Basic Marketing Research 7th Edition by Gilbert Churchill,Tom Brown,Tracy Suter

Exercise 3

Using the steps of the research process to structure your thinking, evaluate the following marketing research effort:
The FlyRight Airline Company was interested in altering the interior layout of its aircraft to suit the tastes and needs of an increasing segment of its market-businesspeople. Management was planning to reduce the number of seats and install small tables to enable businesspeople to work during long flights. Prior to the renovation, management decided to do some research to ensure that these changes would suit the needs of the passengers. To keep expenses to a minimum, the following strategy was employed: Questionnaires were completed by passengers during flights. Due to the ease of administration and collection, the questionnaires were distributed only on the short flights (those less than one hour). The study was conducted during the second and third week of December, as that was when flights were full. To increase the response rate, each flight attendant was responsible for a certain number of questionnaires. Management thought this was a good time to acquire as much information as possible; hence, the questionnaire included issues apart from the new seating arrangement. As a result, the questionnaire took 20 minutes to complete.