Pint of Adnams Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 In an e-mail received yesterday offering me a last opportunity to fork out a fortune for the Great Going set, including box, there was a link to an on-line survey for Hornby Hobbies covering all product lines. I've just completed it and there is plenty of opportunity to let Hornby know your feelings as expressed over the last year or more in the range of questions asked and by way of the two freeform responses. If you've not completed it already here's the link (hope it works for everyone): www.surveymonkey.com/s/HD337ZD?utm_campaign=Hornby_Newsletter_Issue99_196329&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=CM_Hornby Topic title edited in case someone thought it was me running the survey - it isn't me but it is Hornby Hobbies - stop whingeing in all those other threads and say it straight to the company... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodenhead Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 Perhaps we should get this topic pinned by a mod. There are plenty of people on this forum with opinions on Hornby, this will give them a chance to vent directly to Hornby. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Legend Posted March 30, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 30, 2014 Yep told them what I think. Thanks for the link! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSpencer Posted March 30, 2014 Share Posted March 30, 2014 To what extent do you agree that Hornby produces the products you want to buy? There is a double meaning to this question.... Their suppliers are not producing, that is the problem. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronny Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 To what extent do you agree that Hornby produces the products you want to buy? There is a double meaning to this question.... Their suppliers are not producing, that is the problem. Suggest you treat Hornby and their suppliers as one and the same. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hroth Posted March 31, 2014 Share Posted March 31, 2014 Suggest you treat Hornby and their suppliers as one and the same. Agree - Hornby are best treated as an interface to a black box system. We put money and an R number IN, they OUTPUT a model. How the system produces that model is up to Hornby. All we can do is take our custom elsewhere if its broken. As for the survey, its a cheap and nasty DIY system thrown up by some junior marketing droids who haven't a clue what their customer base actually wants. The questions weren't particularly well thought out and I dislike the "shades of grey" response system employed.... Oh well, I completed it for them. But it'll be just another Hornby black box without any output! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted March 31, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 31, 2014 Hope it's still live when I get back - it times out too quickly at present. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pint of Adnams Posted March 31, 2014 Author Share Posted March 31, 2014 Agree - Hornby are best treated as an interface to a black box system. We put money and an R number IN, they OUTPUT a model. How the system produces that model is up to Hornby. All we can do is take our custom elsewhere if its broken. As for the survey, its a cheap and nasty DIY system thrown up by some junior marketing droids who haven't a clue what their customer base actually wants. The questions weren't particularly well thought out and I dislike the "shades of grey" response system employed.... Oh well, I completed it for them. But it'll be just another Hornby black box without any output! Surveymonkey is a well-used and adaptable system used by many organisations small and large to generate surveys - my friend who runs his own sales and marketing consultancy swears by its ease and effectiveness. The questions are indeed appropriate to Hornby's survey requirements (not yours - you are not conducting it), well-phrased and paired to test and evaluate responses on each specific topic - the grading system is typical and also the way the questions are phrased compared with the range of responses is intended to cross-compare responses to validate them; if you did not read the logic in them then you did not think carefully about your responses. My only criticism is that graded surveys should never have a 'neither one nor the other' value; there should always be a positive or negative value however minimal. The way to deal with the 'I have no experience/do not use/ never tried/not interested' problem is to have a separate answer box for such a situation that skips the need for a response to the grading. And to be offered the opportunity for freeform responses in two really crucial areas is something that should never be denigrated. But then some people will still find a way to complain, even when given a clear opportunity to directly inform the source and put forward palliatives. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold tomparryharry Posted March 31, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 31, 2014 Surveys are all very well..... You need someone to understand the responses, and more importantly, translate them and hopefully, get Hornby to act upon them. "Gate number 7 for the flying pig experience" Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Siberian Snooper Posted April 1, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 1, 2014 Just done mine, I'm not going to hold my breath on the out come, but I will be wearing a tin hat and flack jacket for a while. SS Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted April 1, 2014 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 1, 2014 Surveys are all very well..... You need someone to understand the responses, and more importantly, translate them and hopefully, get Hornby to act upon them. "Gate number 7 for the flying pig experience" Ian You also need meaningful questions and regrettably some of them are very ambiguous to say the least as you can find that one model offers, for example, good value for money while another doesn't, some are are marketable prices (for what they are) and others aren't. Thus to answer honestly you can only tick neither agree nor disagree and the syurvey setter makes up the rersult to suit what the client wanted. To get round this you use the free format boxes of course but I wonder which carries the greatest weight with the marketeers - a load of boxes which say your product is too expensive otr a box saying it is over priced for what it is - two very different conclusions could emerge from the same answers. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I think rants about Hornby should be limited to 2 per person or 2 per topic. Three if they are witty. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roy P Posted April 1, 2014 Share Posted April 1, 2014 I doubt that this survey will have as much effect as a carefully worded message to a marketing manager who knows the business. RP Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted April 2, 2014 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 2, 2014 Answered fairly, fully and in generally constructive (though not very positive) terms. It's hardly an extensive survey but the key questions regarding cost and value for money might bring forth changes. Whether any of my comments on how else to improve Hornby ever see the light of day ..... time will tell. If there's enough time left. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zigzag Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 to a marketing manager who knows the business. But hasnt this person just left to form his own consultancy business Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
