Market Research for Medical Equipment Markets
Steven J. Fuller
InforMedix Marketing Research, Inc.
Why Should Equipment Manufacturers Use Market Research?
The financial risks involved in developing, selling, and servicing medical equipment can be
very high, and they can be reduced to a manageable level through the use of specialized
market research.
Consumer products companies use market research more intensively, but medical
equipment manufacturers facing complex, dynamic markets have as just as much to gain,
from market research specially designed for their product and customer groups.
Aggressive, innovative companies look for opportunities to respond creatively to customer
needs, in ways which distinguish them from their competitors. Up-to-date information about
new and existing customers provides a foundation needed for executing a winning strategy in
complex medical markets.
Market research has its greatest impact for an equipment manufacturer in any of these
situations:

when managers are not sure whether a new market is big enough to be
attractive;

when engineers, marketing managers, and/or salespersons disagree
about the specifications for a new product;

when a company is not sure how to approach a customer group with the
right sales and marketing message;

when managers need to know whether sales trends are the result of
successful sales and marketing tactics, or overall market conditions;

whenever the company needs to contact many customers in an efficient,
structured way, to define user needs or find ways to improve customer
satisfaction.
This report explains how medical equipment manufacturers can use market research. There
are eight major types of research used by equipment manufacturers, and each is covered
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here in some detail, with an explanation of the benefits to be gained, and the techniques
which are usually used.
The eight areas of market research described here are shown below, with their location in
this report:
Topic
Page
1. Assessing Market Potential
3
2. Defining New Markets
5
3. Discovering Unmet Customer Needs
7
4. Focusing Product Development
10
5. Defining Sales and Marketing Techniques
12
6. Understanding Product Usage
14
7. Measuring Market Sizes and Shares
16
8. Improving Customer Satisfaction
18
The observations and conclusions stated here are drawn from the experience of InforMedix
Marketing Research Inc., which has provided market information for medical equipment
manufacturers since 1991. Clients of InforMedix cover a broad range, from individual
inventors and start-up enterprises, to the largest medical manufacturing companies in the
world.
Research investigations have been completed in product areas throughout the range of
medical disciplines, including …





