Malana Research Consults International

Cheers to a lovely and restful Christmas with your beautiful family. Enjoy this magical time of year!

5 Ways of Getting to Know Your Customers Better

For business enterprises to be profitable they need to churn out products and services that their customers will like. Getting concrete insights into the minds of customers is extremely difficult. But it is possible to improve customer experience by leveraging information that is acquired by implementing the right processes and focusing on the key data points

1) Don't Make Assumptions

Assumptions concerning the customer's preferences and beliefs must be discarded as it is not considered a smart marketing strategy.

2) Ask Customers

Asking questions will provide insights into what the customers need and help companies to serve them better.

3) Conduct Surveys

Surveys are one of the best methods to gain honest feedback regarding a product or service. Conducting surveys and getting feedback from the customers goes a long way in understanding what the customers are thinking and how they feel about a product or service.

4) Create a Customer Profile

A customer profile is a great way for a company to gauge the needs of the customer. The profile must include a customer's likes, dislikes, family background, and other important aspects.

5) Get Customer Reviews

Business enterprises can get reviews from their customers through various channels such as the comment box on social media platforms or testimonials on the company's website.



At Malana Research Consult, we can help you understand your customers and improve your business. Give us a call +256 787 303399 / +256393877771 or email to [email protected]

Quantitative research and Qualitative Research.

What do you make of these terms?
Have you used any?

2020 will always be remembered as the year that transformed how we work. At this point, it's probably safe to say just about everyone has been impacted by the Covid19 pandemic.


What has been your experience working from home?

We are a full-service market and Social Research Agency base in Uganda East Africa and committed to collecting quality data, and data analysis in the most trusted and accurate manner for our customers.

Get top-notch research across East and central African Sub- Region and beyond.
Call: +256787303399 / +256393877771
Email :[email protected]

Countries are Reopening. What does it Really Mean for Businesses Affected by Coronavirus?

By Leonard Machyo-Malana Research Consult , 8 April 2020

Businesses affected by corona virus (COVID 19) want to know when and where consumer activity will pick back up so they can focus their marketing, operations, and research appropriately. Which physical locations should they focus on reopening and with how much capacity? Where should they continue to concentrate their e-commerce efforts and quarantine-based messaging?

Executives can’t simply trust their guts to make these decisions. After all, their personal pandemic experiences aren’t necessarily shared by other geographies or tribes. At the same time, businesses can’t rely only on publicly available data that may not necessarily reflect their specific target audiences. Brands and businesses instead need to invest in customized research- and data-driven initiatives to drive marketing and strategy decisions now more than ever. The implications are not just about “when” and “where” to reopen businesses; they’re also about “how.”

If businesses open, will consumers come?

Just because the country relaxes restrictions, that doesn’t mean consumers in the country will flip a switch and resume life exactly the way it was. While some people are chomping at the bit to attend concerts and sporting events, others are still afraid to visit the mall, let alone sit arm’s length away from their stylists – mask or no mask.

And just because stores and restaurants start to reopen soon, that doesn’t necessarily mean that business will pick up. It depends on the consumer mindset ,the degree to which they fear for their safety or believe that social distancing is the right thing to do, offset by the value they place on personal determination and the pull of social interaction.

How can marketers navigate the reopening?

Some of the short-term marketing implications are becoming clear: personalized advertising should combine geolocation and political orientation to increase effectiveness. More specifically, brands should consider targeting stay-at-home oriented messaging t.

Brands should also consider focusing their messages around certain behaviors and activities that people miss most during extended quarantine. For example, missed visiting the home of a friend/family member “a lot” or “intensely, missed going to a bar or restaurant. Since so many restaurants have offered delivery/take-out during this time, it’s clearly the experience (service, ambience, or social interaction) that people really miss. Should think about how you can promote and enhance each of these while still addressing people’s need to feel safe.

Having un as we end the year 2019 ..

A poll which highlighted the perception of Ugandan on the importance of Girl Child Education revealed that

97% of adult Ugandans acknowledged the importance of Girl Child Education to their community.

The importance of Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a marketing term that measures how products or services supplied by a company meet or surpass a customer’s expectation.
Customer satisfaction is important because it provides marketers and business owners with a metric that they can use to manage and improve their businesses.
1. It’s a leading indicator of consumer repurchase intentions and loyalty
Customer satisfaction is the best indicator of how likely a customer will make a purchase in the future. Asking customers to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1-10 is a good way to see if they will become repeat customers or even advocates.
Any customers that give you a rating of 7 and above, can be considered satisfied, and you can safely expect them to come back and make repeat purchases. Customers who give you a rating of 9 or 10 are your potential customer advocates who you can leverage to become evangelists for your company.
Scores of 6 and below are warning signs that a customer is unhappy and at risk of leaving. These customers need to be put on a customer watch list and followed up so you can determine why their satisfaction is low.
2. It’s a point of differentiation
In a competitive marketplace where businesses compete for customers; customer satisfaction is seen as a key differentiator. Businesses who succeed in these cut-throat environments are the ones that make customer satisfaction a key element of their business strategy.
Picture two businesses that offer the exact same product. What will make you choose one over the other?
If you had a recommendation for one business would that sway your opinion? Probably. So how does that recommendation originally start? More than likely it’s on the back of a good customer experience. Companies who offer amazing customer experiences create environments where satisfaction is high and customer advocates are plenty.
3. It reduces customer churn
An Accenture global customer satisfaction report found that price is not the main reason for customer churn; it is actually due to the overall poor quality of customer service.
Customer satisfaction is the metric you can use to reduce customer churn. By measuring and tracking customer satisfaction you can put new processes in place to increase the overall quality of your customer service.

