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Smoke and Mirrors

Thu - November 2, 2006 03:19 PM in

I sure hope that's a misleading title for this note. Yesterday, I wrote about my current activity of refocusing some VocaLabs sales effort toward market research entities. And I admit to being a bit acerbic when I poked fun at all of the "new and exclusive" trademarked research methods I've been uncovering as I do my homework.

Continuing along those lines today by researching Web sites to identify which market research companies I should approach, I have another observation to make. While each business entity has a site that does a reasonable job of outlining "what" they do, there is scant mention of "how" they do it. Sure, most will list various methods they employ such as phone or mail surveys; focus groups, secret shopping etc., but I haven't found a Web site that says "We do it this way because its better, and here's why." I have yet to find references to delivering accurate and reliable statistics.

Now I understand "selling the sizzle and not the steak", but I'm beginning to get the uneasy feeling that bad survey technique and poor interpretation problems are not limited to the do-it-yourself in house survey methods; but also to some companies that ought to know better.

Posted by Rick Rappe'

Posted at 03:19 PM | | | | |