How can open-ended questions improve your understanding of brand loyalty?

Open-ended answers are the responses to questions which don't have a predefined set of options or answers. These OE answers allow respondents to answer in their own words with more details. It should be remembered that open-ended answers can provide valuable insights but they are also more challenging to analyze than closed-ended answers, OE answers can't be easily categorized or quantified. They usually require manual analysis or sophisticated text analysis tools to identify common themes or sentiments.

Open-ended questions are those where market researchers seek to understand the "why." Allow to have deeper exploration of participants' thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Great for uncovering nuanced insights and understanding the underlying reasons behind responses.

People don't know what they say, or what they have to say. It's in our nature to form things as we go along. We can use rote learning to our advantage but only to an extent. When it comes to retelling what the innermost corners of our hearts hold, especially on things that revolve around emotions - and loyalty is deeply so, we tend not to be able to give simple, candid statements. To help formulate something concrete as an answer, we need to piece the evidence together as we don't keep such things readily in the closet. Open-ended questions are a surefire way to help probe into layers that the respondent probably hasn't realised themselves. Also, when respondents get a chance to marshal thoughts, they manage to delve deeper within.

In my experience, open-ended questions must be used sparingly in survey design to minimise respondent fatigue. But when used properly, it can provide a depth of understanding that will unlock new levels of insight beyond what the closed-ended questions provide. They shed light on the nuances behind the 'why' that we so often seek.

In case this isn't obvious, open ends should be standardized and in all quant surveys to eventually leverage LLMs. Tim "See the future be the future"

I would love to share an example. I was analyzing customer response. He scored positive on NPS metrics as “9”. It's normal to feel that the customer is happy with the interaction. We used to ask for “reason for score” and “improvement areas”. Guess what, he was happy but was unhappy with the agent's tone and professionalism. It's the human tendency not to focus on things working well. But clearly, there was an issue that we couldn't have uncovered if we hadn't asked open-ended questions. It's valuable and very important to ask open-ended questions and mine those to uncover patterns, sentiments, emotions, and issues customers are facing “which can't be shared via numerical scores”.

I believe it provides scope to the respondent to open up and share emotional details regarding the attachments and non-attachments.

OEs are invaluable tools in brand loyalty research as they provide a platform for customers to voice their opinions and feelings about a brand unrestrictedly. They can divulge subtle yet critical details about why customers continue to choose a brand over its competitors. For instance, a customer might mention exceptional customer service, a unique product feature, or an emotional attachment stemming from a personal experience. These responses can illuminate what truly matters to customers beyond what quant data might show, such as repeat purchases or high satisfaction. By understanding these intricate reasons behind brand loyalty, businesses can craft strategies that further strengthen this bond and foster long-term customer relationships.

As perguntas abertas são muito úteis para pesquisas ligadas a comportamento do consumidor. E compreender sobre fidelidade a marca, é um desses casos. A razão é que os consumidores não são todos iguais, há sempre algo novo a se compreender, e as perguntas abertas fornecem um caminho para essa compreensão. Ao se formatar perguntas fechadas para esse caso, você limitará o respondente, se ele tiver uma resposta além das opções formatadas, por isso nesse caso, as questões fechadas não são a melhor opção.

Estas permiten a los consumidores expresar sus pensamientos y sentimientos detalladamente. Esto es crucial para obtener insights más ricos y matizados sobre la lealtad a la marca. Algunos ejemplos de cómo pueden ayudar: 1. Descubrir motivaciones y valores 2. Identificar Puntos de Diferenciación 3. Comprender la Experiencia del Cliente 4. Explorar la Conexión Emocional 5. Fomentar la Narrativa del Cliente 6. Identificar Embajadores de Marca 7. Mejorar la Estrategia de Comunicación: cómo los clientes describen y hablan sobre la marca puede ayudar a mejorar la estrategia de marcomms.

"I am not in favor of incorporating open-ended questions in quantitative methods. The essence of quantitative research is to quantify data. If a more profound understanding is your goal, consider opting for a dedicated qualitative method where a trained qualitative moderator can effectively probe for deeper insights. In face-to-face interviews, interviewers are not trained to conduct thorough probing. They are often trained to stick to standard probing techniue. If your research relies on a self-completion method, most respondents may not want to text lengthy responses. Consider designing a combined qual and quant approach. This holistic methodology ensures a more thorough and nuanced understanding of the subject matter."

