Manmeet Sabharwal's Blog

Marketing Research is such a thing that each company claims to do (honestly or not but yes claims) before launching any product or service or after launching or during relaunch or revitalizing.
Before and after new Ad campaigns.
Customer Satisfaction Research,Segmentation Positioning…………..
In short Marketing Research is an activity that is(or can be) done at any point in a company.
I am involved in one these days.
When you decide to do MBA in Marketing this is one word(actually 2) which you keep on listening and saying or studying.
Now Marketing Research is mainly getting data directly from customers through some method(phone,questionnaire,online,interview etc etc) and then analyzing it to get some meaningful result.

Now my friend Pappu who is doing a Marketing Research project is suffering from side effects of it.
SIDE EFFECTS !!!

Just imagine a set up of a project.Pappu is very brilliant did MBA from a reputed institute in India.Now he is doing a research project for a company for a business segment.
He very enthusiastically gets excited on listening that he will do a MR project.He gears up and starts analysing what he needs to do.He applies all his MBA knowledge and starts thining about fundu methods of MR.
He prepares a questionnaire to take responses and makes a plan.
day 1 : call to customers and emails
day 2 : response recieved from 40 50 % customers
day 3 : follow up calls
day 4 : 90% responses done
day 5 : back up in case
day 6,7,8 : analysis starts
day 9,10,11 : report formation
day 12: Presentation

He thought it was that simple but ooops it was not

day 1 soon became week 1
He called many customers.Half of them thought he was some call centre guy who was just trying to get their details to bother them again(trust me it happens).Pappu had to explain who he was for whom he works.Chalo Many customer agreed to that and even talked well gave him his emails and promised that they will fill the questionnaire.
Next day comes no response.Waits and calls again,similar story again hopeful now comes the first side effect

SIDE EFFECT 1: Pappu after every 5 minutes presses refresh button on his mail client.(customer mail jaise fass gaya hai kahin )This is a very serious effect.It can further develop into other matters of life.

SIDE EFFECT 2:Pappu keeps checking his mobile phone whether its working or not.(koi customer phone kar raha ho)

SIDE EFFECT 3: For online questionnaire users (Google Forms,Zoomerang etc): Keep inserting dummy rows to check kahin customer submit kar raha ho aur reponse idhar aa hi na raha ho jaise Internet ko aur koi nahin mila pappu banane ke liye.

SIDE EFFECT 4: ANGER MANAGEMENT  Pappu is too angry on people not keeping their promises.Some customer after days of yes yes suddenly say hum to aapka use nahin karte to i cant fill.SORRY(arey what do u mean by sorry pehle nahin bol sakte the!!!what the %&$^@&#)But Customer is the king you cant show ur anger to him u say,”"no problem sir !!its fine Sir !!ok sir !! nice talking to yo sir!!!” (Sirdard)

SIDE EFECT 5: “Customer Customer everywhere not a form to fill!” Pappu seems to see everyone as potentail customer and talks also accordingly.once Pappu called his dad and got lost”Sir I am calling from XYZ company ,We have a small survey for reseach can you please fill it???”His dad understands it and says ,”ok beta send it atleast i will fill it.”

After Days of struggling with the side efects Pappu manages few responses and thinks he is the king of the world.

Till now all his plan has been twisted and turned upside down,Still he completes his MR and submits the report.

The boss says,”Good Work PAPPU,But i just forgot to inform you that we no longer are planning to launch this new product in the market ! Anyways thanks for the report and research !! I assume its not much of an issue”

Pappu suffers again from SIDE EFFECT 4 severly.

P.S. I request all potential customers,Please help Pappus as they really want to work for you .

Comments Please!!!