Question:
Our company is a distributor of steel pipe and tubing in the Washington-Oregon-Idaho marketplace.  A few months back questions were raised about the loss of sales to a new local distributor that opened less than a year ago.  Some loss was expected, of course, but the actual numbers were greater than forecasted.  Our sales manager asked permission to use the sales force in a market survey and his request was approved.  Some weeks later our management team was presented with the completed survey, the numbers, and an interpretation of  the results.  The only solution the sales manager could come up with was to lower our prices.  Margins, however, are already below most of the competition.  Management studied the survey and did not feel it told us anything of value.  What’s the use of market research if this is all it can do for us?

Answer:
Have you ever answered your telephone around election time to be confronted by a “pollster”.  Often times they begin with basic, general questions and then continue on to loaded questions such as “do you believe Candidate XYZ has actually stopped beating his wife?”  It only takes a few of these before you start to realize that they are not taking a survey...they are using negative selling!

Keeping this in mind, read your sales manager’s survey again.  Hopefully you now see that this is not a survey, but thinly disguised negative selling.  Market research is not a simple matter; it may be inappropriate for survey questions to be written by the sales staff, and they should not do the survey work.  The goals of the research are best set by management from the very first. 

For example; you could have sought information on the purchasing practices of customers.  You may have discovered that your salespeople are not communicating with the correct personnel.   You might have found that they are using “simple” sales techniques when they are actually facing “complex” buying structures, or vice versa. Your sales force may simply need some refresher training.  This is not information your sales manager would care to expose through a market research project. 

You might have rated customer satisfaction variables.  Perhaps buyers have been unhappy with delivery schedules or credit procedures.  It is possible the market has changed and your company has simply not responded.  The actual knowledge you needed to realize from the research could have been decided up front, then translated to quantifiable measures.  The methodology to be utilized is most beneficial when planned and carried out with the help of unbiased research professionals. 

Your sales force, though undoubtedly well intentioned, may have done more to harm your company in the eyes of potential customers than to help you understand the complex dynamics of your marketplace.  There are many very legitimate uses for market research.  Corporate self-effacement really is not one of them.  I encourage you to try a different approach the next time.