Marketing Research( - Essay Example

Surveys Problems with the Survey The first question in Part A contains too many items that may produce biased results. For instance, all aspects of physical facilities may not have the same rating. For instance, special promotions may meet the customer’s expectations, while the width of aisles may not. However, the respondent is required to rate both aspects of the store’s physical facilities with one answer applicable to both. Likewise, question 3 requires one answer to two different services: services on time and getting services right the first time.

It also appears that getting services right the first time is repeated in question 4 and this can lead to confusion rendering the results to questions 3 and 4 unreliable. Question 7 asks for the respondents assess employee’s education, intelligence and accomplishments. This may be a question that respondents cannot answer truthfully. While they may be able to assess intelligence, they cannot assess education and accomplishments. Questions 6, 7 and 8 of Part E may be problematic as these questions ask for narrative responses.

While narratives can be very useful for researchers, they are very difficult to calculate and put in a statistical perceptive (Downing & Clark 2010, p. 291). Some of the questions are multiple choice, for example the respondents can choice either yes or no answers. In other places the questions require the recording of wait times. However, the answers could have been in multiple choice terms to facilitate a more efficient method for calculating results and compiling statistics. The remainder of the survey is categorically scaled provided for a range of answers indicated the level of agreement from 1-7.

This format could have been used through the survey. Part E which covers demographic information should have been solely multiple choice. Rules for Preparing a Good Survey Survey questions should be concise and clear to avoid ambiguous or unreliable results. Moreover, survey questions should only be aimed at gathering the information that the researcher is attempting to gather (Pride & Ferrell 2006). Surveys should be as short as possible since consumers can be bored with long surveys and this too can distort the credibility of the responses.

A bored respondent may either refuse to take the survey, fail to complete it, or simply select responses without reading the question. Open-ended questions should be avoided in surveys where the population sample is large. If open-ended questions are used, they should be used sparingly. In addition, surveys should be carefully worded to ensure that the respondent does not get the impression that a specific reply is sought. Surveys should be worded in such a way as to ensure the respondent that it is not a sales’ pitch as this could lead to untruthful replies (Crouch & Housden, 2003).

Bibliography Crouch, Sunny and Housden, Matthew. (2003). Marketing Research for Managers. Burlington, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann. Downing, Douglas and Clark, Jeffrey. (2010). Business Strategies. Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s Educational Series, Inc. Pride, William, M. and Ferrell, O.C. (2006). Marketing: Concepts and Strategies. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company.