| PRIMARY SOURCES OF INFORMATION |
STRENGTHS |
WEAKNESSES |
| Surveys in general: |
- easy and inexpensive |
- ask wrong people
- artificial & crude
- produce suspect information |
| Postal questionnaire: |
- cheap and quick |
- no control over respondents
- low response rates |
| Personal
interviews: |
- get best quality information if done properly
- control respondents |
- expensive and time consuming
- lack of interviewing skills |
| Telephone interviews |
- more control than postal |
- intrusive |
| Focus groups: |
- control respondents
- good source of valuable information plus customer sentiment
- creative co-operation, come up with ideas |
- time consuming
- can be costly
- relies on customers agreeing to attend
- lack of facilitator skills |
| Mystery shopper: |
- measures service & standards |
- like spying |
| Observation: (how the client uses the product) |
- overcomes many of the problems with surveys |
- many things we can't observe e.g. attitude |
| Market test: |
- potentially the most valid way of collecting information |
- tells competition what we are doing
- not feasible with some products
- we make the test work
- high cost in time and $$ |
