A Sample Concept Test Questionnaire
Please read the following description of a new banking product we are thinking about offering in the near future. After you have read it and understood it, please answer the following questions.
Are there any features about the product you just read about that you find hard to believe?
Yes _______ No _______
If yes, what are they? (Please describe fully) ___________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What other financial products do you think are similar to the one described?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
If you think there are similar products, which do you feel is better?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Why? _________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Below are a number of statements which could be used to describe the concept. Please tell us how you feel about the proposed product by indicating your feelings on each of the scales. You can do this by circling the scale position that comes close to describing your feelings.
Like very much 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Dislike very much
Very willing to try the concept 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very unwilling to try the concept
Very Useful 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Unuseful
Very Important 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Unimportant
Very Practical 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Impractical
Very Believable 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Unbelievable
Very Realistic 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Unrealistic
Very Unique 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Commonplace
Very Interesting 1: 2: 3: 4: 5: 6: 7: Very Uninteresting
Considering the price of the proposed product, which of the following statements best describes your reaction:
It is more than I would expect to pay ______________________
It is about what I would expect to pay ______________________
It is less than I would expect to pay ______________________
Finally, if you could change any feature of the concept to make it more suitable to your financial needs, what would you do?
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Oftentimes individuals in the financial industry overlook the complicated nature of the products they deal with on a day-to-day basis. They forget that financial product users, both actual and potential, do not have the same degree of product knowledge. This gap is constantly increasing as banks and other financial institutions develop new and increasingly sophisticated products. Accordingly, it is crucial to remember the levels of knowledge that most consumers will bring to bear on a concept test. If the concept is too difficult to understand, most consumers will probably guess! In so doing they are providing the product planner with less than accurate information. Guessing produces evaluations which can both overstate and understate their true feelings for the concept. The ramifications of this situation are that the product planner is making decisions based on inaccurate information. This in turn can lead to inappropriate go or no-go decisions. Pretesting the concept so that it is clearly understandable is a step which most product planners overlook at this point.
Another way of assessing the degree of consumer understanding in a pretest situation is to give the sample of consumers an objective test after they have evaluated the concept to determine on what types of information (correct or incorrect) they made their evaluations. If there is evidence of guessing, this would indicate that the concept is not clearly understandable and needs rewriting.
Another problem that often arises has to do with subjectivity. Many new product planners fall in love with new product concepts. This is understandable but, when it clouds the analysis, it becomes detrimental. Subjectivity manifests itself in an attempt to sell the concept rather than test it. The test must be constructed objectively without any promotion on the part of the tester. Consumers must evaluate the concept for itself not for the persuasive capabilities of a new product planner who feels that the proposed product should be a winner!
Interpreting the results of a concept test can also be somewhat problematic. Unfortunately there exist no rules of thumb which say that if 88 percent of the sample like a concept this means that 43 percent of the market will actually buy the product. The new product planner will develop a feeling for acceptable ratings as s/he gathers experience. This is why it is so important to have some guidelines in the form of objectives for new product development in the bank. These objectives, established over time, can be extremely useful in making go/no-go decisions. In the absence of experience and objectives, the new product planner should look for high positive approval ratings, somewhere in the 70 to 80 percent range. Of course, high ratings do not necessarily guarantee a successful introduction, since there are a host of other factors which contribute to the success or failure of a new product.
Advertisement