4. It increases customer lifetime value
A study by Malana Research found that a ‘totally satisfied customer’ contributes 2.6 times more revenue than a ‘somewhat satisfied customer’. Furthermore, a ‘totally satisfied customer’ contributes 14 times more revenue than a ‘somewhat dissatisfied customer’.
Satisfaction plays a significant role in how much revenue a customer generates for your business.
5. It reduces negative word of mouth
It’s founded that an unhappy customer tells between 9-15 people about their experience. In fact, 13% of unhappy customers tell over 20 people about their experience.
That’s a lot of negative word of mouth.
6. It’s cheaper to retain customers than acquire new ones
This is probably the most publicized customer satisfaction statistic out there. It costs six to seven times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing customers.
If that stat does not strike accord with you then there’s not much else I can do to demonstrate why customer satisfaction is important.
Customers cost a lot of money to acquire. You and your marketing team spend thousands of dollars getting the attention of prospects, nurturing them into leads and closing them into sales.

Malana Research Consult has extensive experience in Market Research in Africa. Research methods in Africa tend to be centered on traditional Face-to-Face research due to relatively lower internet penetration rates and other on-the-ground logistical considerations. For this reason, Qualitative Research Face-to-Face methods such as Focus Groups and In-Depth Interviews can be effective. Quantitative sampling can require deep knowledge of the local market, and some studies require sampling from village to village.

Our Market Research and Strategy Consulting studies offer valuable insight into many sectors of business development and examine the potential opportunities that exist. We continually research the pulse of African market dynamics, interact with key purchase decision makers, and regularly examine the demands and attitudes of consumers and companies.

EMEA Private Business Survey 2019

We thank all the participants who contributed to this year’s Private Business Survey 2019



Today, the survey has been finally launched and you can find the results following this link: https://www.pwc.com/epbs2019 .

pwc.com Private businesses in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa continued to generate strong revenues in 2018, but leaders are more cautious about future prospects this year.

“Research isn’t research until it is professionally conducted, data duly collected and analysed without any ambiguity”

7 Tips to Help With Your Questionnaire Design
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You might think that questionnaire design is rather simple and easy; after all, it’s just a list of questions right? However, a proper questionnaire structure is one of the most vital steps in achieving successful results with your research. A good design will help respondents complete your survey, as you should never underestimate the power of something aesthetically pleasing! Read on to find out how a well-planned format for your survey will improve the accuracy of the data you collect…
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Tip #1 – Identify your Target Audience
Start by identifying your survey goals, this will help you decide what information you would like to receive and, therefore, who you should send your survey to. It can be beneficial to conduct some initial preliminary interviews to discover the correct questions you need to ask in order to gather the information you need. Once you have chosen your target audience, you will be able to use appropriate terminology and ask the questions in the most effective way.
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Tip #2 – Be specific with your Questionnaire Design
Secondly, your questions must be clear and concise and reflect how you want them answered. Your questions must be specific, for instance asking about a person’s income; this could mean monthly, annually or weekly? You must ask for explicit details, such as asking about a particular month or year and whether it is before or after taxes. Despite this being a general example, you can see that by identifying what information you need, you gain a lot more out of your online questionnaire. Your questions must not be ambiguous, be direct and never leave anything to be interpreted by the respondent as it will conclude in misleading results.
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Tip #3 – Group your Questions
It is also beneficial, when you create a questionnaire, to group your questions as opposed to just having a long list, as this can be rather daunting. By grouping questions from ‘one to five’, ‘six to ten’ etc., it ultimately helps the respondent by making it more user-friendly for them to collate questions and complete them one step at a time. You can vary your question types by using customised matrix tables, multiple choice questions and different customisation tools when designing surveys.
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Tip #4 – Keep it Simple
A fourth tip to help with your questionnaire design is to keep the language simple, direct and unemotional. There are many unnecessary words that are used in questionnaires, this can be misleading and leads respondents to believe you are perhaps trying to persuade them to take a specific route. For instance, don’t include emotive words; an example would be covering a subject such as taxes. By containing the words ‘even more taxes’ in your question; you are implying that you have an opinion based on the increase; ‘even more’, this shows you are not neutral. The initial questionnaire design is what will make the potential participant respond or not. With a vast list of questions displayed and endless response choices, you are making it harder for yourself to evaluate the answers and it becomes a tiresome task for the respondent to complete; so keep it simple!
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Tip #5 – Be Methodical
Your questions must be in a logical order, with personal questions and ones that require more thought placed at the end of the survey, so as not to cause people to opt out of completing the questionnaire. Surveys should be simple to understand, with a brief explanation as to the reason for completing the questionnaire. For simple questionnaires, use closed-end questions which are straight forward to complete and easier to collate information in a graph at the conclusion. Skip Logic can be used to hide irrelevant pages based upon the respondent’s previous answers and even ensure they jump past entire sections if needed. Read our blog on The Benefits of Using Skip Logic for more information.
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It is also important to include rating scale questions throughout your online survey, as this compares variables and provides you with specific information. Keep the consistency the same, with the same amount of choices and uniform language. You want to avoid confusing the respondent otherwise they may leave before completing the questionnaire.
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Tip #6 – Offer the option to skip personal questions
Not everybody is going to be comfortable providing personal information. To avoid receiving incomplete surveys, allow respondents to skip the question. To do this, you can add an answer that says “prefer not to say” or by making it not mandatory to answer.
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Tip #7 – Reach a conclusion
A final tip for your questionnaire design is to have a logical flow to the design so that you reach a conclusion. It is preferable to start with quite simple questions to make it easy to take part, then get more detailed as the survey progresses, possibly using some ‘open text box’ questions toward the end to gain greater insight