New cust sat program from NetReflector
Seattle-based NetReflector, Inc. has launched a new business program called NetReflector SupportSat aimed at mining customer satisfaction into customer loyalty. The ongoing program has been designed for corporations with medium-to-large, geographically dispersed contact center infrastructures whose customer satisfaction programs are falling short of providing the actionable results. As part of the program, NetReflector integrates InstantSurvey, its online survey platform and reporting engine, with the customer’s contact center or CRM application to deliver real-time customer feedback. Alongside, NetReflector’s Client Services Group helps the client understand the meaning of that data by providing program design, implementation and back-end data segmentation and analysis services.
ACNielsen and Yahoo! team for CPG service
Schaumburg, I!l.-based ACNielsen and Yahoo! have launched Yahoo! Consumer Direct, a new service that enables consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies to reach consumers online and measure the offiine sales impact of such efforts. Consumer Direct follows an "identify, communicate, evaluate" process. Members of the 61,500- household ACNielsen Homescan consumer panel have chosen to participate in the program, granting permission to allow their offiine purchasing to be analyzed in conjunction with their activity on the Yahoo! network. Yahoo! and ACNielsen use learnings from the Homescan panelists to find groups with similar demonstrated interest trends among Yahoo!’s millions of monthly visitors. The Consumer Direct team then works with CPG clients to communicate to those consumers via customized online media campaigns. Lastly, the ACNielsen Homescan panel is used to evaluate the campaigns’ ROI, including metrics around the impact on retail sales, brand loyalty and more.
Study profiles pharma MR departments
A study by Chapel Hill, N.C. consulting firm Best Practices, LLC illustrates how leading pharmaceutical companies organize, staff, fund and focus their market research departments for maximum effectiveness. "Benchmarks for the Pharmaceutical Market Research Function’’ is a 33-slide presentation that reveals how seven pharmaceutical companes organize their market research departments for efficient and effective operations. Specifically, companies can learn how to best structure departments and deploy market research staff for maximum pmductivity. Additionally, the presentation contains: the most common funding sources for market research departments; headcount and budget figures; vital skills for market research managers; and distribution of market research employees within companies.
InstantSurvey 4.3 now available
NetReflector, Inc., Seattle, has launched InstantSurvey 4.3, the latest quarterly upgrade of its online survey platform. InstantSurvey 4.3 includes advanced online survey design tools, including a new WYSIWYG HTML editor with drag-and-drop that allows users to design surveys, invitations and reports without learning HTML. The new upgrade also features enhanced reporting capabilities, such as the ability to set up report portal accounts for sharing survey data and report building internally, and a new top-box and bottom-box report for enhanced data analysis.
Build a message platform with MESSAGEZ
New York research firm Ziment has launched MESSAGEZ ("messages"), a proprietary method of building a message platform for a product that is most motivating to its potential customers. The system of information gathering and systematic testing is designed to produce optimal message platforms. The MESSAGEZ approach involves several phases. First, it seeks to assure that the creative process starts with the largest set of message elements available. Then it differentiates among these elements using a paired comparison technique to establish a prioritized list of message elements such as product benefits. Critical characteristics of the productmessages, such as appeal, motivation, uniqueness and believability are separated out using a quantitative decision modeling technique to assess all possible message combinations. The final phase is execution testing, a qualitative measure to determine the most compelling message for the market.
TURF module from QuestionPro
Seattle research firm QuesfionPro Inc. has released its TURF module for analyzing and simulating market share, reach and coverage. Total unduplicated reach and frequency (TURF) is a statistical model that enables researchers to determine the combination of product lines or distribution channels that achieve the highest level of consumer interest or market coverage. An example of TURF analysis answers the question of how to choose three flavors of ice cream to market from a roster of 10 flavors. TURF analysis can identify the three flavors that, taken together, generate the highest net level of interest (and by implication the highest in-market trial levels) for the total line.
QuestionPro’s TURF module includes tools for analysis and simulation. The TURF analysis tools give market researchers one-click access to the "reach" or "coverage" of products and services eliminating duplicates. This is an important step in determining overall market share if there is more than one product in a particular market. The TURF simulator tools allow users to simulate every combination of choices (product or service) to figure out what combination gives them the maximum reach.
