TRC

Sophisticated Quantitative Technique

Regardless of the project's purpose, TRC applies the best available method to the information needs at hand. In many cases, like this one, we need to determine the relative importance of product, service, or company characteristics, so that our clients can prioritize their efforts and communications. Typically, asking for importance ratings provides results that are marginally useful, because importance ratings do not provide adequate differentiation.

Max-Diff is a recent development in statistical analysis. It is a comparative method where respondents are shown sets of items and asked to pick the best and worst, or most and least important item, in each set. The number of items shown per set usually varies from 3 to 5. The manner in which the items are grouped together and the order in which they appear are carefully selected through an algorithm. Data are then analyzed using hierarchical Bayes estimation to provide importance scores for all of the items used in the design. Scores appear like percentages and add up to 100. Since respondents have to make comparisons and choices, the problems of traditional importance scales are largely absent.

In this study, Max-Diff analysis identifying a set of service offerings with the highest growth impact was laid over uniqueness scores. This provided an important insight into which offerings have the best chance to make a splash - high growth impact and differentiation scores. For example, Attribute B is likely to gain new share while Attribute A is simply a must-have.

Further, TURF analysis (Total Undifferentiated Reach & Frequency) determined attributes' reach within the market.

Attribute A combined with attribute B will reach nearly ¾ of the target. The incremental benefits of other attributes are minimal.