|
Archive for the ‘Research Design’ Category
Friday, June 19th, 2009
Nick Hague this week takes us on a world tour, explaining why you should never be surprised to get such varied responses to your global customer satisfaction questions.
We tend to have a human instinct that ‘deep inside’ all people are the same – but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country – the chances are we’ll make some very bad decisions – Geert Hofstede
After spending what seems like the last few months living out of a suitcase delivering research findings to a myriad of companies in countries ranging from Germany, Belgium, Spain and Ireland to the USA and China, it has hit home to me even more so, how important it is to understand individual country differences. These differences might be cultural, behavioural or attitudinal, but a researcher needs to know what lies behind a given score before making informed recommendations for action. Carrying out international research is all in a day’s work at B2B International!
Enquiries for customer satisfaction and loyalty research have risen in recent months as the global recession bites harder and companies are turning their attention towards retaining their existing customer base. We are often tasked with carrying out customer satisfaction studies that cover multiple geographies. Implementing and evaluating such research requires an understanding of the different cultures and infrastructures within a particular geography; for example will a Chinese respondent answer an unsolicited telephone call or will an e-survey alienate half your target market in Spain? Another complexity that comes up in multi-country studies is making sure a translated questionnaire has the same meaning across multiple geographies. However, one of the most important aspects of carrying out international research is having the insight to why individuals from different countries around the world convey such different ratings; especially customer satisfaction ratings, when receiving a similar if not identical service from the same global organisation.
So my Thursday Night Insight rant this week is about response styles and I pose the question: Why do customer satisfaction response styles differ between countries?
Typically, in any customer satisfaction survey the norm is to use a 10 point scale where 1 means totally unsatisfied and 10 means totally satisfied. When asking this question to customers across different countries I can definitely make the following general observations:
- Anglo respondents e.g. UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Nordic and a number of Western European cultures tend to use all points on the scale
- Across Asia and especially in countries such as China, Hong Kong and Japan, respondents tend to use the middle of the scale and not the extremities of very satisfied or not very satisfied
- Respondents from Latin countries e.g. Italy, Spain, Brazil, Argentina tend to use the end of the scales and are more likely to register higher satisfaction scores overall
However, one point that should be made clear is that these observations are generalizations and what we do see is that respondents from North America typically give higher satisfaction scores than their UK or Western European counterparts. One reason, I personally believe, is down to cultural differences. For example, I have an American colleague who works within our European HQ and on his first day at B2B International he greeted me with the question ‘how are you today?’ to which I replied ‘OK’. He looked aghast and said ‘why, what’s the matter?’ There was no problem or issue but my typical English response led my colleague to think that something was wrong based on our different cultural backgrounds. Therefore, based on these differences, Americans would typically rate a product or service as a 9 or 10 (totally satisfied or excellent) while Europeans would rate a similar issue as a 7 or 8 (an okay, acceptable, satisfactory score). Another reason for higher satisfaction scores in the US could be that Americans are more likely to respond to a survey even when service levels are good and expectations are being met whilst Europeans only respond if the service is poor or they have a gripe to bear – however, this is a personal point of view and so like any good researcher I wanted to know if any external research has been carried out looking at geographical scoring differences.
Supporting the internal B2B viewpoint is a piece of research I came across carried out with 116,000 employees of IBM Corporation operating in more than 40 countries. Using these findings, Geert Hofstede from Maastricht University developed a framework that identified four different typologies based on national culture that impacted on response styles. These typologies were:
Power distance: The degree to which people in a country accept a hierarchical or unequal distribution of power in organizations. Therefore respondents would typically score mid-response ratings and countries showing this type of response style include Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Philippines, China, Brazil, Chile and Mexico
Uncertainty avoidance: The degree to which people prefer structured vs. unstructured situations. Cultures high in uncertainty avoidance prefer unambiguous situations and are therefore more likely to use the endpoints of the scale as opposed to the middle, thus exhibiting an extreme response style. Countries showing this type of response include Belgium, Poland, France, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, Korea and Japan
Individualism: The degree to which people in a country focus on working as individuals vs. working together. Cultures high in individualism are less likely to exhibit a middle satisfaction score because they would emphasize their individual opinion as opposed to their perception of the group opinion. Among all the response styles, individualistic cultures may exhibit extreme response styles and include countries such as US, Canada, Australia, UK, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Italy, Hungary and France.
