Defining Contact Methods - Assignment Example

1.Contact Methods Evaluate and recommend contact methods to meet research objectives. Contact methods include: • Focus groups including moderators guide; • In-depth interviews . • Telephone, mail and internet surveys. • Mall intercepts. The research objective of the study has not been given. However, if I were to pick one, it could be to find out the extent to which the average householder values carpet on the basis of how it “feels” to her hand and also how it “appeals to her sight”. The contact method chosen for a particular research to a large extent depends on a number of factors. These include funds earmarked for the research, time constraints, availability and proximity of research participants and precision and quality of research results required. The larger the research funds given for the work, the easier it becomes for the researcher to choose from the number of approaches given above. In other words, when money is not a problem, the researcher can pick on any of the methods without the thought of whether it is the most economical or feasible way to conduct the research. It is known, for example, the face to face in-depth interview is a more expensive method of data collection (Evans, Moutinho and Raaij, 1996). Some of the methods require more time than others. For example, if one adopted the use of a telephone or the internet or mall intercepts, research participants can be contacted and the research survey carried out possibly with hours. In contrast, if one adopted a mail survey, especially in situations where it is snail-paced, it may take days for the research results to be received. So in a situation where the research is limited by time, mail survey may not be best methodology to use. With regards to availability of participants, some methods can effectively reach the customer more than others. For example, if it is learnt that most of the target customer are home-makers, who also have telephone in their homes, then that approach shall be more effective in reaching them the use of the internet. Also, if it is learnt that the ideal customer of the company goes to the mall herself to purchase the carpet, and then a mail intercept can give better customer response than the use of say the mail. The precision of results determines whether the results are important to decision making, and so persons well versed in research methodology shall be used or simply a employee of the firm without the requisite knowledge shall be asked to” play with it”. 2• You need to specify as to how focus groups and in-depth interviews will help quantitative research and You need to specify as to how Telephone, mail and internet surveys and Mall intercepts will help qualitative research Outputs from focus groups and in-depth interviews help in “ focusing “quantitative research .By that it is meant that they help in identifying issues to probe further in the larger population and those which must be ignored. Specifically, they help in questionnaire development, by incorporating the type of questions one must include and also how those questions should be posed. Results from telephone, mail, internet and mail –intercept can aid qualitative research such as focus group by enabling the finer points of an issue to be probed further. For example, if it is found that colour of the packaging of a product is important to the customer in the target market, a focus group can be used to find out which particular colour influences the buyer the most. 2. Sampling • Evaluate different sampling strategies and select the appropriate strategy required to meet research objectives & Justify your sampling option. Evans, Moutinho and Raaij (1996) have enumerated the different types of sampling that can be used to address a research problem. These include those based on the laws of probability and those that are not. The latter includes convenience sampling, where one picks on participants that are readily available and also judgment sampling, where one selects persons for the study on the basis on their relevance to the issue under investigation or simply their representativeness. Quota sampling is also another example of sampling methods that into this category. The former includes random and geodermographic samplings. A company which has been in existence for a long period of time as DuPont has depth of information on its customers. It should not be difficult to apply the laws of probability in selecting a sample from its population of customer. As such, supposing we wanted to explore the research issue earlier given, it should easy to select participants we shall contact for the research. We can use the lottery approach or a mathematical table or simply divide the population of carpet buyers from the company by the number of participants we want to use for the study. This would give us the nth sampling interval. Lastly, we can also pick the sample from the market segments or sub-divisions, such as commercial carpets, contract residential and residential homes. For each of these segments, we can consider the different materials used such as nylon fiber, stain resistance and polypropylene or from the customer perspective such as payer, buyer or user and sample the population accordingly. Consistent with the research problem given earlier, I shall opt to sample the population on the basis of market type and zero in on residential homes. If the study reveals that DuPont residential homes now values their carpet on the basis of how it feels and appeals to the sight, it would enable the company develop comparable offerings and also adopt effective marketing strategies against the threat posed by its competitors. 3. Identify target population, sample unit and sample frame for this research ==================================================================================================================================== The total population of carpet users was not given numerically. It however consists of all users of carpets. The sample unit as has been explained above shall consist of carpet users or buyers who are chosen to participate in this research. The sample frame is the restricts we impose on the population to obtain the sample we use for the research. 4. Minimising sources of error • Evaluate the potential of sampling and non-sampling errors, and outline strategies for minimizing them. ==================================================================================================================================== Sampling error is the difference between the sample error and that of the true value of the population mean. In practice, this error can not be avoided, but can be minimized by increasing the sample size. Thus the larger the sample size, the more effectively one cancels out this error. However, it is needful to point out that increasing the sample size I also introduces a cost element. So whilst it is good to use larger sample sizes in research studies, the cost factor imposes the extent to which this can be done practically. Non-sampling errors are those that come about as a result of defective design and implementation of the research. Thus, it embodies all possible errors that can arise other than that traced to sampling. Examples of such errors include: selection error, sample frame error, surrogate error, interviewer error, measurement error, processing error, and population specification error In practice these errors can be reduced by carrying out preliminary control checks, careful consideration and definition of the population of interest, adopting selection procedures that introduce an element of randomness, careful selection of interview and training, pre-testing the questionnaire and rigid procedures for transferring data (McDaniel and Gate, 1999). 5. Ethical issue. It is important that customer information is treated` with utmost care. Customer information should not be divulge without their prior consent. References 1. Evans, M.J., Moutinho, L. and Van Raaij, W.F. (1996). Applied Consumer Behaviour, Addison-Wesley 2. McDaniel, C and Gates, R, Contemporary Marketing Research, Fourth Edition, South-Western College Publishing, Cincinati, Ohio, USA. Read More