The Construction Of A Questionnaire

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

3.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter described the study area and detailed method which will be followed to collect the data for the study. Consistent with our research objectives, we focus on the Nigerian Hotel industry.

According to (Enz, 2001), there are three general purposes for conducting research and they are the following:

Descriptive

Explanative and

Explorative.

Descriptive research can be defined as showcasing the precise profiles of persons, proceedings or circumstances. Explorative research characterizes looking for novel insights, the making of enquiries or the ushering of some phenomenon into limelight. Lastly, explanative research targets at getting hold of a reason for a particular condition or problem, usually in the form of informal associations.

Primarily, this research study will be of descriptive character, as it will also mull over the way in which organizations function. To an extent, this research study will also be explorative in the sense that the rationale of this specific dissertation is to put on a better indulgence of how proficient service providers keep hold of their targeted customers over a period of time.

According to (Enz, 2001), strategies used for research include archival analysis, survey, experiments, histories, and case studies.

There are ultimate customer acquisition and retention initiatives which exhibit a high degree of erudition in their customer commitment activities. As this is, they recommend an ultimate circumstance in which to appreciate customer acquisition and retention orientations. In addition, there exists a great customer bases and stable sharing out of resources to improve or increase their customer service technologies under major aggressive pressures. Therefore, they present a good background for accepting customer knowledge growth and resource compositions.

Relationship point of reference implies business acumen, that is, the competence to recognize customers’ needs, conduct, preferences and anticipations to recognize key customer sections and then make the most of the returns gotten from each of them. Knowing the customer goes along with the top five mainly disturbing problems which hotel managers face (Enz, 2001). Obtaining exact customer information is essential to classify the hotel qualities that accomplish their obligations, to advance ground-breaking and tailor-made services, and extend targeted advertising strategies, the concluding objective being to get hold of and hold on to precious customers. Each communication with the customer will either build or erode value in the association and then affects future contacts, depending on the information and behavioural insight hotel organizations achieve during the process and the aptitude to decipher it into a logical reaction.

3.2 JUSTIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH

Failure in meeting customer anticipations has two significant implications for business. The first implication is that if a company that is operating in the hotel business fails in the customer‘s acuity, there is the possibility of losing that customer to the competition. And the second implication is the intermittent complaints from customers, implying that the company’s failure to discover a satisfactory and permanent reply to complains may result in a loss of confidence and importance in the company. In both cases, this implies loss of business for the company.

This study is targeted at evaluating the gaps in customer relationship management in the Nigerian hotel industry using the Sheraton Hotel Abuja as a case study.

Not forgetting that Nigeria is working towards becoming a target destination for many people looking for African destinations, such a method will enable the hotel industry to make its input to this dream. At present, the industry may serve to weaken the government idea since customers are unable to achieve the excellence of services they look for. However, looking into the efficacy of Customer Relationship Management approach will chip in to the information of likely helpful approaches that can work in the Nigerian hotel industry, thus contributing to the industry and country success.

3.3 RESEARCH DESIGN

The study will adopt a case study approach because that will provide in-depth information in addressing the objectives of the study. In all, fifty (50) questionnaires will be administered to the management staff of the selected hotel in the Abuja Metropolis of Federal Capital Territory to solicit their views on the gaps of Customer Relationship Management in Nigerian hotel industry taking the Sheraton Hotel Abuja as a case study.

The study will be carried out in Sheraton Hotel Abuja with a total sample size of fifty (50) picked at random while checking-in at the Sheraton Hotel Abuja. This area was chosen partly because of its proximity to the researcher and minimizes cost because of easy accessibility. The Abuja Metropolis has many hotels that form the Hotel Owners Forum Abuja (HOFA) which is an association of all owners /investors in the hotel industry in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja - Nigeria.

Fifty (50) representative guests will be considered for this research. Purposive sample technique will be used to select the guests at the selected hotel. One questionnaire will serve each of the randomly selected guests.

Therefore, the study will obtain the needed information directly from the guests since they are the ones to pinpoint the gaps of the customer relationship management of the Sheraton Hotel Abuja.

Primary data will be coded and entered in line with Statistical Package for Social Scientist (SPSS). Relevant tables, descriptive statistics mainly percentages and charts will be generated from the software to establish relationships among the variables. This will enable the researcher to make relevant deductions.

Statistical Analysis

Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics in order to meet the objectives of this study.

Objective 1: Identify the gaps between customer awareness and expectation

Objective 2: Suggest the ways of closing the gaps in customer relationship management

Objective 3: Evaluate the impact of successful CRM in Nigerian hotel industry

3.4 SECONDARY AND PRIMARY DATA SOURCES

Primary data will be mainly used in this study and will be complemented with secondary data. The primary data will be obtained from the guests at the Sheraton Hotel Abuja through the use of structured questionnaire with the help of the front desk at the hotel who would help in giving the questionnaire to the guests as they check-in to the hotel. The questionnaire will also be drawn based on the objectives of the research.

