List at least 5 advantages and 5 disadvantages of focus groups
Advantages:
- Fast & relatively cheap
- Allows for probing of unanticipated issues
- Easily understood & believable
- Interaction within group and with moderator can build ideas and improve results
- Nonverbal behaviors can be observed
- Flexible and expandable (to boost sample size)
Disadvantages:
- Groups are difficult to control
- Groups vary depending on participants and geography
- Data is difficult to summarize, analyze, and generalize
- Observers and moderator reports may exclude important comments
- Groups may be hard to assemble
- Participants may give bias responses
p. 131
List at least 5 advantages and 5 disadvantages of telephone surveys
Advantages:
- Can randomly sample population (RDD)
- Covers a wide geography
- Generates high response rates
- Compared to face-to-face, may need less training, may be safer for interviews, may cost less
- Response rates are typically 10% higher than comparable face-to-face surveys
- Can conduct survey quickly and directly code responses to speed analysis
Disadvantages:
- May have nonresponse bias
- Must consider unlisted numbers and multiple numbers per household
- Cannot show visuals
- May have difficulty with sensitive topics
- Difficult to provide incentives
- Difficult to include cell-only households
p. 176-177
List at least 5 advantages and disadvantages of internet surveys
Advantages:
- Rapid development & deployment
- Fast tabulation (w/ less human error)
- Low costs
- High participation
- No need to occupy companions
- Personalized questions
- No training or travel needed
Disadvantages:
- Internet accesses & browser variations (design issues/appearance)
- Respondent computer expertise differences (response time, computer anxiety)
- Multiple responses per person (multiple email addresses)
- Verification of respondent identities (limits responses)
- Data security, confidentiality, privacy, and anonymity
- Difficult to offer incentives
p.181
Good moderators are hard to find for focus groups. What traits would you look for when trying to find a good moderator
- Strong background knowledge in subject area (politics, medicine, consumer products, etc.)
- Good sense of humor
- Makes eye contact and remember/use names
- Genuinely enjoys listening to others thoughts and feelings
- Good auditory memory – expressive & insightful about people
- Quick learner, flexible, well-organized, with good recall
- Friendly, empathetic, smart with high energy
- Animated, spontaneous, facilitates, without performing
- Admits own bias
- Focuses on big picture
- Avoids comments such as “excellent,” “great,” and “wonderful”
- etc…
p. 139
If you were put in charge of managing a focus group, describe five principles you would follow (besides choosing a good moderator)
…
Suppose your boss wanted to learn about different options for estimating buyer willingness-to-pay. Describe how five different methods could be used.
-Manager judgement
…Sales manager or marketing managers
-Expert interviews
…Delphi surveys
-Internal engineering assessments
…Expected cost savings
-Customer input ...Focus groups of customers ...Benchmarks (value vs. similar product) ...Importance ratings of features ...Field value-in-use assessment
- Customer value analysis
- Case studies of similar products
- War games and simulations
- etc.???
p. 111
Briefly describe five examples of research where color was shown to be an important variable for explaining or influencing buyer behavior
…
If you were put in charge of managing a sensory test, describe five principles you would follow to make the results as useful as possible
…
Willingness-to-pay estimation can be difficult. Describe five issues that a researcher would face when trying to estimate buyers willingness-to-pay
…
