Calgary Market Research – Company Services

In-Depth Interviews (also known as IDIs) help you to understand customers (or stakeholders) at a deeper level. For example, why did they choose to do business with you? What do they really think of your staff, products, or services? What do they wish you did better? Interviews are usually done by phone or Zoom, and although not recorded (as this causes some participants to be quite inhibited) they are faithfully captured by detailed note taking. Also, since the contact names come through the clients, we ask you to get their consent to participate ahead of time. 

NOTE: In-Depth Interviews are a type of Exploratory (AKA Qualitative Research, and so are more like a discussion, not usually using numeric/rating scales).  Themes are found among respondents, and typically give very strong strategic direction.

Surveys and questionnaires are used to measure or identify patterns, such as weak spots or pockets of opportunities. They can be done with existing customers or with larger swaths of potential markets to identify habits, opinions, buying patterns, needs and demographics. For example, measuring customer satisfaction across multiple company locations can compare satisfaction from location to location or from one year to the next. Asking questions across a large geographic or demographic sampling can identify which buyers are more likely interested, and where they are.
 
NOTE: Since the purpose here is precise measurement, it is important to get random selection of a significant number of respondents wherever possible. If measuring over time, survey questions should be consistent. While some open-ended questions can be included, most Surveys are “measurable” – i.e. closed-ended questions such as “yes/no” or “on a scale of”

Focus groups are used to test and refine new ideas, especially visual ones. Focus groups are a great way to get a reaction to something you need to “show and tell.” When people take an interest in what you’re showing, often new ideas come about to tweak and improve the offering, to make it stronger. Once you have shown the focus group the idea, you can also ask what they might be willing to pay for it. 
 
It is crucial to have an experienced focus group moderator who writes the guide for the discussion (topics of discussion), and ensures a balanced, unbiased discussion. 

This is a specialized type of depth interview – one that determines if your offering appeals to prospects in a new market . This can help you diversify your customer base, segment target markets, and understand the competitive landscape. The process usually involves identifying several types of prospective buyers, finding out the best way to connect to them, and then conducting in-depth interviews with them, explaining the new offering.
 
Most companies will use this to help determine how to diversify their offerings and find unmet needs of prospects in a new or existing market. Can also be used to assess sales techniques and processes.

Competitor Research (Intelligence) is used identify and assess your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities vs. competitors. This can be done through online, phone, in-person means.  We use over 40 detailed parameters to assess your organization against its closest competitors – everything from website traffic, to location, staff skillsets and more.

Feasibility studies determine if your new product/concept will succeed. A feasibility study is made up of several kinds of research, which then concludes with a recommendation on whether to proceed as-planned, proceed after suggested changes to the product, or not to proceed. Please visit our Feasibility Study page for more information.

And Industry Study or Market Assessment is used to determine market size, market share, and trends.  This is usually done by mainly “Secondary Research”, i.e. rounding up the latest existing studies and data on the size, growth, key players, legislation and trends in the market. Tenato also uses ground-breaking big-data and social media monitoring for finding leading-edge trends, as well as local resources such as Calgary Community Profiles provided by the City, Calgary Economic Development and Alberta Government Economic reports. In some cases, we also contact industry leaders (such as those at the Calgary Real Estate Board) to give us first-hand and current comments on what is happening. 

Omnibus or Panel Surveys can be used if you only have a couple of questions to answer, but need a highly accurate measurement of market size/demographics. Omnibus surveys are conducted by many research firms every couple of weeks, with questions are being responded to by panellists who are paid across the country to answer online surveys.  Generally, you pay per question to tack-on your questions into whatever panels are being fielded that week.

Costs go up if you need a more specific audience, such as minimum of 500 women homeowners in Alberta only. If you have more than 5 or so questions it will likely be worth it to do a “dedicated survey” – i.e. a survey written just for your purposes, and then execute that. Tenato works with you to determine the questions needed, liases with the panel firm, and provided data analysis.