A questionnaire is a research tool comprising of a sequence of questions for the purpose of getting together information from respondents. Although they are frequently intended for statistical analysis of the responses, this is not always the case. The questionnaire is an invention made by Sir Francis Galton.

A questionnaire has advantages over several other kinds of surveys because they are inexpensive, do not need a great deal of effort from the questioner in the form of verbal or telephone surveys, and often have consistent answers that make it straightforward to collect data. However, such homogeneous answers may aggravate users. A questionnaire could also be sharply imperfect considering the fact that the respondents must be able adequately literate to respond to the questionnaire.

Types

It has been observed that there is a difference between questionnaires with questions that assess separate variables, and questionnaires whose questions are aggregated into either a scale or an index. A questionnaire within the former category is usually part of surveys, while a questionnaire in the latter category is usually part of tests.

A questionnaire with questions that assess separate variables, could for instance include questions on:

behaviors like food consumption

preferences like a political party

facts as in gender

Questionnaires whose questions are combined into either a scale or index, include for instance questions that measure:

attitudes such as immigration

latent traits such as personality traits

an index like a socioeconomic status

The Construction of a Questionnaire

The construction of a questionnaire involves the types of questions to be asked. More often than not, a questionnaire comprises of a number of questions which the respondent will have to reply in a set arrangement. There exists a pragmatic peculiarity between open-ended and closed-ended questions. The open-ended question entails that the respondents formulate his private response, whereas for a closed-ended question the respondent will eventually have to select a response from a particular number of options. The response alternatives for a closed-ended question ought to be comprehensive and jointly restricted.

There is typically a flow that should be pursued when creating a questionnaire in regards to the sequence that the questions are asked. The sequence is as follows:

Screens

Warm-ups

Transitions

Skips

Difficult

Classification

The screens are employed as a selection technique to discover before time whether or not there will be a need for someone to fill-in the questionnaire. Warm-ups are easy to react to, help create attention on the survey, and may not even be relevant to research goals. Transition questions are used to create diverse areas flow well together. Skips include questions related to "If yes, kindly respond to question 3. If no, kindly go on to question 5." Complex questions are just before the end because the respondent is in "response mode." Also, when carrying out an online questionnaire, the advancement bars will allow the respondent recognizes that they are nearly done so they are further eager to respond to more not-easy questions. Classification, or demographic, question ought to be at the end because characteristically they can consider like individual questions which will make respondents uncomfortable and unwilling to conclude the survey.

Basic rules for questionnaire item construction

Use statements where persons that have different opinions or traits will give different answers.

Use statements which are interpreted in the same way by members of different subpopulations of the population of interest.

Use only one aspect of the construct you are interested in per item.

Think of having an "open" answer category after a list of possible answers.

Use clear and comprehensible wording, easily understandable for all educational levels

Use positive statements and avoid negatives or double negatives.

Avoid items that contain more than one question per item

Do not make assumptions about the respondent.

Use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Questionnaire administration modes

There are diverse modes of running questionnaires which are mainly the following:

Paper-and-pencil questionnaire administration, where the items are presented on paper.

Face-to-face questionnaire administration, where an interviewer presents the items orally.

Adaptive computerized questionnaire administration, where a selection of items is presented on the computer, and based on the answers on those items, the computer selects following items optimized for the testee's estimated ability or trait.

Computerized questionnaire administration, where the items are presented on the computer.

Apprehension over questionnaires

While questionnaires are reasonably priced, swift, and easy to evaluate, frequently the questionnaire can have more harms than reimbursement. For instance, distinct from interviews, the people carrying out the research may by no means discern if the respondent understood the question that was being asked. Moreover, since the questions are so exact to what the researchers are asking, the information gathered can be negligible. Besides, questionnaires generate very low come back rates, whether they are correspondence or online questionnaires. The supplementary problem linked with return rates is that frequently the people that do return the questionnaire are those that have a really positive or a really negative stance and want their view heard. The people that are most likely impartial either way typically don't respond because it is not worth their time.

THE QUESTIONNAIRE

The questionnaire is in this format and they are measured using the following variables:

Sex: it is measured using male and female as its variables

Age of respondents: it is measured using the actual age of the respondents

Educational Status: it is measured using variables like primary, secondary and tertiary education as its variables

Marital status of respondents: it is measured using single, married, divorced, separated and widowed

Years of patronising the hotel: it is measured using their actual years in the business

Knowledge and practices of Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using these "I have not heard of Customer Relationship Management" and "I have good knowledge"

Do you think this hotel practices Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using variables like yes, no and do not believe in Customer Relationship Management

How is data kept: it is measured using these variables like by hand, and simple database

Challenges faced by hotels in Customer Relationship Management: it is measured using personnel, finance, IT infrastructure as variables.

