A well known aspect of the service recovery literature is that customers who have encountered a service failure and complained and in turn, had their complaint well managed are more satisfied than customers who have not encountered a service failure. In business-to-business markets, solving individual customer's complaints has been a common endeavour. This raises the topic of anonymity and the disclosure of an individual respondent's comments arising from marketing research.

There are many steps in the process of generating research findings through to delivering those findings to management. Along the way there is ample scope for disconnects, but perhaps none as great as the step from quantitative analysis to findings. In many instances this is not so much of a step as a leap of faith. One reason for the 'leap' is an absence of an understanding of the underlying assumptions used in the analysis.

The wisest statisticians are those who readily accept that in business applications, managerial judgement provides a complementary role to some statistical techniques.

Pleasingly, there has been an increase in the levels of graduate numeracy, but is it enough in the face of the huge increase in analytics resulting from new technology?

Forethought has developed the Conjoint Simulator, an invaluable tool for product development and strategy refinement. The Simulator is an interactive program that utilises the results of the conjoint component of a client's research project, to enable real-time product or service comparisons.

Research specialists versus research generalists.

The desire of management for simplicity has now reached new heights and the implications are surely the greatest for marketing science and the growing sophistication of the business analytics being produced.

Segmentation Analysis enables clients to truly capitalise on the homogeneity of particular segments of the market. It allows for the formulation of more customised marketing and communications strategies as well as the opportunity target to those segments within the market that are most likely to provide an organisation with growth and increased market share.

This two-part article explores how Forethought uses Conjoint Analysis to assist clients in the development and pricing of new products. Part I focuses on how this type of analysis can assist with product development and Part II focuses on using the analysis to assist in determining the optimum price point at which a new product should enter the market.

Historically market researchers enjoyed a bountiful supply of people willing to provide opinion and feedback on various products and services within a focus group setting. However, the enormous expansion of the marketing research industry in the 1990s meant that it is was becoming more difficult to recruit respondents for focus groups. Larger incentives have seen the emergence of individuals who consciously seek out opportunities to participate in research relying on incentives as a source of income.

If satisfying a customer by meeting their expectations leads to desirable customer behaviours, then it seems obvious that significantly exceeding the customer's expectation will significantly improve behavioural outcomes. Research conducted by Forethought Research leads to a different conclusion.

A survey of 750 companies and 800 individuals throughout Australia compares paper based and digital marketing communications in the 21st Century for the first time and smashes many of the myths about consumers embracing the digital age.

Our experience in conducting research in the superannuation industry has led the Marketing Science division at Forethought to recently devise an industry superannuation index relating to member satisfaction. This index provides our industry superannuation clients with a key benchmark to enable them to see how their results compare to the 'market measure' on individual areas of performance.

Gaining insights into market position through the perceptions of customers and non-customers.

Forethought has recently become the first Marketing Research firm in Australia to patent a research methodology. Known simply as Prophecy, this unique methodology was developed by the Marketing Science team at Forethought in conjunction with leading academics and practitioners. The ground breaking methodology picks up right where Customer Value Analysis leaves off.