Abstract:

It is not always possible to apply the traditional market research techniques used in the consumer goods sector to the field of telecommunications because the mere concept of a new product/service is not capable of exactly conveying the perception that can only be derived from its use. This paper describes the experience acquired in using Consumer Lab as a research tool and shows how the testing of a new service in an environment especially created to reproduce real usage conditions gives more reliable results than would be obtained using traditional research instruments. This paper also discusses the effectiveness of this approach for quality surveys.