MAC Customer Insights 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which statistical method is used to identify underlying factors that explain correlations among a large set of customer survey variables?
- Logistic regression
- Factor analysis (Correct answer)
- Time-series analysis
- Monte Carlo simulation
Correct answer: Factor analysis
Factor analysis reduces many survey variables to a smaller number of latent factors that explain the patterns of correlation in the data.
Question 2: A customer satisfaction score drops after a product update. Which analytical approach best isolates the update's causal impact?
- Interrupted time-series analysis (Correct answer)
- Cross-sectional survey
- Customer segmentation
- Funnel analysis
Correct answer: Interrupted time-series analysis
Interrupted time-series analysis examines whether a measurable change occurred in a trend following a specific intervention, controlling for pre-existing trends.
Question 3: Which type of data is most useful for understanding customers' unmet needs that they may not explicitly articulate?
- Transactional purchase records
- Observational and ethnographic data (Correct answer)
- Website click-through rates
- CRM contact logs
Correct answer: Observational and ethnographic data
Observational and ethnographic data capture actual behaviors in context, revealing latent needs that customers themselves may not consciously recognize.
Question 4: Customer personas are best described as:
- Actual individual customer profiles from CRM data
- Statistical models predicting next purchase date
- Fictional archetypes representing key customer segments based on research (Correct answer)
- Legal customer consent records
Correct answer: Fictional archetypes representing key customer segments based on research
Personas are research-based fictional characters that represent distinct user types, synthesizing behavioral, demographic, and psychographic data from real research.
Question 5: What is the main advantage of longitudinal customer research over cross-sectional research?
- It is cheaper to conduct
- It captures changes in customer behavior and attitudes over time (Correct answer)
- It requires smaller sample sizes
- It eliminates the need for control groups
Correct answer: It captures changes in customer behavior and attitudes over time
Longitudinal research tracks the same customers over multiple time points, enabling analysis of how attitudes and behaviors evolve.
Question 6: Which metric directly quantifies a customer's likelihood to recommend a brand to others?
- Customer Effort Score (CES)
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) (Correct answer)
- Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
- Customer Health Score
Correct answer: Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS measures the percentage of promoters minus detractors based on a single question about likelihood to recommend, indicating brand advocacy.
Question 7: In the context of customer insight, what does 'attitudinal data' refer to?
- Data about purchase frequency and recency
- Data reflecting customers' opinions, beliefs, and preferences (Correct answer)
- Data from web analytics tracking navigation paths
- Data from loyalty program point redemptions
Correct answer: Data reflecting customers' opinions, beliefs, and preferences
Attitudinal data captures what customers think and feel—their opinions, motivations, and preferences—as opposed to behavioral data about what they actually do.
MAC Customer Insights 3
Which statistical method is used to identify underlying factors that explain correlations among a large set of customer survey variables?