Student Bicycle Survey! -- Please help!

[jyyanks]

I replied but didn't like that it was too Trek centric.

[marni]

and here I was wondering why the last questions suddenly seemed locked in on trek although I had also mentioned other brands. In the end since I ride a trek. am loyal to trek and am planning to buy another trek I decided it was just coincidence.

[sookiesue]

I replied but skipped all the Trek-centered questions as I have no experience with actual Trek products. My data will likely be useless, but maybe it will help a student, so worth the few minutes it took to complete.

[Savra]

So I would guess this is general market research. In other words, you aren't using it to compare to any other data. If you focused a little more on other brands maybe you could see if the brand name quality of Trek is statistically higher than other brands. Your general questions may give you some of that but questions specifically asking about other brands, just as you did with the Trek questions would do a better job.
Since we are your focus group in this, it would be best to come back and tell us your results so we can see if we agree with you or not. It's always good to triangulate your findings.

[Eden]

I don't think it was general at all - it was targeted at seeing whether or not people recognize Trek branding. The questions started somewhat general, but all the Trek questions at the end weren't a big surprise to me - usually surveys like this are made for some specific brand. Some are more transparent than others, but usually you can figure out who is interested in the results.... I would guess the project was to imagine that you were working for a local business. The student's may have even been assigned one - in the real world in that field I would think that you aren't always going to be interested or knowledgeable in the businesses that you end up working for. The one question I felt was a bit off was the how active are you... working out 5-6 days a week was only "moderately active"....

[Trek420]

I replied but didn't like that it was too Trek centric.

+1. I like Trek (hence my name) but all of our bikes are "other".

[jobob]

It would be nice if the original poster took the time (5-10 minutes, perhaps?) to explain to us the purpose of the survey that she is asking the TE community to take the time to respond to.

[Catrin]

It would be nice if the original poster took the time (5-10 minutes, perhaps?) to explain to us the purpose of the survey that she is asking the TE community to take the time to respond to.

Yes, that would be helpful. I don't have a Trek, and had a bad experience with the one I had, so I won't take the survey. All of my bikes are "other".

[ny biker]

I studied marketing at two different universities and at both schools we had to do research projects for real companies -- not imagining we worked for them but actually meeting with people from the company, getting background information from them, doing research and then writing and presenting a marketing plan to the company management. The companies worked with us for the chance to get some good ideas while giving us some real-world experience. The projects were a big part of our grades.

Actually getting people to respond to the surveys was a PITA. So I'm happy to take a few minutes to help out.

[jyyanks]

Yes, that would be helpful. I don't have a Trek, and had a bad experience with the one I had, so I won't take the survey. All of my bikes are "other".

It does have a field where they ask you what you think of when you think of the Trek brand - you may want to mention your bad experience.

[zoom-zoom]

It does have a field where they ask you what you think of when you think of the Trek brand - you may want to mention your bad experience.

Ha, when I think of Trek I think of a company with a bad reputation when it comes to honoring warranty issues. Pity, since they're located in my home state and I'd otherwise be happy to support them.

[jyyanks]

Ha, when I think of Trek I think of a company with a bad reputation when it comes to honoring warranty issues. Pity, since they're located in my home state and I'd otherwise be happy to support them.

I read your post and I also read a couple of posts at bikeforums.com where people mentioned that Trek failed to honor their warranty. It seems you're not the only one with the issue. I admit that your negative experience swayed me a little when it was time to purchase my bike..... If this survey is really something Trek will see, then they should be given a hard time about their lack of customer service and failure to meet customer's needs.

In any event, I'm curious to see if the OP will come back and give us more context on the survey and if someone from trek will really see it.