Customer Perceptions

Conducting regular perception studies is a valuable way to stay in touch with the construction specifier

Perception research is a good way to understand the construction specifier. This market research can be used to inform a communications and marketing strategy for construction markets and develop an effective construction business strategy that influences specification.

Measuring perception gives an indication of what specifiers like about your construction organisation, what they do not like and, of equal importance, their areas of ignorance. The construction market’s perception of a company has an impact on its performance and shareholder value. It will also impact on what people are prepared to pay for its construction products and services. These perceptions are based on how the company performs and its communication with the construction market.

The benefits of completing a regular construction customer perception study:

  • It enables fact-based decision making
  • Helps you understand what construction customers like about your company and why
  • Identifies opportunities for improvement
  • Prioritises changes based on customer feedback
  • Strengthens your customer relationships
  • Measures effectiveness of advertising and PR programmes in construction
  • Develops a focused and effective communications and marketing strategy
  • Benchmarks you against your competitors in construction markets

At Competitive Advantage we work through a check-list to determine the quota and size of sample. We balance this against the practical aspects to propose a sample size which is both representative, practical and affordable. We will then use Barbour ABI, an expert provider of construction market insights and intelligence, to identify respondents currently involved in relevant projects.

Competitive Advantage follow’s the procedures set out by the Information Commissioner’s Office to meet the General Data Protection Regulation and will delete from our records all contact data provided by you, 6 weeks after project completion. We conduct market research to meet the relevant requirements of international market research standard ISO 20252:2006. This defines processes which ensure best practice in the conducting and reporting of market research.

We also work with associate research companies in a number of other countries (who are also construction research specialists). This gives us the capability to conduct international projects.

And if your research identifies a training requirement, or a need for strategy development we have the expertise to work with you on this.

 

How the process works

Competitive Advantage work with you to understand your company values, performance and communication challenges. Taking the factors that you believe to be important and drawing on our experience researching construction markets we recommend a questionnaire structure. Having got your approval, we then test this with a few respondents to ensure it is working as intended.

The survey:

We have found telephone interviews to be the most cost effective and reliable method of researching construction markets. If there are some complex issues or important customers, we can include face-to-face interviews in the market research process.

The range of methods for researching construction markets can include:

  • online surveys
  • telephone interviews
  • face-to-face interviews
  • focus groups

Who we contact:

Based on your channels to the construction market and customer mix we will recommend a sample of representative size and mix. We will ask you to provide us with your customer lists and we can also source appropriate lists of non-customers. These will remain confidential and be deleted from our records 6 weeks after project completion.

Presenting the findings:

Reporting is factual but includes a series of commercial recommendations based on extensive practical construction industry sales and marketing experience.

Download our research brief template