Expanding customer satisfaction measurement to the broader concept of Reference Group Management - to include customer satisfaction, employee orientation and image measurement, where appropriate - ensures that the correct decisions to improve customer satisfaction are taken, and that they can be implemented. Introducing the concept of Customer Retention enables the effect of customer satisfaction to be quantified in profit potential terms, providing a link between the 'soft' data of customer satisfaction measurement and the 'hard' data required for business management. The two together can have very substantial implications for the way a business manages the environment in which it operates, and consequently for the way it manages itself.
The paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of centralised telephone interviewing, in particular in comparison with conventional decentralised personal interviewing. Centralised telephone interviewing provides real benefits in terms of quality control, easily replicated and accurate sampling, speed and flexibility, but suffers from a number of perceived disadvantages with regard to respondent cooperation, interview length and design, and the non-representativity of telephone samples. The paper describes experimental studies and other practical experience that demonstrate that most of these perceived disadvantages are without practical foundation.
This paper discusses the various approaches that can be used when conducting international research with particular reference to the benefits of working with a Multinational Research Company or Group. The approaches that a company can adopt when conducting international research can vary widely from the highly centralised (commission direct from a central point) to the highly decentralised (commission at local level, with international management exercising a more or less loose overall coordination function). International Groups can service an international company's needs whatever the preferred approach. Indeed, International Groups are set up for this purpose, with consequent advantages in terms of quality, international comparability and international orientation.
The paper starts from the standpoint that most of the recent literature on fieldwork organisation and quality control is concerned with the conventional field force consisting of a comparatively large number of freelance interviewers dispersed throughout the country. The paper then discusses the advantages that derive from using a small field force, principally those arising from the fact that interviewers in a small field force must work for the company concerned on a frequent and continual basis, which results in the interviewer identifying closely with the company and in the company being more easily able to impose and maintain the standards it requires. The further advantages of using an exclusive field force are then described. Finally, the paper looks at the disadvantages of this approach, which are mainly the apparent limitations on flexibility of capacity and geographical coverage, and concludes with an illustration of the way Burke has adapted the concept to differing market situations throughout Europe.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss briefly the organisation of the international research functions within the agency. International market researchers often discuss the problems of planning and executing individual multi-national surveys but, I think, comparatively little attention has been paid, at least in public, to the basic problems of organising international research itself within the agency. And of course the proper organisation of the international research function as a whole is a necessary precondition to the proper conduct of individual surveys.
This study deals with doctors perceptions, images, attitudes, behaviour and usage habits as they are related to the subject of "Imported vs. Local Drugs". The study was conducted on a personal interview basis with a sample of 400 regular practitioners, randomly selected from the total doctor population in Israel. The subject areas included in this study were: A. Awareness of attitude towards Israeli made drugs vis a vis imported ones (towards the industry as a whole, separate companies and also separate marketing problems); B. How doctors see themselves professionally; C. Exposure and attitudes towards advertising and promotional mix; D. Professional & demographic background.
Since this conference is concerned with doctor typology, the emphasis of the paper will be in terms of describing, using one particular case-history as a vehicle, the concepts behind the use of one specific technique (or rather 'duo' of techniques) for typology - namely factor and cluster analyses. From a practical point of view, however, the typology aspect was only a part - and in fact by no means the major part - of a much broader study, namely: A. Determining the criteria important from the General Practitioners' point of view in the evaluation of the branded products; B. Evaluating how the existing products fare with respect to these criteria; C. Exploring the possibility of developing a new product specifically to fulfil the requirements derived.
I shall try and start by illustrating some of the internal pressures among our marketing staff; which led to the decision to use data processing and the computer for analysis of basic information about the group of people who constitute our customers, the prescribing physicians. Every pharmaceutical company is aware of the criticism from both government and public sources that its promotional methods are expensive and not always tailored strictly enough to the needs of the doctors. This particularly concerns direct mailing. We felt, therefore, that if we knew more about the doctors and could organise this information into easily retrievable, accurate and relevant groupings then we would have a marketing tool which would enable us to be selective in our approach to the doctor. This would enable us to focus our mailings on groups of doctors more likely to be interested in their content and thus avoid the charge of using a hammer to kill a fly. There are additional economic benefits of course - mainly costs, as not only fewer stamps and envelopes are needed, but the print order can be tailored to the number of doctors we intend to contact. You may like to see a typical costing we developed showing the saving compared to overall mailing shots.