In today's highly competitive marketplace, it is essential companies understand how customers - and potential customers - view them, their competition, and their products and services.

Such information typically is used to pinpoint current or potentially new market opportunities.

Increasingly, businesses are involving themselves in action-oriented consumer research as a highly effective way of identifying customers' perceptions and building action plans to respond to what is learned.

Clients frequently ask us to complete quantitative surveys, most often by phone, to help link consumer attitudes with bottom-line performance.

The following are some examples of such studies:

• Customer satisfaction surveys;
• Development of new business opportunities or new lines of business;
• Marketplace evaluations;
• Pricing studies;
• Product or company naming;
• Product awareness and usage studies;
• Regulatory understanding; and
• Web site evaluations.

Consumer focus group research is often used to accomplish the following:

• Evaluate ads;
• Test concepts;
• Evaluate market opportunities;
• Name products and companies;
• Test products; and
• Evaluate web sites.