Web site offers research resources
Stamford, Conn.-based online research firm InsightExpress has partnered with marketing research academics Alvin C. Burns and Ronald F. Bush, authors of Prentice Hall’s Marketing Research: Online Research Applications, to deliver direct access to marketing research resources via www.insightexpress.com/mrresources. Currently available features include a glossary of market research terms, descriptions of methodologies, and statistical tools to simplify interpretation of results. These resources are also available directly through the desktop using a Microsoft Office XP SmartTag, available at no cost at www.insightexpress.com/ix/insightexpressST.msi.
Claritas upgrades ConsumerPoint software
Claritas Inc., San Diego, has released ConsumerPoint 3.0, an upgrade of its target marketing system. New features include: the Profile Creation Utility, which provides a three-step process for coding a raw customer file, summing by geography to determine the base and creating profiles; the ability to upload and download markets and profiles to and from the Claritas MarketPlace repositories, My MarketPlace Areas and My MarketPlace Profiles, for use in multiple Claritas products, and then sending markets and profiles to other Claritas users.
New books from Paramount on Boomers, moderating
Paramount Market Publishing, Inc. has released a new book, After Fifty: How Baby Boomers will Redefine the Mature Market, edited by Leslie M. Harris, a principal in Boston-based Mature Marketing and Research. Written by nine experts, the book first compares the demographics, lifestyles and attitudes of the Post-World War II generation, leading-edge and trailingedge Baby Boomers, and Generation X. It then turns to six specific industry categories to explore how each category must respond to the Baby Boomers’ redefinition of maturity.
Paramount has also released Moderating to the Max, a guide to energizing focus groups and using creative techniques to explore respondents’ attitudes and behavior. Authors and moderators Jean Bystedt, Siri Lynn and Deborah Potts take readers through a series of varied techniques to bring depth to focus groups and one-on-one interviews. A special feature of the book gives guidance on when to use different kinds of techniques, depending on the project’s objectives. Many of the techniques include examples from the authors’ work to show moderators and their clients how participants have responded. Also provided are examples of debriefing, enabling the practitioner to get the most from each tool.
Miediamark integrates Hispanic-Americans into survey
New York-based Mediamark Research Inc. has begun to use Spanishspeaking Interviewers to survey
Hispanic/Latino consumers in their homes nationwide, as MRI fully integrates Hispanic-Americans into The Survey of the American Consumer. MRI conducts 26,000 in-home interviews with U.S. adults each year about their media consumption habits and usage of products and services. Until now, the majority of interviews with Hispanic/Latino Americans were conducted in English. Spanish-language interviews were conducted in an ad-hoc manner, if, for example, a relative or neighbor was available to translate.
Now MRI is systematically interviewing the full spectrum of Hispanic/Latino Americans. Several changes to The Survey of the American Consumer have been put in place to support this. All interview support material has been translated into Spanish. MRI is recruiting a bilingual traveling task force to address the issue of interviewing respondents in Spanish-isolated households. In an overwhelming majority of cases, if the Hispanic consumer MRI wishes to interview does not speak English, a bilingual interviewer will be dispatched to conduct the interview in Spanish. Questions relating to language capability and country of origin have been added to the personal interview. In addition, questions that measure viewing of more than !35 Spanish-language television programs - including novelas, specials and sport programs - have been added to MRI’s self-administered, in-home questionnaire.
Version 4.5 of SmartQuest software
Seattle-based TeleSage, Inc., has released Version 4.5 of its SmartQuest software. SmartQuest 4.5 combines a platform for interactive voice response (IVR) surveys with enhancements to database management and survey organization capabilities, and the product’s user interface. A database configuration screen makes the organization of data into multiple databases and the retrieval of information from those databases more efficient. Second, a database error recovery feature now expands and expedites SmartQuest’s ability to detect, manage and correct erroneous data. Also, by allowing the user to customize data-viewing options, users can better analyze valuable survey data. To ease development of complex surveys with multiple branched pathways, TeleSage has developed x-ray views and routing diagrams. These features enable survey designers to detect and visually map all the various paths that survey takers might choose, a useful feature for surveys employing complicated skip patterns. The program now has warning prompts to confirm potentially problematic commands and includes new calculation operators and a formula syntax checker to ensure that entered formulas are valid.