patient assessment and diagnostics,
therapy and surgery in and out of the hospital,
long-term and home care,
medical informatics; and
facilities management.
Customer segments have included traditional hospital markets, outpatient surgery centers;
homecare markets; non-hospital labs, imaging clinics, and therapy facilities; ambulatory care
centers, and health maintenance organizations.
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1.
Assessing Market Potential
Goals
New medical equipment, and major changes in equipment design, usually face an uncertain
market. In the early stages of product development, manufacturers frequently question
conventional wisdom regarding the likely sales potential of the new products. Although
inventors and product champions must have a high level of enthusiasm and confidence for
any product idea to move ahead, it is risky to assume that a large number of potential
customers will share this enthusiasm and back it up with orders and dollars.
At this stage, many product development teams look for some outside assessment of the
potential sales they can expect, given the features and benefits they have in mind. For the
first steps of market research, it is not important to have a final product design ready for
customer evaluation. What is important is to be able to clearly describe what a new product
or design change will bring to the intended user.
Market research is used to assess future market potential by contacting likely users, and
discussing with them such issues as how often they perform a particular procedure, what
problems they encounter and how they solve them, and whether they think an alternative
type of device or equipment would be beneficial.
Methods Used
Some of this information (such as procedure volumes) can be found in government
databases; other inexpensive sources include syndicated market research reports covering
the relevant segment of the industry, and securities firms' reports for investors. Many times,
the market must be measured by a customized research project -- usually when the product
area is very specialized, or the application is too novel to have attracted the attention of
industry analysts.
Custom market research usually involves phone or Internet surveys directed to medical
personnel who will be the customers. These surveys normally are able to report on the
general level of demand, and likely frequency of use of products under development -- even
without knowing detailed specifications, pricing estimates, or marketing methods. Survey
samples do not need to be large (response counts of 20 to a few hundred are common),
because a highly accurate quantification of sales volume is not required. In fact, after only a
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few dozen contacts, researchers often have a fair idea of the ultimate market demand for the
concept they are evaluating.
This type of market research should be conducted by individuals who are able to understand
the technicalities of new medical equipment sufficiently to convey the concepts to the
respondents. Ideally, they should also be able to listen carefully, taking detailed notes and
pursuing new lines of discussion brought up by respondents.
Results
The result of a market assessment evaluation should be a set of information that is deep and
broad enough to give the manufacturing company a high level of confidence in its decision
about whether to move ahead. Results should also link product designs to the needs of a
customer group which can be described and located, and which is large enough to form an
attractive market.
In some cases, of course, the results show that the anticipated market is not there: either the
number of likely customers is too small, or the level of interest in the product is too weak to
justify an expensive product development program. Although it may be hard for enthusiastic
designers to appreciate, the benefit of the market research work is that it can save a
manufacturer from the expensive error of developing products that have tiny or unreceptive
markets. Even in these cases, market assessment surveys can often lead to further product
development, because they may identify new customer groups and applications of a product,
driving a shift in focus and opening an unforeseen market opportunity.
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2.
Defining New Markets
Goals
Moving existing products to customers in wider geographical areas is just one of the
opportunities that medical device manufacturers are using for growth and profitability. Here
are some others:
-
Taking existing products to foreign and emerging medical markets
-
Offering products – or their underlying technology – to research and other non-clinical
environments
-
Modifying devices traditionally used in hospitals so they meet the needs of urgent care
centers, surgery centers, or physicians’ offices.
-
Expanding the applications of existing products to serve the needs of different medical
specialties and modes of care.
-
Serving current customers with new devices, technologies, and services.
In most of these cases, manufacturers are wise to conduct a structured and unbiased
investigation of the new opportunity, whether it is a new type of customer, a new need to be
served, or an unfamiliar healthcare system to work in.
Market research can reduce the business risk that a company takes on when it moves into
new markets. A well-planned study of customer needs, decision-making processes, and
required after-sale support can cut the cost and speed the process of product development
and market introduction.
Methods Used
General coverage of many medical markets is provided in off-the-shelf reports, usually
prepared by independent researchers who are in touch with various manufacturers, and add
information gathered from product users, purchasers, financial reports, and other diverse
resources.
When these published reports stop short of providing the details a manufacturer needs for
their own particular product, target market, or application, custom research will fill in the gaps.
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Market researchers like InforMedix can work with marketers, sales management, design
engineers, and upper management to determine exactly what questions should be answered,
and how to find those answers.
Typically, a qualitative approach is needed to clarify the nature of new markets. InforMedix
has used:
-
Individual interviews, conducted right in the healthcare setting, to provide a better
understanding of the environment, caregivers’ needs and priorities, and usage of
existing devices.
-
Individual interviews in focus group facilities, which allow management to observe the
question-and-answer sessions with purchasing, product users, and product
evaluators.
-
Focus groups which bring together several individuals who share a job function, to
learn about their common needs, as well as the degree of variation among them.
-
Telephone interviews with various representatives of the new target market, providing
both a picture of how equipment and devices are used, and the option of learning from
product users and buyers in a wide geographical area.
-
On-site (e.g. in-hospital) interviews in several countries at once, using native speakers
to engage healthcare providers in their own language, followed by a centralized
