Upcoming Brand/Manufacturer Razor Customer Satisfaction Surveys

[shawnsel]

I'm wanting to add in a customer satisfaction index to the Buyer's Guide for Currently-Manufactured DE (Safety) Razors, Ranked by User-Polled Aggressiveness.

Currently I'm thinking of posting a groups of polls (probably all on the same day), one poll for each razor brand/manufacturer that would go something like this:

I have purchased a Brand X razor within the last 5 years, and from my personal experience, I would recommend razors from this manufacturer to a friend:

1. Definitely recommend
2. Likely recommend
3. Not sure
4. Likely not
5. Definitely not
6. I have not purchased a razor from this manufacturer in the last 5 years

List of manufacturers that will get polls:

1. Above the Tie (ATT)
2. Merkur
3. I Kon ??
4. I Kon Shavecraft ??
5. RazoRock (once their slant is re-released)
6. Cadet/Pearl/Matador/RazoRock
7. Edwin Jagger
8. Muhle
9. Feather
10. FaTip
11. Jorris
12. Weber
13. Pils
14. Standard Razor brand razors
15. Bevel
16. Weishi
17. Parker
18. RiMei
19. Wilkinson
20. Goodfella
21. Apollo
22. Utopia
23. Pils
24. Lord
25. Any other current-production razor manufacturers?

In the Buyers Guide chart, I would then list the percentage of positive recommendations.

Question:

1. What would be a good formula to summarize the results?
2. Am I missing any current-production razor manufacturers?
3. Is five years a good time frame? I want an accurate representation of what potential buyers can expect if they purchase a razor new today, but I also want it to reflect a degree of durability over time.

Thoughts?


Thanks!
Shawn

 

[nuclearblast]

Probably attributing a score to each option like this:



Definitely recommend 5
Likely recommend 4
Not sure 3
Likely not 2
Definitely not 1


And simply dividing the total by the number of votes would be fair, no?

I also think the last option, the #6 is irrelevant. If someone didn't buy, simply won't vote. I know it probably sounds too simple, but sounds effective and fair, IMO at least.

 

[shawnsel]

Probably attributing a score to each option like this:
Definitely recommend 5
Likely recommend 4
Not sure 3
Likely not 2
Definitely not 1

And simply dividing the total by the number of votes would be fair, no?

I'm thinking that would still imply some level of endorsement by the voter even with the "Not sure", "Likely not", and "Definitely not" votes....

I also think the last option, the #6 is irrelevant. If someone didn't buy, simply won't vote. I know it probably sounds too simple, but sounds effective and fair, IMO at least.

I'm flexible on this, but in the past I included a voting option that helped to emphasize that you should only cast votes from personal experience.


Thanks for the feedback!


Cheers,
Shawn

 

[nuclearblast]

If you want it fair and square, you will have to do it mathematically, there's no other way. All the rest will be subjective.

 

[shawnsel]

If you want it fair and square, you will have to do it mathematically, there's no other way. All the rest will be subjective.

Oh definitely it will have to be mathematically ... I guess I'm thinking something more something like this:

Definitely recommend +2
Likely recommend +1
Not sure 0
Likely not -1
Definitely not -2

 

[nuclearblast]

Oh definitely it will have to be mathematically ... I guess I'm thinking something more something like this:

Definitely recommend +2
Likely recommend +1
Not sure 0
Likely not -1
Definitely not -2

I see ... but wouldn't the 0 points reflect people's opinion in a wrong way? I mean, I may not be sure, but there's still a chance right? It's likely that I'll give the manufacturer the benefit of the doubt and still recommend them.

I don't know, it's just my opinion anyway. I think the 5 star system usually works pretty well, and you can't vote 0 or negative.

 

[DrAwkward]

Certainly the math would be much easier with a 5 point scale ...

My problem is that I might recommend a Joris to one guy but not to another. Ditto for Merkur, Mühle, Cadet, Lord, Edwin Jagger, etc. I suppose I would recommend ATT to anyone with $185 burning a hole in his pocket. And while there are brands that I would never recommend to anyone, I have no intention of sharing this information on an internet forum.

Am I over-thinking this?

 

[shawnsel]

Certainly the math would be much easier with a 5 point scale ...

My problem is that I might recommend a Joris to one guy but not to another. Ditto for Merkur, Mühle, Cadet, Lord, Edwin Jagger, etc. I suppose I would recommend ATT to anyone with $185 burning a hole in his pocket. And while there are brands that I would never recommend to anyone, I have no intention of sharing this information on an internet forum.

Am I over-thinking this?

No you're not over thinking it. I'm trying to find a good way to collect and share razor brand satisfaction data ... which sounds simple, but you have good points, and I'm unsure of the best way of going about this.

I have thought of breaking these polls out into groups by price range, but as some brands have models in multiple price brackets this would create a lot more polls ... and I think too many polls could frustrate some members into ignoring all of them. Philosophically, I'm thinking less is more....

I'm fine with changing it to a five point scale. Perhaps it should be a star scale? I don't think our poll system allows for graphical stars, but saying that Brand X is a "three star brand" might still be meaningful.

You have a good point about not wanting to share negative feedback in the forum. Perhaps these polls should be anonymous? Having it not anonymous has benefits of helping to prevent paid social marketers from inflating their client's brand and attacking their client's main competitors ... but even tracking each vote to a username is no guarantee that this won't happen anyway....