New forms scanner from Pearson NCS
Bloomington, Minn.-based Pearson NCS is now offering a new desktop forms processing scanner. The OpScan iNSIGHT scanner combines optical mark read (OMR) data collection and the flexibility to capture data from images as welt as clip and store images such as signatures, short answers and page-long essays electronically. The OpScan iNSIGHT scanner can do OMR processing using Pearson NCS’s ScanTools II software and is plug-andplay compatible with applications designed for OpScan 2 and 4U scanners. The addition of Pearson NCS’s Image ScanTools software adds new capabilities. The scanner can capture pencil or ink bubble responses plus images, short answers and essays. Text can be keyed from the images or the images can be clipped, assigned a name or code, and stored electronically with the OMR data for retrieval. Users also have the option to store the entire document electronically. The collection of numeric data can be simplified with the addition of a simple hand print grid.
Confirmit now ASP-hosted
Norway-based FIRM has released an ASP-hosted version of its online survey solution, Confirmit 8.0. This will enable users to access new features like the Confirmit Reportal and Confirmit Translator, via the Internet. Confimit Reportal lets businesses manage all research findings via a single portal. Internal or external clients can view, design and distribute survey data themselves. In addition, Confmit Reportal enables historical data collected from a variety of sources to be imported alongside the latest real-time insight, letting businesses compare trends. Confirmit Translator has been designed to enable businesses to create and deploy multiplelanguage surveys from a single application. For organizations with dispersed workforces, Conftrmit Translator can speedup survey translation and deployment times, and improve the relevance of research to local audiences.
Six new lifecycle products from Tillman
Tillman Channel Network, Inc., Austin, Texas, has developed six services to help a company examine its lifecycle and its products’ lifecycles. NTRForce is designed for product and brand positioning. TrialNet was developed for test marketing. XStream allows for dynamic market entry. FocusVMC is designed to enable successful field marketing, with a concentration on visibility, mind share and credibility. PhoeNX creates the ability to revamp marketing efforts that have been faltering. LAT2 streamlines manufacturing and distribution channels, many times with the goal of lowering overhead and increasing ROI.
Measure ad relevancy online
Bend, Ore.-based RepublicEye has introduced a proprietary online methodology that quantifies the relevancy of creative work by providing the measured reactions of consumers, clients and designers to any type of creative product, from advertising to product packaging. RepublicEye is a self-service, online tool wrapped in an interface driven by proprietary REACTOR technology. The user interface is built around the same application principles as leading graphics software packages. To build a survey, users download the visuals the target audience will view and measure, provide the questions, then determine the demographics (gender, income level and age of survey respondents). The RepublicEye interface enables the management and deployment of surveys in a systematic fashion. Select the survey and the target audience (e-mail list), fill in the properties and hit send. RepublicEye's real-rime reporting provides instant respondent data, either crosstab, profile filtered, quantified or initial reaction reports. Data can be exported into several file formats for further analysis. RepublicEye will also provide training on request and build or customize surveys to meet specific needs.
Pharma sales force study from G&S
G&S Research, Carmel, Ind., has launched RepReview, a pharmaceutical sales force industry study. To reach the sales representatives, the company will use its partnership with ePocrates (www.epocrates.com), a provider of clinical reference tools for physicians. EPocrates will use its opt-in database of 4,300 sales representatives to recruit participants for the study. The study will combine the opinions of sales representatives from multiple entities and will provide insight into what they think about other companies within the industry. Participants spend between 10 and !5 minutes answering questions using Interact survey technology with a promise from G&S for the strictest confidentiality. G&S will distribute the results without charge to its opt-in database, believing that the data will identify research needs and thus provoke new thought in the area of sales force management.
New version of WinCross
The Analytical Group, Inc., Scottsdale, Ariz., has released Version 4.0 of its WinCross crosstabulation software. Flexibility in table formatting and new modules for factor analysis and data entry modules highlight the list of enhancements. The factor analysis module offers the WinCross 4.0 user categorization by similarity in response patterns, known as segmentation. This automated segmentation allows for data value assignments identifying each respondent’s group assignment and factor score. Group assignment is useful in determining profiles for marketing campaigns. Slated for future release as a standalone software package, the new Data Entry module is designed around a numeric key pad, offering full data entry and data verification capability, range checking and skip functionality. Users can export data to SPSS, ASCII fixed or commadelimited data files.
Synergistics adds custom research services
In addition to its core syndicated research products, Synergistics Research Corporation, Atlanta, now offers custom research services to address specific business needs or objectives. Custom research projects can be designed on any topic, including, but not limited to: customer sarisfaction; product and market share; market and customer trends; brand awareness and performance; and ad tracking.