reporting process that compiles and compares findings in many worldwide markets.
Many times, investigations of new markets proceed with a series of steps, each building on
the last to gain a deeper and more specific understanding of user needs, selling processes,
infrastructure available for running equipment, customary support services, and other details.
Results
A good investigation of a new market for medical equipment, devices, or supplies can save a
pioneering sales and marketing effort a great deal of time and money. A manufacturer can
start with important insights gathered through market research, gaining a competitive
advantage by understanding …
-
Unmet user needs in the new market
-
Types of facilities and their available infrastructure
-
How the product evaluation and purchasing processes work
-
Where the money flows; the influence of third-party payers, government agencies, etc.
-
The obvious and the subtle roles of users, prescribers, buyers, and patients
-
Service requirements, customary post-sales support, training requirements, and other
value-adds that facilitate use and purchasing of medical equipment, devices, and
supplies.
Of course, custom-designed market research can address additional questions of interest to
a particular manufacturer entering a new market.
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3.
Discovering Unmet
Customer Needs
Goals
It has been said many times that you cannot fully learn what customers need by simply
asking them what they want. Yet understanding exactly what will make life easier, safer, less
expensive, or less risky for healthcare providers is exactly what manufacturers need to know.
Carefully-crafted market research investigations can probe into the minds of physicians,
nurses, technicians, and other healthcare workers – and healthcare administration – to give a
clearer picture of the challenges they face. These insights can be used to drive product and
service innovation, yielding a competitive advantage over companies who do not look so
deeply into their customers’ needs.
The goal of this type of market research is to re-create in customers’ minds – or if possible in
their actual work environment – what they are going through in accomplishing their job.
Working with medical equipment and devices may seem routine to experienced users, but it
is usually true that in the details of these routine functions, there are “pain points” that are
worked through every day. Finding and resolving those sub-optimal user experiences can be
a route to product improvement, new product opportunities, and even game-changing
technologies.
Methods Used
Observing clinicians and staffers in their place of work is probably the most accurate way to
learn what they are doing and how they view their activities. If researchers have the
opportunity to be on-site, watching every move, and then discussing what this experience
with the healthcare worker, a great deal can be learned about customer needs. Here are
some examples:
-
Walk through the lab or pharmacy while a technician carries out the process of
receiving an order or prescription, checks and validates the order, gathers materials,
operates equipment, obtains and verifies results, and passes on the information,
prescription, etc. to caregivers.
-
Observe surgical procedures as they take place, noting surgeons’ requests and
comments, nurses’ responses and actions, use of devices, and so on.
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-
Visit with patients at the home, learning how they use medical devices and supplies,
how they set up, check, and use communication tools, what problems they encounter
in caring for themselves or engaging caregivers.
On-site observation can be expensive and in many cases is not allowed due to privacy or
safety issues. An alternative is to set up a typical configuration of equipment, supplies, etc. in
an off-site setting (like a focus group room) and use it to simulate the working environment.
InforMedix has used laparoscopic video clips, volunteer “patients” on beds next to monitors,
human anatomical models, and full-scale imaging equipment during interviews and focus
groups to learn about medical procedures and the challenges that go along with them.
With or without actual products to use, a focus group or interview will reveal unmet customer
needs if it is moderated with skill. This is a case where simple questions will yield only simple
answers. An experienced moderator, on the other hand, will be able to help respondents
think through the details of how they do their work, step-by-step, and will be alert for each
reference to …
-
Steps and processes that are slower than the customer wants them to be
-
Elements of their work that are considered uncertain, risky, or worrisome with regard
to patient care
-
Expiration of products, wasted processing time, opening single-use devices without
actually using them
-
Expensive acquisition of low-volume or highly-customized products; over-built
products whose advanced features are not used or not known
-
Missing links in the communication chain; inaccurate transmission of information,
failure to share important and time-sensitive information
-
Unnecessarily high reliance on user skill and experience; use of expensive personnel
for simple tasks
-
Inappropriate trade-offs between cost, speed, and safety (e.g. making a wrong
decision about disposables vs. re-usables)
This list goes on and on. Typically, healthcare workers do not know everything about their
needs for improvement in products and services, but expert market research can uncover
this information, leading to successful innovation in products and support systems.
Results
Identifying unmet customer needs is not only the job of the researcher who draws out
customer commentary and writes up his or her findings. This is a prime opportunity for
engineers, marketers, and others who have detailed knowledge of the technologies they offer
to look for needs they can serve.
A skilled moderator will prepare for the session by gaining some understanding of the clinical
setting involved, and the technologies in use, and the ultimate capabilities and goals of the
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client (product developers and marketers). This will help to provide a realistic set of results,
linking customer needs with manufacturer capabilities.
A written report (including lists and descriptions of opportunities to solve customer needs)
from the market researcher is a good start, but it can be doubly informative to ensure that
product engineers, sales managers, marketing management, and others to observe focus
groups and interviews as they happen.
During and between sessions, the moderator can work with these observers to improve the
focus of subsequent discussions on real-life opportunities that might be addressed during
product development.
After the fact, the researcher can provide transcripts of group sessions and interviews to
developers themselves. These individuals should be tasked with studying the comments of
their customers, as revealed in transcripts, to find the situations where customers are
describing problems, bad results, re-work, boredom, repetition, etc. These are all fair game
for product developers and marketers who are looking for problems to solve.
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4.