How do you think I should word these polls and collect the data to get the most helpful results?


Thanks!
Shawn

 

[DrAwkward]

No you're not over thinking it. I'm trying to find a good way to collect and share razor brand satisfaction data ... which sounds simple, but you have good points, and I'm unsure of the best way of going about this.

I have thought of breaking these polls out into groups by price range, but as some brands have models in multiple price brackets this would create a lot more polls ... and I think too many polls could frustrate some members into ignoring all of them. Philosophically, I'm thinking less is more....

I'm fine with changing it to a five point scale. Perhaps it should be a star scale? I don't think our poll system allows for graphical stars, but saying that Brand X is a "three star brand" might still be meaningful.

You have a good point about not wanting to share negative feedback in the forum. Perhaps these polls should be anonymous? Having it not anonymous has benefits of helping to prevent paid social marketers from inflating their client's brand and attacking their client's main competitors ... but even tracking each vote to a username is no guarantee that this won't happen anyway....

How do you think I should word these polls and collect the data to get the most helpful results?

Thanks!
Shawn

If you could collect good data, as in the aggressiveness polls, it would be a nice project: B&B's version of Consumer Reports polls. I can tell you from experience, however, that the super popular razors will swamp the other ones in the volume of votes. For example, Weber will get 50x as many votes as Pils. Not sure that matters ...

What you really want is multiple questions for each brand: build quality, durability, style, and performance.
How does Amazon do its consumer reviews?

 

[Badger Bill]

And while there are brands that I would never recommend to anyone, I have no intention of sharing this information on an internet forum.

Out of curiosity, Doc, in an anonymous poll, why not?

Shawn, I think it's an interesting idea. Not exactly sure about what methodology makes the most sense though. Have you thought of doing something like this? You could reduce the number of options down from 0-10, but still use a similar idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

 

[shawnsel]

Out of curiosity, Doc, in an anonymous poll, why not?

Shawn, I think it's an interesting idea. Not exactly sure about what methodology makes the most sense though. Have you thought of doing something like this? You could reduce the number of options down from 0-10, but still use a similar idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter

That seems spot on! I would very much prefer going with a standardized and documented approach. I'm going to research it more and follow up with a revised proposal (still in this same thread).

 

[Eeyore]

I think recommendations are much more subjective than judging aggressiveness, and that already led to interesting discussions.

Maybe a simple "like" and "not like" button would be best, and then displaying the percentage likes versus not likes?

 

[shawnsel]

Another good link on the Net Promoter methodology:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/net-promoter-score/

note: I previously considered using surveymonkey, but I would be very concerned about paid social marketers flooding the surveys with fake data ... so I'm probably just going to use B&B's existing poll system

 

[shawnsel]

I think recommendations are much more subjective than judging aggressiveness, and that already led to interesting discussions.

Maybe a simple "like" and "not like" button would be best, and then displaying the percentage likes versus not likes?

I'm wanting to emphasize the brand/manufacturer as a whole, and just their razors if they make additional products, and not necessarily based on individual razors or transactions, but on the individual's overall perception of the brand/manufacturer of the razor.

Also, I'm wanting to strongly encourage B&B members to only vote on brands/manufacturers that they have themselves purchased (or received new as a gift) within the last five years ... if we stray from personal experience we will get very muddy data I think....

I'm favoring the standardized Net Promoter system recommended by Badger Bill. That should be implementable within our forum's current B&B system and would benefit from existing measures to prevent social marketing.

Also, the like button doesn't current exist as a feature within B&B ... and I'm wanting to do this in the short term, not having to wait for consideration and implementation of newly requested functionality.


Thanks for your feedback!

Cheers,
Shawn

 

[Badger Bill]

I'm favoring the standardized Net Promoter system recommended by Badger Bill. That should be implementable within our forum's current B&B system and would benefit from existing measures to prevent social marketing.

Glad to hear it - yea, I think it could make sense to something like NPS. But of course if anyone has any other ideas that might be better, please do share (and still share even if they aren't better ).

I'll be interested to see what you ultimately work out, Shawn.

 

[froogle_jimmy]

Love this idea.....could you add mongoose? I didn't see it, but I'm.seeing a lot of them

*you have pils at 13 & 23

 

[shawnsel]

Love this idea.....could you add mongoose? I didn't see it, but I'm.seeing a lot of them

*you have pils at 13 & 23

I'm not familiar with the Mongoose ... is it a currently manufactured razor?

 

[froogle_jimmy]

I'm not familiar with the Mongoose ... is it a currently manufactured razor?

Yep. Its an SE.....stainless. There is a FB group. Looks pretty awesome.

 

[czbeme]

Shawn,

A couple of points:

First and most important I think you need to ask a different question.
If this is a satisfaction survey then don't ask if the user would recommend the brand or razor to someone else,
ask how happy they've been with the razor and how likely they would repurchase it if lost.

Second I think staying in positive rankings is better for a general audience than using -2 through +2 which could be confusing.

Third you could make the "voting" on a simple 5 point or star system,
and process the results converting to an intuitive 0 to 10 point ranking.

Just my 2 cents,
Curt

 

[ahntu]

I think the simplest thing would be a 1-10 scoring system of simply "Customer Satisfaction" based on various parameters including quality, longevity, design, comfort, ease of use, value etc. 1 being unusable, ugly, and it broke in half, and 10 being smooth, shiny, and bulletproof.