Marketing Research

Assume that you are an account manager with the Insight Marketing Research agency. Along with monthly surveys, your client, The Association of Motorcar Manufactures, will occasionally carry out ad-hoc surveys in response to issues that may arise within their industry or to collect information on new product launches.

The client has asked that you prepare a proposal for a piece of qualitative research to be undertaken by the agency. This research is to enable the client to understand customer satisfaction and service quality for the Association’s dealers.

Among the type of information, the client is hoping to uncover are the expectations of customers when visiting a dealership. This includes the type of customer service most important when purchasing a car, knowledge of the product within the dealership, whether there are finance options available and the trust that a potential customer will place in the dealer to offer the best trade-in value against a new car.

Your proposal should take into consideration the following areas before presentation to the client:

• Briefly describe the Association and the market it operates in. Give enough information so that a reader can understand your answers to the other sections. What sector is it in and what are the main functions of this client?

• Evaluate the methods that are used to collect both primary and secondary research data as part of the marketing research planning process.

• Choose any three methods of qualitative research and explain the advantages of using these research methods.

• Using the three methods from above, critically evaluate how you would analyse this data for the client.

• Critically evaluate data collection methods

• Analyse and assess data collection methods and appropriate research designs for a specific project

• Apply understanding of appropriate research technologies.