Assertiveness: The degree to which people in a country emphasize traits such as assertiveness and insensitivity to feelings. One could hypothesize that individuals in these cultures would favour more extreme response styles and that “softer,” more “sensitive” cultures exhibit more modesty or middle response styles. Countries that have been categorized as assertive are the UK, Germany, Italy, Hungary and Japan. However, it should be pointed out that Geert’s research is inconclusive with regards to the impact of this dimension on response scores.
In conclusion, the key takeaways are thus. Every business needs a feedback loop to assess their performance and provide an ongoing measurement and benchmark for future progress. Customer satisfaction surveys are excellent at delivering this feedback, but different country cultures do impact on responses and response rates and so, when analyzing international research findings, a researcher needs to use their knowledge and judgement to whether a response is based on different levels of performance, or simply because of a result of cultural difference.
In the future, when comparing international customer satisfaction research findings, it might be useful to take the following three steps:
- Compare internal satisfaction scores for a particular country and avoid cross-country comparisons; for example, comparing county or state satisfaction scores within your country
- Compare same country results relative to previous waves of research and so benchmarking changes and improvements
- Make sure that your customer satisfaction survey is not just quantitative in design. The customer satisfaction toolbox is wide and varied and it is just as important to find out qualitatively what a customer does and doesn’t like and any future changes that need to be made over and above a scalar response to ‘overall, how satisfied are you with the service delivered?’
Finally, to wrap up this week’s ramblings I should point out that when it comes to customer service and customer satisfaction, one issue that transcends all geographies is that it is imperative that the customer is listened to, and feels valued and cared for. Relationships are key in any business to business market throughout the world, and so invest in your people as they are the face of your business and typically are the driving force behind excellent satisfaction scores whether you are based in Torquay, Tokyo or Timbuktu.
Posted in
Business Decisions, Customer Satisfaction Research, Global Research, International Market Research, Nick Hague, Research Design, Research Methods, Thursday Night Insight, Tracking |
Comments:
None Yet »
Friday, May 15th, 2009
In his latest Thursday Night Insight, Alaric Fairbanks gives us a glimpse into his life conducting market research in China.
Our permanent Beijing office has been up and running for about two and a half years now, and over this period I have been asked by both colleagues and clients outside the country about how working in market research here in China is different from in the west, and how it is similar. On a high level, there are obvious similarities: we have to win and design projects, identify respondents and sources of information, collect data and analyse data…the same as my colleagues elsewhere. This is pretty much as you may expect anywhere.
Things get slightly different, however, on the type of projects: For the first two years, the majority of projects were market analysis and market development, with less interest in more quantitative research projects like customer satisfaction. There is, though, more and more customer sat work happening, as clients become more established, and of course we become more established with existing companies. In our experience, market analysis demand tends to focus on both the factual (i.e. size, structure and trends) and the analytical (i.e. what this means for developing sales). These projects tend to feature more qualitative investigative techniques and, in some ways, are more akin to a jigsaw where you first have to find the pieces.
Clients have, in the main, been larger foreign companies and multinationals who already have a presence in China, but the projects are often commissioned abroad. Often this is because the market research function or strategic decision making unit is located in corporate headquarters, although we are seeing a lot more work commissioned from within China itself. Another reason for foreign-based commissions is the need for third party verification (or otherwise) of information coming from their China-based operations. On a practical level, having a large proportion of clients based in Europe and North America means that face-to-face meetings for commissioning and presentations are not so common, and telephone conferences and web presentations form a larger part of communications. This also means that interesting hours are often worked at commissioning and presentation meetings!
As I already mentioned, an increasing number of clients are from within China and other parts of Asia. Again, the overlying characteristics of working with them remain the same i.e. understanding their needs, proposing a suitable methodology, negotiating timescales and price, etc. Where differences occur, however, are in lead times (longer) and very often in the brief itself. We have seen an increase in the number of specific written briefs, but these are still very much in the minority. Another interesting characteristic is how these clients prefer to communicate. After initial contact, many prefer to rely on instant messaging over the internet, mainly qq or similar services, for day-to-day communication, rather than telephone or e-mail. This is also having an impact on research methodologies.
