The Role of Quantitative Market Research in Understanding Consumer Behavior

Some users rejected your latest product, calling its UI unappealing. This might feel disheartening to an online market research team. But “Some” doesn’t explain much unless this is quantified.

When you run the same survey but gather stats this time and not just emotions, you get more transparency. 11.81% of the users don’t like the UI. You go deeper and find out that one-third of these users have moved away from your brand, and they don’t own any of your products now.

Market research is not only about the emotions of the users. It is also about finding stats that support these emotions. Especially when the comments are flaky, they should be supported by numbers. That’s why quantitative reviews play a very important role.

The Role of Quantitative Market Research in Understanding Consumer Behavior

1.      Assess User Loyalty and Satisfaction

Qualitative market research methods, such as CSAT and NPS, are vital for your brand to learn how users feel about you and your products.

Net Promoter Score or NPS explains how many users recommend your brand to their network, and that assesses the loyalty factor. CSAT, or customer satisfaction score, tells you how satisfied your users are with your product and brand.

When you track these metrics over time, you will see the improvement (or the lack thereof) happening. Such metrics help you measure your performance.

Learn about the key metrics that measure customer loyalty.

2.      Identify Trends and Patterns

With qualitative research, you can’t spot patterns and trends because your panel strength is small, as low as in double digits. Quantitative market research allows you to spot trends and patterns emerging in the market by surveying a large group, even as large as 1000.

When online market research data shows that 71.84% of users shop your product through Amazon or eBay, 19.77% from your own website, and the rest from the brick-and-mortar outlets, you can track a pattern here. And make decisions accordingly.

Your social media research says that 29% of users love bright and peppy exteriors in your latest phone model. This is a promising trend to watch out for in the next six months to check if more people invest in bright shells.

You can’t assess such trends and patterns clearly from the deeper emotional journeys of your audience, as trends and patterns need volumes for an assessment.

3.      Scale Matters

If you want to survey the competitors and the industry as a whole and not just your brand or products, a handful of audience members might not be worth surveying. You need a bulk of members on your panel to survey.

You again use NPS and CSAT scores to understand your peers. Who’s leading and who’s behind? How many customers are satisfied with your peers as compared to yours? Clearly, such numbers are a result of competitive analysis using quantitative surveys.

4.      Helps with Segmentations

Numbers help with segmentation, too.

You can classify your audience based on demographics. That’s easy and quick. However, you can go deeper to a granular level and bifurcate again. For instance, loyal users, repeat customers, and long-term users.

Such segmentation helps you run micro campaigns and reward-based programs for users who are your ambassadors and have shown loyalty.

5.      Facilitates with Clear Decision Making

Numbers over emotions indicate better prospects where you’re doing gap analysis and exploring new opportunities. Quants also help you choose a single direction to move ahead with your decisions.

Emotions are important to understand user behavior and motivation. However, quants substantiate the emotions and give you a clear pathway to move ahead.

When you’re not sure about your future product but have a tiny idea, you can simply launch a survey based on that idea and start getting more clarity.

What Next?

Having vouched for quantitative market research, we at Track Opinion don’t mean that qualitative reviews are any less important. A combined approach also exists. Every problem needs a different approach in market research, and both the quals and quants have their own importance.

If you need help with quantitative surveys, contact Track Opinion. We have been working with clients from various domains for over 16 years, and quantitative research is one of our strongest suits.