Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

It is better to go for survey with the help of a questionnaire.

It depends on the target market. Ideally, you study them all. Surveys tell you what people think, observation tells you what people do, and experimentation tells you how people react.

Itscool19

Surveys will tell you what people say they think they are going to do in the future, or what they would like to tell you they have done in the past. It isn't always 100% accurate because people aren't always 100% truthful or accurate in the predictions of their own future bahviour.

Experimentation, for example with a product test release, coupled with observation of what happens during that test release, will tell you about actual customer behaviour.

I don't think you can have experimentation without observation, otherwise what would be the point?

Survey is really where you need to start before getting into experimentation in a live market situation. The problem with surveys, is that stated buyer intentions (what they tell you in a survey) always differs slightly from actual buyer behaviour (what they do when confronted by a purchasing decision in the market, where they are paying for something with their own real money.)

Survey is inevitably cheaper because you don't have the manufacturing and distribution expense, and if the participants reject the idea, you can scrap it before wasting any more money. You can also propose various potential changes to the product in certain kinds of survey, for example focus groups, where if the product is getting beaten up by the participants, the moderator can ask "what if...?" which often leads to finding out what the market really wants. Or, at least, what they THINK they want at the time!

Hope that helps.

ChrisB

Doing Surveys, Observation or Experimentation alone does not guarantee understanding market 100%. In fact there are cases when products were a disaster when products were launched after doing all the above. Which process you adopt to understand the market again depends on how much you are willing to spend, both time as well as money. It is obvious that one process is cheaper than other.

Finally, which process you adopt depends on availability of funds and time you have to carry out the process. adopting one is fine, two is better or still three might be almost perfect. Yet, understanding a market fully is tough and thats the beauty of consumer psychology.

Hope it helps,
Sriks!