Focusing Product
Development
Goals
Finalizing the specifications for new products, and changing the characteristics of existing
products, are areas where equipment manufacturers very often turn to formal market
research. Because medical devices are often complex mechanically, or depend on computer
programs to define the way a user interacts with the product, there are endless alternatives
for the final product design. Also, this complexity offers many options for cost reduction -- a
key goal of manufacturers with established products who face price pressures from belttightening customers, and from low-cost competitors.
Market research is important in these cases, in order to know exactly what product design(s)
will be most useful and acceptable to customers. Lab prototypes, and even beta-site test
units, do not provide the exposure to a broad range of everyday users that is needed to
fine-tune product designs for larger markets. Furthermore, most medical markets are diverse
and segmented, with many types of users requiring their own variations or even different
products. Market research can usually provide a much clearer picture of how a product will
be used in each segment, and what design changes will distinguish it from competitive
products and alternative techniques.
Methods Used
Most product development market research is done with the hands-on techniques of
face-to-face interviewing or focus groups. Respondents are usually chosen from two general
categories of users: (1) the average clinical person, typical of the customer who will have to
be served in the long run, and (2) department supervisors or managers, who can speak from
broader experience, with the benefit of exposure to many alternative products and methods.
A common error in the design process is to evaluate new products only with a select group of
"cutting edge" clinicians -- testing products only in the largest teaching hospitals or with
respected "thought-leaders" of the industry. Products designed in this way run the risk of
appealing to too narrow a market, because their specifications do not reflect the usage
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patterns typical of much larger medical markets, and their advanced features and benefits
can raise the price beyond competitive levels.
Market researchers who help with product development work need to spend the time
required to learn at least the basics of the technologies involved, the clinical settings where
the equipment is to be used, and the terminology used in talking about these products.
Some research projects begin with an outside researcher visiting the development
laboratories, discussing customer needs with sales representatives, and even observing
medical procedures. At the same time, some distance from the development process is
important, because the researcher needs to remain open to a range of suggestions and new
ideas, even if the manufacturer has considered and abandoned similar concepts in the past.
Interviews and group discussions on the topic of product development can take many forms;
in the simplest cases, respondents are given a description of a product or prototype, and
asked for their reaction to the proposal. Some interviews are successful in using only
concept statements, drawings or models of new medical devices; if these can be faxed or
mailed to the respondent, research interviews can be conducted by telephone.
Sometimes new products can be transported from one city to another, with several
respondents interviewed in each location. A good alternative is to choose the time and
location of a medical convention for product research, since this allows a company to
economically access respondents from many geographic locations, while avoiding the
logistical problems and risk of moving expensive prototypes around the country. For large
equipment, and devices requiring the facilities of a laboratory, market research is sometimes
conducted in an actual clinical setting.
In especially innovative investigations, respondents have been asked to design their own
ideal product, or to paste together their concepts using cardboard, wood, and paper
components. Software tests can be easy using a web survey, which can include graphics,
links to explanations, and other elements.
Results
Product development research usually gives the manufacturer descriptions of the features
and benefits needed by large and important segments of the market, and points out which
subsets or related disciplines will need variations on the central theme. When important
market segments can be identified, the results are presented for each subset -- defining
product requirements which vary from one group to another.
It is unusual for market research to produce detailed technical specifications, but when
properly carried out, the research findings can be readily converted into specific design
requirements.
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5.
Defining Sales and
Marketing Techniques
Goals
The growth of increasingly diverse markets outside the hospital for many aspects of medical
care has caused equipment manufacturers to put a higher priority on clarifying exactly how to
sell their products. Developing markets outside the U.S. are also driving manufacturers to
use market research to help them with decisions on prospecting and sales techniques,
product pricing, promotional methods, customer support, and product service.
In general, market definition research is used when manufacturers sense that they are
entering a market where decision-making takes place at a different level, or through different
channels, than they are accustomed to. In these cases, they are looking for an outside,
objective statement describing the proper contacts and sales messages, and the values that
decision-makers place on various features and benefits.
Methods Used
Market research investigations on these topics usually begin with a few exploratory telephone
calls, to identify the entire network of decision-makers involved with using and purchasing a
particular product. The simple model of "purchasing manager, end user" rarely describes the
real-life processes that go into selecting and buying (and continuing to buy) a medical
product, and it is completely inadequate for expensive medical equipment.
A comprehensive evaluation of the buying process may find that significant input is obtained
from users, department managers, purchasing, various levels of administration and finance,
the facility's biomed department or maintenance staff, a planning or marketing group,
referring physicians, group purchasing organizations, health maintenance organizations, and
even patients.
Second, these decision-makers are interviewed, either in one-on-one situations, or in groups
of people with similar roles but from different work settings. A series of focus groups with
purchasing managers, another with supervisors of the affected departments, and another
with end-users of the equipment involved, will typically be supplemented with one-on-one
interviews with administrators and financial managers.
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Results
Market research to support the sales and marketing process seeks information that allows a
manufacturer to enjoy the highest possible sales volume, customer satisfaction, and pricing.
The key questions to be answered are:

