Editor’s note: War Stories is an occasional column in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous anecdotes of life in the research trenches.

Kevin Gentry of C.A. Walker Research Solutions reports on a study a colleague of his was involved with concerning testing names for a major car manufacturer’s latest model. His colleague prepared boards with the vehicle test name, which involved letter and number appellations such as i230 or CS300.
   
The boards each had the test name on the front and an identifying code on the back of the boards in the hope that the interviewers could keep things straight for the rotation scheme.

His colleague decided to put code names on the back of the stimuli, like “Alligator” and “Centipede” and so on. So when the tabulations came back, guess what the results reflected? Ratings of “Alligator” and “Centi-pede” and so on.

Donna Bookwood of W.W. Grainger tells about a study some years ago when working for another com-pany. The project involved laundry water composition. The company sent clear plastic vials for people to fill with the water that fills their washing machines so that her client firm could develop a detergent that worked most efficiently with consumers’ water composition.

One day, a kind neighbor of one of her panel members called the help line and verified what they were asking of respondents because she found that her neighbor had filled the sample vial, but not with water. The panel member had mistaken it for a urine sample cup and was about to mail it back to Bookwood’s firm! The neighbor was asked to please tell the panel member to promptly discard the vial.

Jon Hedry of AMN Healthcare recently discovered that the power supply to his MP3 player’s speaker sys-tem was missing. He called the manufacturer and was greeted by a courteous sales person who helped him order a new one.

About a week later, at 5:30 a.m., his phone rang and a well-meaning customer service rep proceeded to ask him survey questions about his experience with their customer service. He was so amazed, he actually went along with the survey. The interviewer asked him about his “headphone purchase” and he pointed out that he had actually bought a replacement power supply for a speaker system. She asked him if he was satisfied with the product and he told her it hadn’t arrived yet, and so it went. Finally, she asked if he had any additional comments. He gently suggested they not call customers at 5:30 a.m.

She clearly felt bad and apologized profusely.

Hedry reports that the final irony was that the product never showed up. He had to e-mail several times to get someone to send him the item. And, since this all happened after the survey, the company got a very good rating for what ultimately was horrible service.

Brad Adrian of Nortel reports on a focus group study he conducted years ago involving a proposed hospital lab blood analyzer.
As he stopped by his office at 5 a.m. to retrieve the electronic projector before flying out to perform the groups, the Indiana night’s low temp of -30 degrees froze the outdoor badge reader, creating a frustrating delay that almost made him miss his flight.

The cold weather forced his plane to sit on the tarmac for an extra hour before leaving for Arizona, so he arrived at his focus facility just barely before the participants arrived.

He then learned that the delivery of the refrigerator-sized analyzer mock-up had been short-circuited by an earthquake in California the previous night. He frantically sketched life-sized images of the system on spliced-together easel paper.

When he plugged in the electronic projector, the bulb immediately blew. Of course, he had no extras with him.

Wary participants glanced suspiciously at the kindergarten-style drawings and his harried demeanor. When he tried to demonstrate the analyzer and its software on the computer the screens were all jumbled. Unbek-nownst to him, the software writers had completely rearranged the menus and screens the day before.

In spite of all the delays, problems and missteps, though, he thought he’d pulled himself together fairly well, until about 60 minutes into the session, one of the participants asked, “If I leave now, do I still get paid?”

Nothing says your focus group is headed south more clearly than when participants try to walk out before the midpoint!