Used in Market Research

The Enquire Within interviewing tool enables you to capture market perception - to learn what your customers think about your products and services, in their own language. It combines the fluidity and openness of the focus group with the rigour of precise statistical analysis as and when you need it.

How your product or service compares with others

By asking some of your key customers to complete an Enquire Within session in which they will describe and analyse the differences and similarities between your product and its competitors you can use Enquire Within’s in-depth analysis of the customer’s cognitive map to make finer and finer differentiations between your product and its closest rivals. Using this map, you:

• Can encourage your customer to define the ideal product,
• Can make trade-offs,
• Assign priorities,
• Experiment with different scenarios, and
• Can see how your customers’ views of your product compare with those of your staff, and learn whether they see the same things as important.

How customers experience your product or service

By asking some of your customers to complete an Enquire Within session in which they reflect on critical incidents in their experience with you and/or your competitors you can measure how customers experience your product or service. This configuration of Enquire Within is especially useful in sectors where customers form their opinions on a very limited sampling of your service (for example, airlines), or where there are only a few players in the market and it is difficult, but important, to define your competitive edge (for example, banks and financial services).

Help specify or design a new product or service

By inviting some of your key customers to an Enquire Within session in which you obtain their cognitive maps of existing products or services and then experiment with ‘what if’ scenarios, you can build a picture of the key features of a new product, examine priorities and trade-offs, etc.

Customer perception tracking

Market research companies could, of course, use Enquire Within to obtain a database of key customer perceptions in a particular sector, or to track customer perceptions of their products over time.

---

Twelve Marketing Related Resources

• Destination Marketing Meets Clinical Psychology: Trialling A Group Application Of Repertory Grid - Steven Pike, Ph.D, Senior Lecturer, School of Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. While Repertory Grid Analysis was originally developed for use in clinical psychology, the technique has been adapted in a diverse range of fields, including marketing research. The paper provides a contribution to the literature in two ways. Firstly, the technique has been underutilised in the tourism marketing literature, particularly in terms of understanding how travelers differentiate destinations. Second, the technique has predominantly been reported in marketing research in the form of personal interviews, and the paper reports the trial of group applications to elicit salient destination attributes in the context of short break holiday destinations. The findings from the group trial are compared to a previous application of the technique for the same travel context, which involved individual personal interviews. It is suggested that while the group application of Repertory Grid did have limitations, the approach does offer researchers an efficient effective means of exploratory research in the design of a structured questionnaire.
• Perceived changes in holiday destinations - Philip L. Pearce, Department of Behavioral Sciences James Cook University of North Queensland Townsville, Australia. Small samples of tourists visiting Greece and Morocco were studied intensively to see whether tourists' post-travel images of these countries were different from pre-travel images. An adapted form of Kelly's repertory grid was used to assess the images. It was established that both travelers to Morocco and to Greece changed their images of the visited locations when compared to a control group of non-travelers.
• Using Repertory Grid Interviews to Capture First Impressions of Homepages - Veronica Hinkle. This article explains the Repertory Grid Interview (RGI) method and provides an example of how to use it to capture users' first impressions of website homepages. Six website homepages selling high-end food products were used for this study. RGI results helped define the features of homepages that generate first impressions, both positive and negative first impressions. In our example with e-commerce sites, features related to positive first impressions of these homepages included the aesthetic appeal of the homepage, availability of promotional products, and ease of online browsing and shopping. Homepages that scored high on these features typically were perceived more positively than those with low scores.
• See how a simple market research example might be started with Enquire Within.
• An example of a simple market research interview.
• Developing the Profile of Your Ideal Digital Camera
• Federico Messina, Anna Saba, Aida Turrini, Monique Raats - British Food Journal. Older people's perceptions towards conventional and functional yoghurts through the repertory grid method.

  The aim of this study was to investigate older people's perceptions, across eight European countries, towards functional foods. The repertory grid method was used to elicit reasons underlying preferences of five yoghurts with different functional properties and two conventional ones.

• Wendy Moody, Roger Morgan, Patricia Dillon, Chris Barber and Allan Wing. Factors Underlying Fabric Perception

  This paper describes two fabric-touch experiments where the term `oral texture' applies in the collection of adjectives and metaphors (fabric perceptions). The purpose of this study was to qualitatively record subjective responses to familiar fabrics, using a Repertory Grid (factor analysis) model , to preliminary establish subjective and objective responses to fabrics, and through analysis, the factors underlying fabric perception and discrimination between fabric `types'.

• Coshall, John T. Measurement of tourists' images: The repertory grid approach. Journal of Travel Research 39.1 (August 2000)

  Abstract: This article suggests that repertory grids are an underused method of eliciting tourists' images of potential destinations. However, repertory grids possess great potential in the field of tourism research. As opposed to methods commonly used in studies of image, the repertory grid approach is couched in well-tested psychological theory and avoids bias inherent in alternative methods due to prespecification of study attributes. The technique permits the individuals to reveal their own personal constructions of the environment. Such personal constructs are more likely to be relevant explanatory factors in the decision-making process.

• Visitor's evaluation of a historical district. A repertory grid and laddering analysis with photographs. Taketo Naoi, David Airey, Outi Niininen, Shoji Iijima.
  
  
• Steven Pike The Use of Repertory Grid Analysis to Elicit Salient Short-Break Holiday Destination Attributes in New Zealand Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 41, No. 3, 315-319 (2003)

  Abstract: Repertory grid analysis was developed almost 50 years ago, but its application in destination image research has been rare. The technique was used to identify 17 attributes deemed salient to New Zealanders, when differentiating domestic short-break holiday destinations. These were then compared to those attributes used in 84 previous destination studies, as well as with results from personal interviews with tourism practitioners. A number of differences between the repertory grid findings and practitioner opinion confirmed the value of seeking consumer input when developing attribute lists for use in structured surveys. While both the repertory grid findings and practitioner opinion showed a general consistency with the range of 100+ attributes used in the literature, key differences highlighted the importance of the New Zealand domestic travel context. The article attempts to demonstrate the efficacy of repertory grid, an economical technique that has been underused by tourism market researchers.

• Caldwell, Niall, and John Coshall. Measuring brand associations for museums and galleries using repertory grid analysis.(Social Responsibility and Marketing). Management Decision 40.4 (April 2002)

  Abstract: This paper is a contribution to the literature on the branding of cultural institutions. In particular it focuses on visitor motivation in the field of museums and galleries. Measurement of visitor motivations and associated brand strength of cultural institutions is a relatively new concern for marketers. The need to develop further understanding of how best to market museums in the twenty-first century motivates this research. Repertory grid analysis was used as the survey method in order to get data that were “rich” in terms of concepts, but also malleable in terms of statistical analysis. The results of an exploratory study of museum brand associations are reported, along with a discussion of the method of repertory grid analysis that was used to obtain the data. A total of 11 museums in London were targeted, with a special focus on the Tate Gallery.

Search This Site

Suggestions

• Download a free evaluation copy of Enquire Within here
• Click here for user comment.
• Post this page to: del.icio.us.
• Email this page to a colleague.
• Want to know more? Join the beginners and the experts at the RepGrid User Group.
• Want to keep in touch? Join our mailing list.
• Twitter: Follow us at @EnquireWithin
• Translate this page to your language? Try Google Toolbar.