For each person involved in the selection decision, what are the specific aspects of
product and service that they value the most?

What value do they place on these components of the product? How much would
they pay, considering their resources and alternatives?

Where do they get their information, and what process do they go through to decide
among product alternatives?

How can a sales representative best reach the decision-makers, and what messages
should be communicated first?

Besides direct sales, what types of promotion, discounts, guarantees, marketing
programs, product bundling or tie-ins, clinical research support, education, or other
initiatives are of interest to these decision-makers?
With this information, a manufacturer can usually design effective sales and marketing
programs which are directed squarely at the needs of decision-makers and users of the
product. In many cases, a marketing program can be created that not only enhances the
sales of the product involved, but strategically distinguishes the product from the competition
in ways that cannot be copied.
Sales training groups are prime beneficiaries of this type of market research. In fact, some
research projects are designed to actually prepare or re-write sales training materials, and to
present the results.
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6.
Understanding Product Usage
Goals
Creation of upgrade paths, and redesign of established medical products, often benefit from a
rigorous review of how devices are being used in the clinical setting. Marketing managers
often have the experience of visiting a customer site and finding that their customers have
found new ways to streamline their use of a device, or have added attachments of their own
design to expand the utility beyond what was originally planned. In other cases, medical
equipment may have been designed with one set of customer priorities in mind, but over time
the requirements have shifted subtly in a new direction.
Popularization of new types of medical tests, the growth of a specialized patient base, new
emphasis on efficiency or safety, manpower reductions, and evolution of procedures from
traditional settings to alternate sites are all examples of market transitions that can cause
shifts in usage of a product by a customer group.
When these changes are observed in one or two customer sites, the question usually arises
as to how widespread the change may be, and whether product redesign (or new product
development) should be a high priority. As every marketing manager knows, if the
manufacturer of a product does not upgrade and replace its own products, eventually
someone else will. Keeping track of relevant shifts in customer needs is the goal of
equipment usage studies.
Methods Used
Telephone or web surveys are usually good ways to monitor the status of the installed base
of medical equipment. Sometimes this can be accomplished adequately through regular
calls by a central customer service group, or by a sophisticated sales call reporting system.
Information can sometimes be reported by the instrument itself, if it has been designed to
record data such as procedure or test type, time in use, patient characteristics, and so on. In
many cases, however, a customized market research investigation must be designed to
discover and report how customers are using their equipment.
The basic questions asked in these surveys -- frequency of use, types of procedures, peak
usage requirements, etc. -- can be supplemented with any number of revealing questions
directed to a customer base. In fact, the same type of information gathered from competitive
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sites can be even more enlightening. Consider the value of having regular answers to these
questions:

