12 The voice of the customer

12.1 Gathering data

In this section I will review some of the approaches and methods used by companies for identifying and exploiting marketing opportunities.

All over the world, producer companies have increasingly learned to keep a careful watch on emerging consumer requirements and changing user needs and wishes. They have not only learned to listen to what consumers say, but to watch what they do. Techniques used in market research to gather consumers’ views on products include both quantitative methods (collecting numerical data), such as survey questionnaires, and qualitative methods (collecting opinions and subjective responses), such as focus groups.