Determining Strategies for Increasing Loyalty of a Population to an Entity

Abstract

A method and system is disclosed that provides: (a) a theoretical framework for designing psychological research that uncovers individual decision-making networks, both in terms of sampling requirements and questioning methods, (b) an implementation interface to schedule and administer the appropriate question sequences between an interviewer and a given individual, in real-time, via a web-based system, and (c) a coding and analysis system to summarize and quantify the potential of alternative decision structures to be used to optimize the development of marketing and communication strategies.

1 . A method for determining a population's perceptions related to an object, comprising:
 first requesting at least a one response (R 1 ) from each respondent of a plurality of respondents indicative of the population, wherein each of the responses R 1  is a response indicative of why a perception of the object is prevented from being more negative about the object;   second requesting at least one response (R 2 ) from each respondent of a plurality of respondents indicative of the population, wherein each of the responses R 2  is a response indicative of why a perception of the object is prevented from being more positive about the object; and   determining a ranking of characteristics of the object, wherein the ranking for each characteristic is dependent upon a number of times the characteristic is identified as a response for the first requesting step, and a number of times the characteristic is identified as a response for the second requesting step.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of second requesting includes presenting a question for identifying a change in the object that would result in the object being perceived more positively. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the first requesting step includes presenting a question for identifying a satisfaction with the object. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of:
 the first requesting step includes transmitting at least one request via the Internet for thereby obtaining an instance of the response R 1 ; and   the second requesting step includes transmitting at least one request via the Internet for thereby obtaining an instance of the response R 2 .   
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , further including a step of receiving one of: an instance of the response R 1 , and an instance of the response R 2  as a non-quantitative response. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein at least one of: (a) the step of first requesting includes presenting at least one positive equity question, and (b) the step of second requesting includes presenting at least one negative equity question. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of second requesting includes asking at least one respondent what change in the object would induce the respondent to perceive the object more positively. 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1 , further including a step of third requesting a response (R 3 ) from each of the respondents providing an instance of the at least one response R 1 ;
 wherein the instances of the response R 3  include quantitative values for a range of values presented to the respondents from which the responses R 3  are received, wherein each instance R 3  is requested of a respondent prior to the respondent providing a corresponding instance of the at least one response R 1 , wherein a request to the respondent for the at least one response R 1  refers the respondent to the range.   
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 1 , further including a step of fourth requesting a response (R 4 ) from each of the respondents providing an instance of the at least one response R 2 ;
 wherein the instances of the response R 4  include quantitative values for a range of values presented to the respondents from which the responses R 4  are received, wherein each instance R 4  is requested of a respondent prior to the respondent providing a corresponding instance of the at least one response R 2 , wherein a request to the respondent for the at least one response R 2  refers the respondent to the range.   
     
     
         10 - 25 . (canceled)