Inquire about customer's emotional connections, asking, "Describe a memorable experience with our brand that made you feel truly loyal?" This elicits nuanced responses, uncovering deeper insights into sentiments and fostering a comprehensive understanding of customer loyalty.

Designing OEs for brand loyalty research involves asking questions that prompt detailed responses about a customer's experiences and feelings. For example, "What do you like most about our brand and why?" or "Can you describe a time when you were particularly satisfied with our service?" It's also useful to ask about improvements, such as "What changes could make you more loyal to our brand?" It is vital to always ensure questions are clear, unbiased, and encourage customers to share their personal experiences and emotions related to the brand.

Adding open-ended questions can give you some context on the respondent's answer, but not as much. Personally, I won't recommend adding OE questions if you want to get more depth on the answers, and propose to mix quantitative and qualitative method in the study instead.

El diseño de las preguntas abiertas dependerá mucho de la marca y el objetivo de reconocimiento que tengamos. El sector, el producto o servicio, la audiencia son algunos de los aspectos que tendrán que ver para el desarrollo de esas preguntas. Lo importante es plantear preguntas que ayuden a abrir debate o tema de interés para la marca. Por ejemplo, una pregunta abierta sobre la relación entre el servicio de atención al cliente y el restultado de dicho servicio a un cliente.

In recent months, I’ve been playing machine learning tools like ChatGPT to run an initial pass over the data. Yes, these are machine learning, not AI. Researchers still need to read all of the responses, but a ML tool can help cut the analysis time, putting more money onto your bottom line or saving your client money. You can even feed a ML tool an entire transcript and with the appropriate prompts have it conduct a first pass analysis. It’s no different than using SPSS or R to summarize numerical data instead of doing it by hand. TLDR; use ML tools to run a first pass and follow up by reading the responses yourself to finalize coding.

My way of analysing is Read - Understand and Tabulate it in bullets not with numbers. This process should be done by two sets of people one Experts and second is with the cross function teams.

It's important to read carefully each of the answers and tabulate them in bullets, categorizing in main themes. The respondents may, in several occasions, express similar feelings and ideas, and the frequency it happens also need to be considered to establish the order of magnitude.

Presenting and reporting open-ended questions for brand loyalty research involves: Thematic Analysis: Group responses into themes (e.g., product quality, customer service). This highlights prevalent factors influencing loyalty. Quotes and Narratives: Use direct quotes or narratives to illustrate key points, providing real-world context. Visual Representation: Employ charts or word clouds for visual representation of frequently mentioned words or themes. Quantify: Only qualitative findings sometimes may give misleading picture without quantification; try and find innovative ways to quantify (e.g., Qualantification) Comparative Analysis: Contrast findings with previous research or competitor insights for deeper understanding.

Asking, "Why do you love our brand?" instead of just "Do you like it?" uncovers specific feelings and reasons behind loyalty. It's like opening a door to stories and details that go beyond simple thumbs-up or thumbs-down responses.

For a brand head, while open ended questions are a great way to increase brand loyalty, for a researcher, they can make his / her life quite tough. Because for open ended questions, the data needs to be manually cleaned and analysed. Unlike close ended questions where statistical tools can automatically analyse the data for you, an open ended questionnaire needs significantly higher manhours to decipher it into actionable insights. The quality of researcher and analyst also plays a vital role in determining the quality of insights generated from open ended questions.

Open-ended questions are a great source of understanding customers' feedback, sentiments, emotions, and true perceptions. These feedbacks are unstructured data that can be consumed, processed, and analyzed via text analytics/mining tools to extract meaningful data in the form of topics, and themes that customers are talking about. These topics and themes can be used to create reports and dashboards to understand customers' actual pain points and improvement areas. Brands can work on those identified patterns and actions to solve the problem and create a smooth experience for the customer. Which will boost customers' trust, confidence, and repeatability towards the brand and loyalty.

Open-ended questions play a crucial role in increasing understanding of brand loyalty by offering valuable insights and uncovering deeper thoughts and emotions. These types of questions enable individuals to freely express their opinions, experiences, and preferences without any predefined choices or limitations. Thus, this approach facilitates a more honest and complete understanding of why customers remain loyal to a particular brand and the factors that contribute to their loyalty. This allows researchers and marketers to gain a more holistic understanding of customers' needs, preferences, and perceptions.