Know-How Exchange : Strategy

You have a lot of questions here! First off, don't assume anything!
A & B.) Even with a small group, based on your Industry you need to break out the audience- who are the lead users and early adopters, chief influencers(doctors etc), techs and maint., R&D and Purchasing. All of these folks will give you valuable input and probably different feedback from the same location. C.) Yes- very bad timing and survey e-mails will either be ignored, or sent to the SPAM filter. Use a web site/software that allows an anonyminity option as that may be helpful. Incentives, such as promo's or gifts upon survey receipt, may help, as they allow you to follow up later because you now have their address etc to mail the promo. An e-mail alerting of your upcoming survey and follow up definetly will increase return rates. January is a lot better time as everyone will be back to work, except folks in China who will be preparing for their holiday season. D.) if cost is a big factor, there are a lot of Rent by the month Web hosting sites available and also free survey software packages that may accomplish what you need. The one I used is Quask, which sets you up and allows you to test for free on their server. They even help you choose a web hosting site. And again, I have no affiliation with the group, but when they give you software for free- they deserve a plug. ( https://www.quask.com/en/home.asp )
Finally be sure to structure your questions so that you are not misleading, or predetermining your responses. (Test them out in-house!) If you give them popular choices, expect popular answers. One method is to ask the same question as both a positive and negative- what do you like the most, what do you like the least using the same choice answers? The responses better appear at opposite ends of your spectrum. If not, the question is at fault. This will also help you determine features with a premium and possibly features that are expected.
I hope this helps!

Hi Amanda -

I actually would use a different methodology. With such a small sample, even with a very good response rate, small differences in your data will not be statistically significant. I recommend you try some online focus groups - they do have their biases, however, given your budget and your needs, they are a good way to go for several reasons:

1) If you are looking at new product ideas, these groups can go much farther in depth into evaluations rather than in a survey (especially since there are several you are looking at). This data is not statistically reliable either, but you can get some robust insights. Why are certain ideas appealing? How and why would they use (or not)? What else would they like to see?

2) You need to know if they will purchase your "stuff", but more importantly, why? Why not the competition's? What makes yours better, or more appealing? What attributes are most important that you have the competition does not? You can also purchase non-customer data and invite them to attend.

Online groups are one way to go, another is bulletin board focus groups. They are left up for longer periods of time so people can come back and answer at their convenience.

Finally, another alternative is to use your company's website - do you have a blog? You can drive customers to the blog, post ideas there and see what the responses are. This is even less scientific, but may give you some general direction.

Getting this qualitative data will put you in a better position for quantitative work in the future, since you'll have some more direction and focus.

Hope this helps - good luck with whatever you decide.

- Joy

Amanda,

Online is really the way to go if you want a quick and timely response. Just remember to tell the recipient in the invite how long it will take to complete the survey. Keep it under 2 minutes, 3 most if you need info back in a short period.

I recommend zoomerang.com.

Best of luck!
Drew