Case - The Walker Information Group

The Walker Information Group is among the largest research companies in the world. Walker's clients include many Fortune 500 and blue chip industry leaders such as Cummins Engine Company, Lenscrafters, Continental Cablevision, Florida Power and Light, and Oglethorpe Power Corporation. The Indianapolis-based company was founded in 1939 as a field interviewing service by Tommie Walker, mother of Frank Walker, the current chairman and chief executive officer of the organization.

In the 1920s Tommie Walker's late husband worked for a bank that was considering sponsoring an Indianapolis radio show featuring classical music. The bank wanted to know who was listening to this show. Tommie was hired to do the interviewing, and she threw herself into the work. After that, referrals brought her more interviewing work for surveys. During an interview with a woman whose husband was a district sales manager for the A&P grocery chain, she learned that A&P was looking for a surveyor in the Midwest. A&P's sales manager liked Tommie, but wouldn't hire anyone without a formal company, a field staff, and insurance. Tommie founded Walker Marketing Research on October 20, 1939, and her business with A&P lasted 17 years.

Today, the Walker Information Group specializes in business, health care, and consumer research, as well as database marketing. The company is organized into six strategic business units. Walker Research conducts traditional market research services that range from questionnaire design and data collection to advanced analysis and consultation. Walker has expertise in helping companies measure how their actions are perceived by the audiences most important to them, and how these perceptions affect their image, reputation, corporate citizenship, recruiting, sales, and more. Data Source is a business unit that primarily is concerned with data collection and processing data. It specializes in telephone data collection.

Customer Satisfaction Measurement (CSM), as the name implies, specializes in measuring customer satisfaction and in helping clients improve their relationship with customers. CSM Worldwide Network spans more than 50 countries. It is the first international network of professional research and consulting businesses dedicated to customer satisfaction measurement and management. The CSM Worldwide Network assures that multicountry customer satisfaction research is consistent by taking into account local conditions and cultural norms.

Network members are trained to use consistent methods that allow standardization and comparability of information from country to country. Walker Direct designs and develops databases and implements direct-marketing programs that help generate leads for businesses and raise funds for nonprofit organizations. Walker Clinical is a health-care product use research company. Walker helps pharmaceutical, medical-device, and consumerproduct manufacturers test how well new products work and how customers like them.

Questions
1. What type of custom survey research projects might Walker Market Research and Analysis conduct for its clients?

2. What stages are involved in conducting a survey? For which stages might a client company hire a research supplier like Walker Research? Data Source?

3. What is the purpose of customer satisfaction measurement?

4. What measures, other than findings from surveys, might a company use to evaluate the effectiveness of a total quality management program?