Week 6 You Decide - Vancouver Symphony Orchestra
1. What management questions you are hoping to resolve and how did the data
help?
Answer – The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) is faced with situation of its sales
revenues declining due to declining number of attendance with the economic slowdown also
having an impact on its ticket sales. The first management question that the company is
hoping to resolve is on how it can stem this decline in attendance and increase attendance and
sales over remaining four months of the year. Another related question that the management
would want to have actionable insights on would be to get a better understanding of their
customers, how each customer group is different and how they can best cater to the needs of
each of them. Based on this they want to arrive at the right marketing and communication
that connects well to the target customer groups, and makes them come to the VSO.
Analysing the data that is given, we can see that there has been a steady decline in
ticket sales in both in the number of subscribers and fall in individual ticket purchases across
both categories of customers. Looking at Question 3 that talk about the number of times
different types of customers attend the VSO, we can see that only subscribers have
attendance of more than 2-3 times and above while the numbers of having visited more than
once is very less. This could be a potential insight for the company where they could increase
the chances of customers who have visited once to come back again for the second and
multiple times that could boost the attendance numbers of the company. In terms of the
ratings of the VSO Characteristics (Question 5), the VSO scores Good to Excellent in most
parameters but one thing that stands out as an area of improvement is the Music Selection
where most customers have not rated it Excellent but only rated it Poor to Fair or Good. This
shows an area of focus for the company which if it can improve, it would be able to attract
many more customers who seem to be very knowledgeable about music and know what they
want to listen to when they go to an orchestra. In terms of the preference of the day when
people want to attend the VSO, it can be seen that Subscribers want to attend on Mondays,
Tuesdays, and Fridays and Saturdays, while former subscribers and nonsubscribers do not
have much preference which day they would like to attend. Based on this the company could
probably use this insight to select what day to organize events for what customer types, and
probably have special days or special events that cater to each individual customer type. The
same type of analysis is relevant or the show timings as well where the company can see
what type of customers like to attend which show as per timing and then schedule specials or
relevant programs at that time that would ensure that customers have events available when
they want it so that its really convenient or them to attend. Therefore we can see that the data
analysis is very helpful to get a better understanding of customer preferences by customer
types that would help the company to offer more relevant events on days and times where
they could maximize on and attract most customers.
2. What decisions did you make?
Answer – Based on the above analysis, one of the major initiatives that the company should
do is to focus on increasing repeat attendance from former subscribers or non-subscribers and
potentially over a period of time convert them into subscribers. This they would be able to by
offering multi show tickets, special prices on the next show if they buy a single ticket and
attractive offers for a combination of shows. All these initiatives are designed to increase
attendance and get existing viewers to come to VSO multiple times. The company should
look at analysing the selections of shows it is doing, probably get some customer input from
regular customers and make a new selection of music that aligns with what customers are
expecting, which will attract more customers to the VSO. The company should also have
events based on days, such as having a Saturday subscriber night or a Sunday night for first
timers where the pricing, event and other things should be customized as per the needs of the
audience so that there is a better connect leading to customer satisfaction which along with
targeted campaigns described above would help the company to provide a much better
experience and through that increase attendance for its events.
3. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this market research project?
Answer – The major strength of this marketing research project is that the company has been
able to get inputs from a cross sections of people who have come for the events, due to which
the quality and relevancy of the information obtained is very good and reliable. In addition,
strength is that a variety of data has been collected across key factors that are important to the
business, which upon analysis gives a lot of insight and input into management decision
making. In terms of weaknesses, the number of respondents is not very high which could
probably decrease the reliability of the study as they may not be a good representation of the
entire customer population. Another weakness of the study, which if done could have made it
better, is if the demographic data that has been collected would have been used for analysis to
see if there is a significant relationship between the age range and what and when people
want to see, and if opinions about the VSO differ across the age range, based upon which the
events and shows could have been more customized and relevant to the customers.
4. What trade-offs have been made?
Answer – Given that the company had been facing steady declines and had been looking at
getting a solution that would help them to address issues before the end of the year, there may
have been trade-offs made in the interest of time and possibly cost and hence they would
have ended up with a lesser number of respondents, the way samples were collected and the
extent to each customer was interviewed. If there was no trade-off with time or cost, the
company would have possibly have tried to have more number of respondents and also have
included a wider audience profile and from across the years so that it is able to see trends and
have a richer analysis that would have provided more insight for decision making.
5. Explain any sampling bias?
Answer – The surveys were conducted by the people who were in attendance of the shows at
the VSO that were taking place. Due to this the views that are expressed are of people who
are in attendance, and are not of people who are not coming to the VSO or of the people who
have unsubscribed or who have had a negative experience there. Hence there may be a bias
with the responses being positively skewed as they are from the people who have gone to the
orchestra at least once and not from the general public.
6. What issues would you address in future surveys and studies?
Answer – The issues that I would address in future surveys and studies would be initiatives
that would address the shortcomings and bias that would be present in the current study.
Rather than having a one off survey which was done in a retrospective fashion to address a
critical issue, I would ensure that there surveys are done regularly so that there is constant
feedback and insight that would help the management decide on its month to month
operational initiatives. Also, I would maintain a list of all customers who are coming to the
VSO and also customers who have expressed interest or from the neighbouring localities and
would include them in the survey so that there is no sampling bias and the responses are
representative of the larger population. I would also ensure that there is a more random
method of selecting the sample so that people are selected from across shows and across
customer tyes and on different days so that the sampling bias is reduced.