What if I could tell you the general consensus of how respondents will answer questions in your survey, before you even fielded it?  It may sound crazy, but it’s true.  At times, the way a survey question is written has more impact on the data than the respondent’s opinion on the topic.  You wouldn’t think Read more

A couple of weeks ago, I was part of a conference call with a potential new client. At one point, one of the people on the other end of the call said, “Tell us why we should hire RMS over another research vendor?”    It’s rare that someone states the point so succinctly, but that Read more

I just wrapped up reading a book titled slide:ology written by Nancy Duarte.  As I’ve mentioned before numerous times on the Bunker Blog, my most enjoyable part of my work is creative design with regards to reporting.  Market research may be viewed as an uncreative and arithmetical career (let’s face it, sometimes it is) and Read more

One thing you must always think about when developing a survey is to encompass all possible responses; this means conducting secondary research (even some qualitative research) to ensure that you are covering everything.  This is more commonly referred to as collectively exhaustive in market research terms, part of the MECE principle.  The results of not Read more

Adult learners, sometimes called nontraditional students, have long been a part of the market for higher education, but in recent years the segment has grown in importance. In fact, a 2002 special analysis by the National Center for Education Statistics revealed that there were roughly the same number of nontraditional undergraduate students studying at American Read more

This post was written by our guest blogger Mark Dengler, who is President of Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) – a patient satisfaction survey vendor located in NY. In this age of the Internet and social media, word-of-mouth can still be the best advertising tool available. It can also be detrimental to any business’ reputation. Read more

Response rates are a commonly explored theme in market research today.  This is especially the case with online surveys where a lot of times it’s counterproductive to put in additional time hounding respondents to complete your survey.  There are few exceptions, but in most cases the vast majority of your online survey completes will come with Read more

You’re conducting a customer survey, and you want to ask your customers about their experiences at your store.  Aside from testing their satisfaction and asking for feedback, you also include questions like: what products they are buying, when did they visit the store, etc.  When developing a survey you might want to reconsider the questions Read more

I recently read an article in the May 2011 edition of Quirks, which is titled “Marrying Phone and Web” by Tom Donnelly – click here to read it.  The theme of the article is why web-assisted TDIs (tele-depth interviews) are a cost-effective qualitative methodology.  Methodologies like online bulletin boards, virtual focus groups and video chat Read more

With Mother’s Day coming up this Sunday, the day after Saturday (yes, it’s this Sunday, May 8th – yet another reminder!), we put together a few things we have heard our mothers say.  Although they probably didn’t have market research in mind as they were trying to teach us valuable life lessons, we always have market research on the Read more