Three new research services from Sage
Matchmaker is a new service from Sage Research aimed at companies that are launching new products or services, are in startup mode preparing to launch their first offering, are testing new vertical markets, or re-focusing branding efforts. With Matchmaker, Sage provides participants for product preview presentations, helps to administer the presentations, assists in gathering the feedback and invites the participants to become beta testers. Sage recruits the participants from the online Sage Panel of more than 10,000 technology decision-makers, who have identified themselves as early adopters.
Sage is also offering Expert Access, an online forum in which vendors are the sponsors, and the experts, on the topic at hand. The participants, recruited from the Sage Panel, are qualified for interest in the topic and any other selected criteria (such as company size, vertical industry or job function). Expert Access facilitates four marketing opportunities in a single format: customer education, market insight, peer communication and brand preference. Expert Access is available as a sole-sponsorship program, or, by request, as a joint-sponsorship.
Sage Research has added a new Case Study program to its market research offerings. In this program, Sage talks to customers and draws from them what makes a product or service so valuable to them - from implementation and training, to ease of use, ROI, productivity gains, and more. Sage recruits the customers, conducts the interviews and writes the case study. Case studies can be conducted by vertical industry, company size and geographical regions.
Lightspeed Research launches consumer panel in Australia
Lightspeed Research, Basking Ridge, N.J., in conjunction with Research International Australia,
Millward Brown Australia, and Newspoll Ltd., has launched the Lightspeed Consumer Panel Web site in Australia Http://au.lightspeedpanel.com). To join the Web site, Australian residents provide background information by completing the online registration form. During the course of their membership, panelists have the opportunity to participate in online surveys, one-question mini-polls, and brief"Quick Match" survey screeners, which match them to future survey opportunities. Panelists earn automatic entries into the monthly $500 sweepstakes and quarterly $1,000 sweepstakes each time they complete a market research activity..In some instances, they may earn online gift certificates or prizes. The Australian site fully complies with the 10 National Privacy Principles under the Privacy Act 1988. Research International Australia, Millward Brown Australia, and Newspoll Ltd. will initially provide panelists for the site. By the end of 2003, Lightspeed Research expects 20,000 registered panelists.
Briefly...
BIGresearch, Columbus, Ohio, in cooperation with SOS Video, has introduced a new research tool: an email with an embedded video clip, which can operate on any platform. Once the e-mail is received, the user opens the e-mail and clicks "play" to see the video presentation, answer the survey questions and submit the response.
The firm has also launched its monthly Retail Ratings Report, which is designed to determine consumer retail preferences and provide a scorecard for retail executives, Wall Street analysts and investors.
RFL Communications, Inc., Skokie, Ill., has launched its first industry-specific marketing research publication, Pharma Market Research Report, which will report the news, issues, emerging trends, winning strategies and practitioner successes in the pharmaceutical market research industry. The first issue of Pharma Market Research Report was published in July and is viewable free at www.rflonline.com.
RDD, Inc., a Portland, Ore., market research company, has opened a focus group facility in downtown Portland. The 4,300-square-foot facility is located at 220 N.W. 2nd Ave., Suite 105, on the ground floor of the One Pacific Square building.
Atlanta-based Brain Surgery Worldwide has introduced Connections Communications Testing, which offers a quantitative way of evaluating and understanding the emotions surrounding communications platforms, concepts and advertising.
Field Facts Worldwide has increased the capacity of its Paris focus group facility to four rooms from two, in response to continuing demand for city-centered facilities in France.
New York research firm Ziment has launched a European online patient panel, its first foray in the U.K. The panel, started with an initial 45,000 pagents, profiles close to 100 different chronic illnesses.
Decision Analyst, Inc., Arlington, Texas, has increased to 14,000 the number of Mexican households within its global survey panels.
New York-based Arbitron Inc. has opened a new calling center in the Southwest, with a capacity of 130 stations.
Millward Brown Spain has launched Kidbus, a qualitative kids omnibus, and WebClub, a quarterly study aimed at providing marketers with feedback on the values, habits and entertainment patterns of 8-12-year-olds. The latter has been launched with the cooperation of Fox Kids Europe.
New York-based RoperASW has created a new Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail Division. Led by Managing Director Carl Ravitch, the group offers services from product ideation and concept testing through strategy development, tactical feedback and measurement of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
WebSurveyor, Herndon, Va., has introduced WebSurveyor 4.1. This latest release advances its reporting and analysis capabilities by introducing cluster reports, which enable decisionmakers to create multiple views of survey data with one click. WebSurveyor 4.1 also offers advancements in its analysis and reporting capabilities.