Focus Groups | Phone & Mail Survey | Customer Satisfaction Employee Satisfaction | Mall Intercepts/In-Home Study Examples | Topic Start

Primary Research Project Examples

Focus Group Discussions

Client #1, prior to launching a new line of children and teen products, wanted to understand the likes/dislikes, purchase intent, competitive set, product line selections, reactions to new concept ideas, in-store display, packaging, and pricing options.

Client #2 markets products to the home improvement/hardware industry, had acquired a line of products, and needed to understand consumer perceptions of these items. During the discussion groups (held in several major markets), a mock-up of an in-store display was created so that consumers could react to product display, product functionality, design, appearance, price and buying interest.

Client #3 is a large multi-national company based in Europe. They found focus groups to be an important element in learning what prospective industrial buyers and engineers thought of a new trade advertising campaign which the client was planning. Several creative approaches were shown to respondents so they could react to issues such as the print advertising’s: overall concept appeal, readability, understandability, key messages conveyed, engineers’ decision process in purchasing client’s product line, and the most important features and benefits of the product line.

Telephone Survey Studies

Client #1 had acquired a chain of pharmacies in the U.S. These stores were in several highly competitive markets and under considerable competitive pressure from another large chain of drug stores. After first conducting focus groups with general drug store customers to understand their basic brand perceptions, a broad-scale quantitative study was undertaken. The study consisted of a representative sample of customers and non-customers of our client. During the phone survey, our research uncovered several significant strategic differences involving quality and service which set our client’s stores apart from competition in a meaningful way. This information enabled our client to properly “position” their stores vis-à-vis competition.

JTF conducted a telephone survey for Client #2, a well-respected consumer products company in the Midwest. Our client wanted to make certain changes to the product, and desired to know conceptually how well these changes would be received by consumers. During phone interviews, these issues were probed and important early guidance was obtained for our client… the research both confirmed and directed their pre-launch decision-making.

Customer Satisfaction Research

Client #1, a high-end service business, was concerned about how well their customers were satisfied with the service/product quality being provided. While their customers all indicated they were satisfied, our client was not entirely convinced this was true. JTF Research conducted a comprehensive survey of key customers, conducting in-depth interviews with key decision-makers.

Our research pinpointed strengths and weaknesses, as well as opportunities. The study identified how well our client compared to competitors and provided a ranking based on critical business factors. Key findings of the study unearthed 5 major customers that were highly dissatisfied (which our client was totally unaware of). By catching these problems early enough, our client was able to develop mini-marketing plans targeted specifically to each customer, with a net result that 4 of 5 customers were retained. These 4 accounted for a significant profit contribution to our client's bottom line, their loss would have had a chilling effect on business.

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