Which of your (several) systems is used most often, and why?

What tests and procedures are you doing more (or less) than you did last year?

Are there any situations where you would like to use the system, but cannot because
of its technical limitations?

What is the cost of operating the system, from the viewpoint of the financial
department? What is the average reimbursement rate for procedures conducted?

How often do you see a service person for problems? For preventative maintenance?

When did you last see a salesperson? From which company?
Fairly large surveys are usually involved for product usage issues, because the goal is to be
able to perceive trends that are not obvious from a few site visits or from discussion with a
few salespersons. Equipment manufacturers with a small installed base can survey every
facility, and contact more than one respondent per location. Others take the process to its
logical extreme: contacting all of their own sites and all of the competitive sites as well.
For some types of products, usage can be studied in the clinical environment by collecting
diary information from caregivers. This may be supplemented by asking clinicians to use
specific products, providing feedback and comparisons in diaries or in follow-up interviews or
focus groups. The technique of evaluating medical products in a clinical setting is described
in an InforMedix publication, “In-House Product Usage Testing”, available at
www.InforMedixMR.com.
Results
This type of market research data can be tabulated and summarized to show not only overall
market trends, but differences between sites with different models of equipment, between
users of various competitive devices, and between many demographic subsets of the market.
A sufficiently large survey can quantify usage differences between, for instance, teaching
hospitals in the Northeast using a manufacturer's top-of-the-line product, and innovative forprofit non-hospital sites with a competitive device in the Southwest.
Facility types and sizes, geographic and sales regions, urban/rural locations, procedure
volumes, model and age of equipment, and respondent title are all common criteria for
subdividing usage survey data. It is usually possible to calculate confidence intervals and
other measures of precision which will show the significance of measured differences
between market subsets. At the very least, these statistics can show how large the survey
sample would need to be to provide a desired level of confidence in the results.
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7.
Measuring Market Sizes
and Shares
Goals
Market size and share measurements provide the most commonly used and most easily
understood market data available; among medical equipment manufacturers, they have
probably accounted for the largest portion of investment in market research. Accurate market
sizes are valuable for many purposes beyond providing colorful and encouraging graphs at
annual sales meetings -- they are a key measure of the overall health of the manufacturing
company. Medical equipment companies use market share and size reports . . .

