Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus: Building a Better Market Focus - Hardcover

McQuarrie, Edward F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765622246 ISBN 13: 9780765622242

Publisher: Routledge, 2008

Synopsis

Visits to customers by a cross-functional team of marketers and engineers play an important role in new product development, entry into new markets, and in exploring customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction. The new edition of this widely used professional resource provides step-by-step instructions for making effective use of this market research technique.Using a wealth of specific examples, Edward F. McQuarrie explains how to set feasible objectives and how to select the right number of the right kind of customers to visit. One of the leading experts in the field, McQuarrie demonstrates how to construct a discussion guide and how to devise good questions, and offers practical advice on how to conduct face-to-face interviews.Extensively updated throughout, this third edition includes three new chapters as well as expanded coverage of the analysis of visit data. It also discusses which industries and product categories are most (and least) suitable to the customer visit technique. The author also covers how the customer visit technique compares to other market research techniques such as focus groups.

About this title

About the Author

Edward F. McQuarrie is Professor in the Department of Marketing, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University.  He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1985.   His research interests include customer value, qualitative research, and market research appropriate to technology products, on the one hand, and advertising research, rhetoric and semiotics on the other.  He has also written the book, Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus, and published articles in the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Marketing Management, Marketing Research, Journal of the Market Research Society, Journal of Advertising Research, and the Journal of Advertising.  He serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Consumer Research.  

He is currently Associate Dean for Assessment & Improvement at the Leavey School, responsible for the assessment of learning outcomes and the evaluation of teaching.  He was Associate Dean for Graduate Studies 1996-2000, responsible for the MBA and Executive MBA programs.   Professor McQuarrie has moderated focus groups since 1980, for Burke Marketing Research among others.

He has consulted for a variety of technology firms, and has taught seminars on Effective Customer Visits, Managing Focus Group Research, Marketing Research Methods, and similar topics for Hewlett Packard, Sun Microsystems, Microsoft, Apple Computer, Tektronix, Varian Associates, Cadence Design, and other clients.

Review

"We've asked hundreds of marketers and thought leaders for the most important thing a marketer can do for a firm. Answer: Bring new techniques for discerning real customer needs. That's where Customer Visits comes in. This jewel of a book shows you how to make customer visits powerful tools for customer insight. It's a great read and a powerful resource." -- Ralph A. Oliva, Executive Director, Institute for the Study of Business Markets Penn State University "This new edition of Customer Visits is a must-read book for anyone whose firm markets products to other businesses. This is a book I read every few years, just to remind myself what a good execution of a piece of marketing research requires. I always strongly recommend it as a professional purchase to my MBA Marketing Core students. Ed McQuarrie presents a great deal of practical content on how to prepare for, conduct and analyze customer visits - in an enjoyably readable and practical form." -- Abbie Griffin, Royal L. Garff Presidential Chair in Marketing University of Utah This book will interest company representatives and management involved in sales, customer relations, and marketing. It is clearly written and offers an interesting history of the development of the tradition the customer visit. Reference & Research Book News"

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0765622246
• ISBN 13: 9780765622242
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 256