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SRA Connection
 
 
 
   
Table of Contents:
Not just another fish story
Want quality focus groups?
No fudging allowed!
Research works – when
you follow the four C’s
Ring! Ring! And remember
the 12-minute rule!
Online focus groups—a
new tradition?
Statistically Speaking
Passwords: Is yours
safe and secure?

Survey Question

To participate in our online survey, click here.

Fun Facts

The U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs estimates that 25% of all purchases result in some customer dissatisfaction. Yet two out of three people never complain because they don't think it will do any good. Ironically, most businesses DO try to make good and value the feedback, especially when it comes from someone who doesn't make a habit of complaining.

According to Information Week, the annual productivity loss by U.S. businesses due to employees playing computer games is an estimated $100 billion-which works out to 2% of the Gross Domestic Product.

Ask Bob

In every issue of SRA Connection, I will demonstrate a fun or practical use for Microsoft Excel. Any questions? Click here to send an e-mail. I promise to respond!

For this issue, it’s a Random Number Generator for playing the lottery.

Click the link below to download the spreadsheet. Good luck and have fun!

● Excel format For Netscape users, right-click, and select Save Link Target as...

● Zip format

 
 
 

SRA Research Group is pleased to announce the launch of SRA Connection, a quarterly e-newsletter dedicated to providing market research information that is interesting and fun. Even more important, we’ll deliver information that’s geared to having a direct, positive impact on your company.

Future issues of the SRA Connection will cover success in all its forms. We’ll spotlight clients who have achieved their goals through targeted market research. Keeping up-to-date on the latest research technologies is our job, and we’ll let you know which ones make the most sense for your business. When it comes to your success, you need the essential facts—we’ll make sure you have them!

Building relationships is important to SRA Research Group, starting with our home office in Jupiter, FL. We’re very proud of the professional relationship we’ve achieved, with all of us connecting and working together to provide the very best in market research. To include you in this successful relationship, we've asked the members of our group to be regular contributors to the SRA Connection. There's nothing like getting it from the “horse’s mouth.” These people are in the trenches every day and can tell you what will—or won't—give you the greatest advantage.

We'd like to hear from you! Have our recommendations worked for you? Can your success be attributed to what you've learned through market research? Perhaps we could spotlight your company in an upcoming issue.

The SRA Connection is a great way to establish an ongoing dialogue. We can share our stories, our triumphs and even our moments that didn't quite hit the mark. There's always something to be learned. Successful relationships are built on making a solid connection through communication, and that's bound to have a positive impact on everyone.

Barbara L. Allan
CEO

  
 
 
 

Cold and dreary. That’s how manager Mary Jane Ramirez saw things at her Seattle workplace. In Fish!, a powerful motivational parable by Lundin, Paul & Christensen, Mary Jane is put in charge of turning a lethargic, listless and unhelpful department into an effective team. > Full Article

  
 
 
 
 

Cutting corners on respondent recruitment or facility selection will practically guarantee low-quality results. When it comes to constructing the criteria upon which to base your focus group, you can’t afford to fudge on these two most important variables.

SRA has encountered too many situations in which field services have tried to make a respondent fit when they had no business in the group. It’s kind of like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. It just doesn’t work. > Full Article
 
 

Credentials, capability, competency, and communication. If you want quality results from a market research company, these are the qualities you should expect. Since the market research industry is self-regulating, with no required test or accreditation, how do you know you’re getting the best?

Luckily, there are professional organizations who believe in the necessity of the four C’s when it comes to quality market research, and they’re setting very high standards for the industry. > Full Article



  
 
 
 
 

People are busy these days. Although participating in a survey can be a lot of fun, it’s sometimes difficult to convince people to give you a moment of their time. It helps to remember the 12-minute rule.

The 12-minute rule means that no survey should take more than 12 minutes of someone’s time, and you can tell them exactly that. Depending on how much thinking needs to go into answering each of your questions, the 12-minute rule generally equates to about 30 questions. As a guideline, think in terms of 2.5 questions per minute for a total of 30 questions. > Full Article
 
 
 

If you needed feedback from hard-to-recruit major corporate executives on a new product you were about to launch, you’d probably think: focus group. But, what if these executives were scattered throughout the country and hard-pressed to leave their offices or homes? What would you do then? The answer: online focus group! > Full Article
 
 
 
 

How often have you said, “I can’t afford to do all these surveys! How can we do fewer and still get reliable results?” Not to worry. There are often-overlooked alternatives known as sturdy or distribution-free statistics or, more specifically, nonparametric statistics.

Typically, the preferred research plan is to interview a sufficient number of consumers to make the results statistically reliable at the 90% to 95% level of confidence with a certain margin of error. Depending on how one sets the constraint parameters, this works out to be from 250 to 350 completed interviews.  > Full Article

  
 
 
 
 

People today can easily have as many as fifty passwords. One for each e-mail, another for stock portfolios, another for online bill paying, another for drug prescription refills, games, and so on. Although someone stealing your password on a game network may not do as much damage as someone who figures out your ATM PIN, the issue of identity loss remains the same. Your private information and your entire digital identity are only as secure as your password.
> Full Article
 
 
 
 

SRA Research Group, Inc.
1001 North U.S. Highway One, Suite 310
Jupiter, FL 33477
561.744.5662
561.575.7396 fax
http://www.sra-researchgroup.com

SRA Research Group is committed to developing superior quality, custom market research that provides public and private organizations with tactical tools, and information to maximize market potential.
   

The past has been good to SRA Research Group. In the more than 17 years since starting out as a fledgling market research firm in Jupiter, Florida, we've stretched our limits far beyond the Sunbelt.

The name Sunbelt Research Associates fit us perfectly for quite a while. But as our client base expanded throughout the United States and Latin America, we realized that we'd outgrown ourselves. We needed a fresh new look and name that better represented our broadened scope and identity in the marketplace.

Our new logo represents forward momentum and honesty of purpose, two concepts that have always been driving forces behind our business philosophy. In deciding upon a new name, we reflected on the importance of building relationships, starting with our talented group of research professionals and ending with you, our customer. As far as we're concerned, we're all in this together: a group of professionals dedicated to the prosperity of your business. We believe that our new name, SRA Research Group, fully represents this important partnership.

The expertise that SRA Research Group offers is fully described in our new online presence. Please take a moment to visit our new website: http://www.sra-researchgroup.com. You'll learn more about the research methodologies—both qualitative and quantitative—that are available to our customers. We now offer the bulletin board focus group, which can yield up to three times the results as traditional focus groups. Our extensive experience in industries such as public agencies and non-profits, real estate and development, and health care, to name just a few, are also detailed.

While our look may be new, our history of strong commitment is something you can continue to count on: to provide solutions, results, and superior customer service. SRA Research Group is excited about the future, and we're looking forward to another successful chapter in the evolution of our company—and yours.

 


©2002 by SRA Research Group, Inc. Duplication with credits only please. For a complimentary quote on a project e-mail ballan@sra-researchgroup.com or visit http://www.sra-researchgroup.com/ Click here to send this newsletter to a colleague. Click here to Unsubscribe. Newsletter maintained by Web Factum, LLC.