Telephone Market Research Services

Services: Market Research

Knowledge and understanding of both your existing customers and potential prospects is vital to the success of any organisation. You have to understand:

What they need
How closely your organisation meets those needs
What is important, and what is not important to them
Where they perceive your organisations' focus to be directed

Synergy Connections can help you by providing totally tailored market research solutions that can help you to measure current performance, and achieve your long-term goals.

We have been carrying out business to business and business to consumer surveys and research since 1997, for both private and public sector. We can offer a range of services that embraces both quantitative and qualitative research, and all of our work is carried out in accordance with the Market Research Society (MRS) code of conduct.

Our services include:

We use a range of media appropriate to the project requirements, including telephone, email, post, SMS and Fax. Telephone interviews can be captured using Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) where the answers are keyed in by the interviewer during the survey. This ensures that the responses are captured as accurately as possible, and also allows complex question routing (branching), error checking and validation to be done automatically

Survey Design and Development

Some of our clients are well-versed in market research and come to us with finished questionnaires, defined samples and only desire raw data to analyse in-house. This leaves us just the implementation to do. Others will only have articulated the need to do market research and that is as far as they have got before calling us in.

In the latter cases will work with clients to precisely define objectives, choose the most appropriate and cost effective methodology, pick the right research sampling base, implement efficiently and according to your business' information needs, analyse, report and recommend future actions

We are happy to take any brief no matter how simple or complex.

Survey Results Analysis and Reporting

At the end of every project, you will receive the raw survey data (anonymised if appropriate) and a basic analysis of the key questions. Depending on the complexity of the project, and the in-house skills you may already have, you may require an additional level of reporting.

We can analyse the data and write a comprehensive report that highlights the most important results, as well as providing an objective view of the answers. This document can be a vital tool for board meetings, strategic planning and product launches, highlighting the areas that require most attention.

Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Essential to a customer focused business strategy is the measurement of satisfaction. Satisfaction engenders loyalty, which improves profitability. Measuring satisfaction through dedicated research goes beyond the other measures of sales volume and value, market share and internal performance indicators. It is:

Absolute business necessity in a competitive environment

A snapshot to assess whether current business operations are on track and where they need improving

A rich source of knowledge to feed organisational change in planning, implementation and control

A barometer on changing customer requirements, which can be otherwise lost in the delivery of existing services and products

A valuable tool to improve customers' disposition to an organisation, simply through listening to them

We work with you to define the sample and implement a survey to measure your performance in the areas of importance. If necessary, then this can start with a thorough exploration of your customers' requirements through a qualitative customer needs analysis project.

No matter who the "customer" is we provide a tailored solution that will capture what they truly think of your company's products, people and performance. "Customers" can come from any point in the value chain - be they end customers, retailers, wholesalers or even internal customers and suppliers.

We can conduct customer satisfaction measurement projects to assist you in your attainment and retention of quality standards or just as part of your ongoing business and marketing processes.

The best practice approach to the measurement of customer satisfaction is a two stage one:

Stage 1 - Establish the nature and complexion of your customers and broadly segment these according to similarities. Then using a small sample per segment conduct in-depth qualitative interviews based upon an approved discussion framework. This establishes the service and product requirements of your customers - mostly importantly, in their own words and can therefore counter any criticism that the subsequent survey is only "addressing the issues that you want to talk about".
Stage 2 – Incorporate these combined and distilled requirements into a quantitative survey that is implemented through the most appropriate and cost effective means.

We ensure that the surveys are well conceived and measure what matters most to your company's customers. In the surveys we obtain client performance ratings across all relevant dimensions and importance ratings to clearly establish the priorities for improvement through subsequent analysis. We capture customer data and any appropriate client/customer relationship data that allows effective segmentation and classification for implementing actions arising from the research findings.

We can test strength existing beliefs and future intentions of customers. There is also scope to gain insight into the use of competitors to your company and to gain insights that will facilitate the most appropriate marketing to customers e.g. publications read etc. We also seek to capture verbatim feedback on strengths and weaknesses, and offer your customer the opportunity to comment on any other matters relating to their satisfaction or not, and how their satisfaction can be improved.

Monitoring your customers satisfaction can allow you to see what you are getting right, but more importantly, what you are getting wrong. These surveys can be either a one-off snapshot to identify the current situation, or an ongoing series designed to measure changes over time.

In-depth Market Research Surveys

Market information for new and existing products or services allows you to see where you need to target your resources. We can contact prospective or existing customers, and query them as to their requirements, pricing expectations, alternative suppliers and more. The information can be complied to give you an overall view of your results, or the raw data can be returned for your own team to analyse in-house.

A source list of contacts can be supplied if you do not already have one, and screening questions asked to ensure the respondents are representative of the population you wish to sample.

The answers will help to establish market demand - often vital to secure funding either externally or internally - and can help guide future development and market targeting.

Lost Sales Analysis

We all know the old adage that "it takes ten times as much effort to win a new customer than keep an existing one" is so true. That is why we put so much emphasis on our customer satisfaction studies.

However, a customer chooses an alternative supplier or they just stop working with you. When this happens you need to know why and what it will take to win back the business. Often, an impartial third party, such as Synergy Connections, will get more depth as to reasons why the business has been lost and what can be done about it through guaranteeing the respondent anonymity.

An analysis of the results can help you focus on areas that are failing, or where competitors are able to make a better offering. It may also be just the prompt required for your customer to review your products of services again.

Opinion Polls

There may be times where you require a simple answer on a specific topic, and a quick opinion poll can provide the information you need. Normally carried out by telephone, SMS or email, you can rapidly find answers on a specific subject.

For private businesses, you can gauge public or customer opinion on a new product or service before you make a significant investment, evaluate response to a specific event, or identify significant opportunities for development.

For a public sector organisation, opinion polling can add to the democratic process, providing a snapshot of public opinion where there is not the time or budget for a full consultation. It can also be used as a part of a larger project, to check the views gathered from a smaller sample a representative of the population as a whole.

Staff surveys

For larger organisations, maintaining effective contact with staff that are dispersed nationally or internationally can be problematic, and the increased pace of change can make identifying potential problems in advance vital. Staff surveys can:

Demonstrate management's willingness to listen to staff
Identify systemic failures before they become critical
Identify the star performers in your middle management
Measure staff morale across different business units
Gather suggestions and comments that otherwise may not get heard

Focus Group Recruitment

If you are a research department or organisation looking to conduct face to face interviews, let us help you locate the respondents you need. We can contact a list of potential candidates, ask screening questions to confirm suitability and invite them to the event.

For more information please call us on 01329 229300 or use our Contact Form.