Methodologies for data collection here include all the usual suspects and, language aside, would be largely familiar to clients and colleagues in other countries. There are, though, some differences in application, for example focus groups tend to work better in smaller numbers, 6 to 8 being optimum. It is often argued that, especially in business, face-to-face interviews are necessary here. Very often this isn’t the case. We recently had a project looking at the market in the ‘biosolids’ industry, meaning we had to talk to respondents in Chinese sewerage works. Initially this seemed quite daunting, until it became clear that these people were extremely receptive; no pushy sales people come and call (for perhaps obvious reasons), and they are seldom asked about the intricacies of their work. Recruitment was aided by the incredible take-up of social networking and bulletin boards among Chinese professionals. As a country undergoing rapid change, it is perhaps no surprise that methodologies and attitudes to them are changing too. From a ‘consensus’ of f2f being the only acceptable technique just a few years ago, telephone and indeed online have increased in importance incredibly quickly, with instant messaging even being used for in-depth qualitative work. Whilst respondents are often very keen to work with different approaches, the market outside China and occasionally inside sometimes sticks to believing outdated truisms.
In this short space available, it is clear that although many principles and approaches are of course similar, there are nuances affecting all aspects of the process. Where this may be more complicated or even contentious is around how this is manifested in everyday work, for example the amount of time required on quality checks, and HR issues and administration. I’ll try to cover these in my next post.
To learn more about our work and our team in China, visit www.b2binternational.com/China
Posted in
Alaric Fairbanks, China, Global Research, International Market Research, Market Entry, Market Research China, New Markets, Research Design, Thursday Night Insight |
Comments:
None Yet »
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Today we’re publishing the eleventh (and final!) chapter from our eBook – Questionnaire Design, by Paul Hague.
This week’s closing segments looks at some "Examples Of Questions", which provide illustration of all the principles outlined in the rest of the eBook. These questions can also act as a useful template for constructing different types of questionnaire and include:
- Questions for starting a questionnaire
- Questions for testing awareness
- Questions for gleaning behavioural information
- Questions for obtaining attitudinal information
- Questions looking at buying motivations
- Customer preference and satisfaction questions
- Price testing questions
- Classification questions
As always, this week’s chunk of the eBook is available both as a pdf and as a podcast. To download each, just click on the appropriate links below.
That’s all for now, but be sure to check back very soon, as we’ve plenty more podcast (and eBook) goodness lined up. Watch this space…
Posted in
Paul Hague, Questionnaire Design, Research Design, eBook |
Comments:
None Yet »
Monday, August 11th, 2008
This Monday sees the publication of the tenth, and penultimate chapter of our latest eBook – Questionnaire Design, by Paul Hague.
This week’s installment deals with the topic of "Special Questionnaires", by which we mean those questionnaires that depart from the usual telephone- or face-to-face- administered, structured survey.
The first type of special questionnaire to be explored are "check list" style surveys, used predominantly in qualitative research as a means of roughly structuring or guiding a conversation with the respondent. The second main "other" type of survey is the self-completion questionnaire, whether conducted by post or online. Such surveys work very differently to those guided by an interviewer, and as such, the questionnaire designer must tailor the questionnaire accordingly to achieve the maximum quality of response.
As always, this week’s chunk of the eBook is available both as a pdf and as a podcast. To download each, just click on the appropriate links below.
And last but not least, don’t forget that next week we’re publishing the final chapter of the eBook – be sure not to miss it!
Posted in
Online Research, Paul Hague, Qualitative Research, Questionnaire Design, Research Design, eBook |
Comments:
None Yet »
Monday, August 4th, 2008
It’s a Monday, which must mean that it’s time for another chapter from our latest eBook Questionnaire Design.
This week’s eBook chapter (with accompanying Podcast, courtesy of the Market Research Podcast), looks at "Getting The Questionnaire Right", both in terms of adequately testing the survey through piloting, as well as investigating how software can assist in putting the questionnaire together.
Don’t forget to come back next Monday when we’ll be releasing Chapter 10 for your reading (and listening) pleasure!
Posted in
Paul Hague, Questionnaire Design, Research Design, eBook |
Comments:
None Yet »
|