to monitor the success of their own new products

to discover where competitive products are making inroads

to find market subsets where individual products are particularly successful

to view notable but limited success or failure in a larger perspective

to determine the likely total available market for a group of products
Methods Used
Telephone surveys are usually used for market share studies, because this method allows
the researcher to control the number and distribution of respondents -- an opportunity that is
generally lost when a web survey is used. Rough estimates of market sizes and shares are
often published in industry reports; these may be immediately available "off the shelf" at a low
cost. Authors of these reports frequently survey an industry's product managers and
salespersons, and draw generalizations about the market from their comments.
Customized studies which seek to report market sizes and shares for several product lines,
and for individual market segments, require relatively large survey samples, because more
data points generally provide higher levels of accuracy. Design of these investigations can
be elaborate, and analysis of the data can be one of the most challenging statistical problems
market researchers face. The reason for these complexities is basically that no market is
entirely homogeneous; that is, a survey of one market segment will yield different answers
from those given in another subset, and avoiding the bias caused by unbalanced sampling
can be quite difficult.
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Proper planning for a market share investigation requires deciding in advance what parts of
the market will likely be different from others; for medical products, for example, it is common
to subdivide the hospital market into bed-size groups. Non-hospital markets can be
segmented by procedure volume, number of physicians, specialty, etc., as long it is known in
advance how many sites exist in the country for each subset. Then the survey is directed
toward a pre-determined fraction of each market, and continues until a pre-planned number
of responses have been gathered from each subset.
Results
Projecting the results to form useful and credible market share tables requires that the
researchers investigate each subset individually, accounting for non-responses, "unknown"
answers, facilities which have gone out of business, and so on. Ultimately, the final results
should provide estimates of market sizes and shares that can be supported with statistical
analysis, and have at least a reasonable correspondence to internal sales figures and
"general knowledge" about the market involved.
The best market share investigations continue from year to year, and provide ongoing
measures of total market opportunity, the relative position of each competitor, and trends
through time. Market shares can be measured in units, dollars, procedure volume, fraction of
facilities, number of users, current sales, total placements, and any number of other useful
perspectives. In addition, shares are often calculated to show these figures for the total
market, and for many subsets, based on location, size, volume, or other segmentation
criteria.
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8.
Improving Customer
Satisfaction
Goals
Use of customer satisfaction research has grown during the past several years, as
companies place higher priorities on the quality of their interaction with customers. As their
base of installed systems expands, many equipment manufacturers find it difficult to stay in
close and frequent contact with every site, and often call upon an independent market
investigation to provide an objective picture of their customers' satisfaction.
These investigations provide valuable information about areas where customers think that
service could be improved; they also identify areas of success that the manufacturer may not
be emphasizing as much as it might. When customer satisfaction surveys reveal the name of
the sponsoring manufacturer, they show customers that their vendor is concerned enough to
make the investment in asking how they are doing.
Methods Used
It is very common to use web or telephone surveys to assess customer satisfaction. The
online technique is more successful for this type of survey than for others, because the
mailing list (customer database) is readily available. Non-response to an emailed survey
should be remedied with a supplemental telephone contact, since those who do not respond
may be those who are least satisfied, and the greatest potential source of useful information.
Telephone surveys offer some advantages, in that they usually provide customer satisfaction
information faster, and allow the interviewer to be sure that the proper respondent is
surveyed. On the other hand, it is likely that if a customer has specific and important
criticisms, they will find it easier to express this information in the relative anonymity of an
online survey.
Customer satisfaction studies are often linked to market image studies, because both
concentrate on the customers' subjective view of a manufacturing company. Large image
studies are used to contact both a company's existing customers, and competitive accounts,
so that opinions can be compared between the two subsets of the market. In these
investigations, manufacturers learn not only how they are perceived by their own sites, but
how their competition is serving other facilities. Some of the most useful data can come from
facilities using equipment from more than one manufacturer -- where a respondent can make
direct comparisons of the service and support provided by alternative vendors.
InforMedix Marketing Research, Inc.
www.InforMedixMR.com
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Results
Measures of customer satisfaction can be created from numerical rating questions ("On a
scale of one to ten, how would you rate Company A on..."). These are particularly valuable if
the study is repeated in the same form after some corrective action has been taken. As in
the measurement of market shares, statistical validity of changes and differences in the data
can be calculated.
In addition, customer satisfaction investigations can reveal a great deal more information that
is not quantitative, if interviewers make it a priority to note or record significant comments by
respondents. Some of the best survey summaries contain verbatim comments which can
directly influence a company's sales, service, and customer support activities.
InforMedix Marketing Research, Inc.
www.InforMedixMR.com
Page 19