to conduct this form of segmentation easily. The segments of customers or consumers are based on their: social class, lifestyle, personality, interests, and so on.Psychographic data can help you give your business a customer-centric image that is relevant for a brand in the market.Psychographic data can be considered the last piece to complete the set of a holistic view of customer’s purchase or consumption behavior. It is conducted by understanding “How” people think about your service and “What” they should buy to reach the “Why” the customer should appreciate your products/service. The psychographic survey takes into consideration the psychological journey of the customer.To measure and predict these patterns the researchers fulfill some basic criteria such as:

• What is the motivation behind customer’s thoughts?
• What are the principles they follow?
• What in fluencies them to make a decision?

Understanding customer’s demands and expectations play a major role in the marketing strategy. As a result, the data can be used as guidance to provide the market with products that are customer-oriented.Therefore, the belief of psychometric segmentation is that understanding the customers would help them to understand your brand.For example, if a Chinese restaurant wants to open a branch they will have to take into consideration several factors. They need to conduct market research to consider the area with a better social circle, the food habit of the neighborhood people, and many more factors. They will put out a survey with questions beneficial for their strategy and then decide their business plan.

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Collection of Psychometric Segmentation Data

Psychometric data is challenging to collect because people are not always willing to tell you everything you want for research purposes. Moreover, you need to dig beyond the obvious data and read between the lines. You need deep insight to understand the psychological functioning of your customers.There are several ways you can collect these data, some are listed below.Survey:

• This is the most common method used by all companies or organizations to understand their consumers. 
• Open-ended questions help in surveys the most as they let customers answer freely. You can use these responses to group your customers and then take action on the suggestions. You can also use a Likert scale to gain data on your customer’s experience. Or, a Semantic differential scale to understand how your customers feel about certain services or concepts.

Third-PartyThis method is quite tricky and may turn out expensive. Third-party implies that you take help from market research companies that can provide you customer data for your market. You can then use the information you require. There are two ways this method functions: focus group and customer interviews.

• • Focus Group: This includes a wide range of responses because the target of this survey consists of people from different backgrounds. The idea behind the focus group is that once a customer responds well to the object/service, they bring in more people with a similar choice.
  • Customer Interviews: These are discussions conducted with customers to collect relevant data based on their opinions. This helps create a balance because it gives you a picture of what right or wrong you are doing in your business.

Cookies

•  Many websites use cookies to track a customer’s journey online. When a customer agrees to the cookie on a website it means they are giving permission to the website to access your personal information. A company can collect psychographic data by tracking the user’s journey and activity on social media, websites, online purchases, and other online platforms. 
• The digital data obtained by this method gives a complete picture of the customer; who they are, what they do online, how much time they spent, their reviews, why they spent time online. This information helps a company build its online presence attractive enough to keep its customers visiting daily.

Variables of Psychometric Segmentation

Exploratory Research Guide

Conducting exploratory research seems tricky but an effective guide can help.Download NowCustomers have a special need and expectation from brands and these demands are based on a certain factor which affects their life. Companies use these factors to promote and capture the attention of their customers in the market. The following are the variables used for marketing strategies.Personality:

• Customer personality is believed to be strongly related to their purchase habit. Products and services can be catered to various personalities. Also, different concepts and surveys can be used to analyze different personalities. 
• For instance, Mirror in 2018 began selling itself as an interactive home trainer. The workshop for the product advertised towards people with the personality of workout-lovers. The customers who can’t find time to go to the gym responded to this business strategy.

Lifestyle:

• Understanding the kind of lifestyle your customers have from their social media activity or keeping track of the trends can help you create a strategy to attract your customers. Such development of products is more successful because they are created based on customer’s lifestyles.
• For example, the “Yuppie Handbook” of the 80s was targeted towards young, urban, and working-class professionals who earned enough to spend on fashion over utility. 

Social Status:

• Social status which is based on the income of one person often is the determining factor of their purchase behavior. Each social class has its choice of brands that they can afford. 
• For example, a brand can aim for rich, upper-class people because their brand has a clear idea of who can afford them. High quality and high price become their brand image, with their audience being upper-class.

Interests:

• The market observes the activities and interests enjoyed by the customers to create customer-centric products or services. Their opinions about a concept are factors that the companies or organization build their marketing strategies around.
• For instance, digital communities are one such example of an interest group. You can find many sites dedicated to particular interests or activities focusing on customers who enjoy such options. You can find websites with movies, music videos, channels with video games, etc. all such websites target audiences who share the same interests.

Values:

• Value is one such segment that catches the attention of the customers. You can track the values of your customers based on the data you have collected about their lifestyles, interest, social class, etc. 
• More and more companies are targeting values related to the environment. Sustainable fashion, furniture, architecture are some examples that are now being advertised as a marketing strategy.

Examples of Psychographic Segmentation

Starbucks Starbucks uses psychographic segmentation while conducting market research as you can see the range of products they sell.For examples,

• Frappuccinos and Sandwiches are catered for those who can’t drink coffee but can spend their time socializing in their stores. 
• Top-quality beans to brew coffee for those customers who like their coffee of premium quality and have a high income. 

Starbucks advertises and appeals to their customers with a high success rate because they use psychographic segmentation.Foot Locker

• Foot Locker uses the psychographic segment of Authority to track and appeal to its customers. The product badges of Foot Lockers are a stamp of approval that drives customer’s purchase behavior. 
• They can use this behavior pattern of their customer who responds to Authority and implement it on their business strategy.

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See Voxco survey software in action with a Free demo.

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Advantages of Psychographic Segmentation

• This market research tool can help you understand the psychological working of the customer’s behavior.
• Segmentation depending on psychographic factors can help customize your business service and products.
• The detailed insights from psychographic segmentation along with geographic and demographical segmentation give you a vividly clear picture of the customer’s attitude.