Involvement of top management in the activities of hotel: it is measured using yes and no as variables.

Extent of involvement of top management: it is measured using not involved, averagely involved and absolutely involved.

Problems of hotel industry: it is measured using these variables – Non-availability of Personnel, lack of qualified personnel, lack of experience, lack of good management, lack of motivation as staff do not understand CR

Does the hotel have an excellent IT: it is measured using yes and no

If no, why?: this is an open-ended question

Is the financial strength increasing or reducing the use of Customer Relationship Management?

Does the hotel receive loans from financial institutions? It is measured using yes or no.

How often do visitors check-in? It is measured using rarely, seldom, frequently and always

Do you get in touch after first visit? It is measured using yes and no

If yes, Medium of communication? It is measured using Email, letter writing, telephone calls,

Subject for communication? It is measured using Room reservation, customer service management, service delivery, complaints,

For what purposes do managers relate to first-time and frequent customers? It is an open-ended question

Do you continue to check-in after your first visit? It is measured using yes and no

Do you think Customer Relationship Management leads to customer loyalty? It is measured using yes and no

3.5 INTERVIEW

The personal interview method will be used to gather data from respondents in the study area with the aid of a structured questionnaire. The advantage of this is that, the enumerator could clarify any questions which might not be clear to the respondents during the course of the interview.

3.6 FOCUS GROUP

Detailed customer information could be said to be the most important variable in shaping which attainment strategy will be most efficient. This will control everything starting from publicity to associate relationships to pricing and new product launches. The three major areas to appreciate are demographics, performance or usage information, and duration value.

Customer demographic and practice information needs large quantities of data analysis and tracking, but in the end it pays colossal dividends to the companies which can precisely model it.

Certain industries have right to use this data more easily than others. For instance, social networks have right to use comprehensive demographic information and online gaming companies have thorough information on player usage and community relations. In spite of the intrinsic advantages or disadvantages of a specific industry, invest in systems that record and track this information. Analytics and information pulling out will help companies construct correct customer profiles. These customer profiles will be the most expensive source of information that drives an achievement strategy and helps decide the means and methods most likely to attain your key subset of customers.

According to Barbour (2007), focus group tactic can be marked out back to group interviews in common psychological research to develop social distance magnitude. Over the past century or so, focus groups have been used for many purposes. Particularly, the United States military, Marxist radicals, literacy campaigners and feminist activists have accepted the focus group technique as a means to permit them to proceed in their causes and concerns.

In spite of the fact that focus groups were initially developed as an academic research method, since the 1950s they have become more tantamount to market research. However, the focus group method has now been regaining more popularity among academic researchers in the health and social sciences. Many of these researchers have been developing the method and steering it to suit their research needs.

The more modern attractiveness of focus groups in qualitative research in the health and social sciences is reflected in an increased number of papers and books. The motive that focus groups have become accepted in recent years is partly because they are seen as the means which can offer results promptly. It is perceived as a method which can generate complex information at low cost and with the minimum amount of time. It also can be used with a wide range of people and groups in different settings. However, this claim has been contested by several writers on focus groups (Wilkinson, 2004) and as readers will see in later chapters,

the focus group method is not as cheap, easy and quick as has been claimed.

Focus groups have started to gain popularity in research relating to different social groups and in cross-cultural and development research. The main argument for using them in this context is their collective nature. This may suit people who cannot articulate their thoughts easily and provide collective power to marginalised people.

Hence, we have seen more articles dedicated to the use of focus groups in different social and cultural groups. However, there is not a single book that includes such topics. This is the main gap in the literature that I propose to fill with this volume.

3.7 CONCLUSION

According to Morgan (2002), a prominent focus group researcher, there are two broad types of focus groups: a structured approach which is employed more in market research; and a less rigid and structured approach which has emerged from focus group research in the social sciences. In marketing research, the moderators need to be visible and take an active role in the group. They perform focus groups for the satisfaction of their clients because they are usually employed to seek some specific answers for their clients. Hence, more interaction is likely to occur between the moderators and the participants. Additionally, discussion between the participants will be minimal and they are likely to answer the set questions posed by the moderators (Stewart et al., 2009). On the other hand, in the less structured approach to focus groups which is commonly adopted in social science research, the participants are encouraged to talk to each other instead of answering the moderators’ questions. Hence, the moderators primarily aim to facilitate discussion, rather than to direct it. The aim of focus groups in social science research is to understand the participants’ meanings and interpretations. Morgan (2002) argues that, depending on the research topic and theoretical approach, both approaches can be adopted within the social sciences.