Assignment: Small-Scale Qualitative Research Project

Summary of the process by which you selected your business problem

While every business seeks to satisfy its target consumer to the fullest, it is hard to determine the customers’ experience with a product or a service offered. In most cases, companies look to determine how the customers take a certain product so as to make the necessary changes meant to improve the product. However, the uncertainties surrounding customers’ experience can force a company to make rushed decisions which may eventually lead to increased costs or end up losing customers for not doing anything at all. Customers’ experience can be determined using a number of metrics among them the number of sales made, number of return customers, and reviews among other factors. However, it is hard to know how the product is perceived by the customers without taking the risk of taking it to the customers. Therefore, the issue of uncertainties when it comes to customers’ reaction to a product is a major business problem facing companies today with every product likely to experience some rough patch, especially from competitors.

To select the business problem, I started by determining the most important element of a business, and I settled on customers. Then, I narrowed the issue to how the customers are likely to react to a product and why such reactions are likely to affect the company’s ways of work. Among the key interviewees chosen for this study include managers, workers in the customers’ relations departments, end users for different products such as smartphones, fast food products, and make-up products. Most of these interviewees are chosen on the basis of their contribution to customer’s experience and how they are likely to affect the reaction of the company based on the customers' reviews. Furthermore, the interviewees also included customers to different products that require them to be frequent to certain sellers, for example, make-up and food joint so as to understand the effect of customers’ experience and reaction as a business problem. To gain access to these participants, I will contact them through phone calls or their social media platforms and set one-on-one interviews with them during their free time especially when dealing with managers and other busy respondents. It is important to ensure that the time settled for the meeting with the respondent as per the liking of the respondent to ensure that one gets sufficient answers regarding the question at hand and to learn more by engaging the respondent.