Welcome to the bad bad world of marketing surveys and questionnaires. We have a marketing project due in the next couple of days and all of us need to do a customer survey as part of the project. The aim is to suggest marketing strategies for MNCs and multi crore Indian companies based on a mean and skewed sample of 60 odd customers. Now that is not really easy if one makes a small and answerable questionnaire. So people end up making bigger and bigger questionnaires disillutioned by misplaced hopes on unlocking the Indian consumer. Now the question is ….
Who has the bigger one? You or me?
As obscene as it may sound, I will tell you what, these questionnaires are real PITA. Barring a couple of no brainers like age, income group, name and sometimes sex all other questions try to test the consumer’s intricate understanding, IQ, communication skills, psychological fitness and eligibility for MBA programs. Add to this the inherent pitfalls of questionnaire methods like communication gap and language and bingo, you will have a monster of data which after analysis will tell you that,
– Customers prefer low prices or price cuts
– Customers feel that performance, service network, reliability are all included in product quality
But the most funniest part of this circus is the poor consumers getting pissed off trying to answer the questionnaires. I mean, how can any one on the earth answer a survey questions like,
– If Ponds Talcum Powder were to be a dish, which one it will be?
(a) Fried Rice (b) Biryani (c) Mom’s food (d) Mess food (e) Baigan Bartha accidentally mixed up with Mango Pie
– If <the product goes here> were to be a person what characteristics it will have, tick the 5 most appropriate ones.
(a) amoral (b) brotherly (c) calm (d) daring (e) energetic (f) funky (g) gruelling (h) heavenly (i) irritating (j) jocular (k) kind (l) lovely
– If…
OK, it doesn’t matter. The point is, even I have a questionnaire in my weaponry and you never know when I will jump up and force you to fill it in. How do feel then?
(a) Mad (b) just angry (c) you know, it doesn’t matter (d) Big deal, I can fill it (e) Oh boy, I have been waiting for this all my life
Tada! Oh, btw, you can leave the response to above question in the comments.
11 Responses
Ciao Hui,
Collecting Excel tricks under the title “Notable Excel Websites (Non-MVP) Edition” is a brilliant idea…
Thank you in the name of all The FrankensTeam.
On our site there is a box with a picture and text highlighting:
This is a no-MVP site
we think ourselves “bad boys” a bit 🙂
For those who would like to know why our site is a no-MVP site, enough to click on the link:
http://goo.gl/lxDszY
Thank you again!
Thanks a lot
I really enjoyed this (newsletter). I must admit that I rarely read an Excel newsletter (and I subscribe to quite a few) all the way though, but this grabbed my attention and before I realized it, I was engrossed in it. I must also admit that most of this I don’t understand, yet. But, it excites me when I do learn something new in Excel. I can’t wait to see how much of this I can implement into my (constantly-evolving) ‘House Budget’ & ‘Family Medical’ worksheets that I have developed over the past few years! I sure hope to see more of these type of newsletters in the future! Thanks!
Thanks for doing this Hui! I appreciate being included.
I like Tom’s tip a lot. I posted about a tool I wrote to automate this at http://yoursumbuddy.com/tables-edit-query-dialog/
EXCELLENT !
Hui, This post is Superb! More over I have always been a fan of Roberto’s work and have learnt a lot from him.
Here are some of my recent contributions
1. Customising markers in a chart – http://www.goodly.co.in/customize-markers-in-a-chart/
2. Charting Hacks to work faster – http://www.goodly.co.in/5-charting-hacks-to-help-you-work-faster/
3. 7 Date formulas to make life easy – http://www.goodly.co.in/date-formulas-in-excel/
4. Customised scrollbar using VBA – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
5. Adding Direct Legends – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
Hope everyone enjoys!
I like the Excel Ninja Menus.
1. Select a cell or range then move till the 4-way cross appears. Right-Click and drag the selection to another place in the worksheet then, like a ninja, a menu full of skills and throwing stars pops up allowing me to do all kinds of awesomeness.
2. When you click the fill box on a Date and right click and drag it down, a lot of amazing Date options pop up.
I also brand my Excel to remind myself that I’m awesome. In my personal macro workbook I place the following code.
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.Caption = “SuperKrishna’s Awesomeness”
End Sub
My favorite tip goes along with #17. If you try to copy subtotaled data (and in earlier Excel versions filtered data),when you paste it all the data displays instead of just the summarized data.
To get around this, select your summarized data, click on Find and Select tab and then select Go to Special. Click Visible cells Only and click OK. Now paste and you will see that only the summarized data has been copied.
You can also go CTRL+G and then click the Special icon at the bottom of the dialog box.
What a great idea, Chandoo! I’d love to be included in your next edition:) Perhaps a VBA exclusive version?
@Ryan
I will review this concept about 6 months out from the original post and be sure to keep your site in mind
Hui…
That sounds great, Hui:) I just realized I gave credit to Chandoo for the idea and I should have attributed it to you.
Sorry about that!