edcayton Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 I rather think that was the point of Roy P's post. Ed Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLPG Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Past on my thoughts, usual wish list items and complaints about delivery of new products! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLPG Posted April 3, 2014 Share Posted April 3, 2014 Q6 and J27 requested :-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JSpencer Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 You also need meaningful questions and regrettably some of them are very ambiguous to say the least as you can find that one model offers, for example, good value for money while another doesn't, some are are marketable prices (for what they are) and others aren't. Thus to answer honestly you can only tick neither agree nor disagree and the syurvey setter makes up the rersult to suit what the client wanted. To get round this you use the free format boxes of course but I wonder which carries the greatest weight with the marketeers - a load of boxes which say your product is too expensive otr a box saying it is over priced for what it is - two very different conclusions could emerge from the same answers. Survey Monkey is a great tool used by many corporate companies these days. The questions on this Survey are very "starter" level. Like as if the new CEO was trying to get a rapid knowledge or feel of the market. If so, the questions are not quite correct, and could create a "a little knowledge is dangerous situation", it could equally be the first step to understanding the company. The problem for the CEO is that Hornby is not 800 Million a year large company, it is a medium size 60 Million a year company, that means it does not need to waste millions on expensive IT Tools to understand why it is going wrong. Such IT Tools work well in large markets where there is lots of wll defined data to play with, but would fail to explain why Bachmann win awards each year and Hornby struggle to win a few. Hornby's bug bear is trying to understand why on one hand, there is never enough stock to please demand (missed sales) and on the other hand there is lots of stock not selling. Loosing their golden supplier has not helped, but they can part overcome the problems by being more organised in their production planning. To be honest, last year only Heljan and Bachmann were producing quite rapidly. I'm not really a fan of Heljan but did buy 3 of their locos in the past 6 months (with a forth once that Garret comes out in BR colours), this after a 3 year abscence of not buying their products. My buying of Bachmann rests at the same level year in and out (about 5 locos), Hornby would have dropped off to a mere 2 (Star & DoG) but got a little boost from a DCC sound shunter being heavily discounted. That said, I did order 4 of their locos from the catalogue this year, though 2 are already put back until next (only 1 is actually new tooling!). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertcwp Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Well, at least they've asked. We use surveymonkey at work from time to time and it's pretty good as it's user friendly. My key messages were to produce what you say you will produce and sort out your pricing policy. My requests, rather predictably for me, were for a Mark I RB, BSO and FO (the only three Mark I types of which there were over 100 examples where there has not been a recent model in 00 - and there never has been one for the BSO). I also listed a Swindon Class 120 cross-country unit and an LNER V2,plus Thompson non-gangwayed stock in unlined maroon (post 1956), which Hornby don't seem to have grasped is a different colour to crimson. Whether any of this has any effect is anyone's guess but it's better than nothing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Trouble with the survey was that the first question asked what you buy most regularly so I ticked Humbrol. After that, all the questions were explicity about Humbrol. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter Kazmierczak Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Right, done it again - looks like you can do it many times as you like. My "asks" were for the Cl.120 DMU and a HUO coal hopper wagon. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted April 21, 2014 Share Posted April 21, 2014 Well, at least they've asked. We use surveymonkey at work from time to time and it's pretty good as it's user friendly. Good that they asked - I just have a problem with the useless surveymonkey platform that still doesn't work. What is wrong with producing a simple survey on their own site - nothing needs to be fancy just simple questions and room for open answers. It isn't rocket science. I can only conclude that Hornby simply do not want a broad spectrum of answers anyway and are biasing the outcome by preselecting surveymonkey users. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Posted May 11, 2014 Share Posted May 11, 2014 The trouble with any survey is that the people who put them together are not the end users of the product. Thus they have no idea why that whilst their questions might suit marketing 101 at FSU they have zero application in the real world. Now they ought to do this... Q. Which Hornby Products have you ever bought... Please lits in order of number of purchases... A. Steam Engines, Coaches, Skaledale Houses, Trucks... Q. Why did you buy Steam Engines? A. No one else made a King Arthur. Q. Were you satisfied.? A. Yes until the valve gear fell off Q. What else did you buy? A. A Britannia Q. Why did you only buy one?. A. The tender fell to bits on removal from box? Q. Why did it fall to bits? A. Someone forgot to glue it together. Q. Did you buy a Q1? A. Yes, but No one else makes one. Quite nice but the face isn't quite right.. Q. Why did you only buy one. A. The chimney fell off. Q. Why did the chimney fall off. A. Your factories have a problem with glue - are they sniffing it instead of applying it? Q. What else have you bought? A. A few coal trucks. Q. Why only a few? A. They kept derailing (amongst other faults.) Q. Did you fix the problem? A. Yes- Replaced the wheels with Bachmann wheels - problem vanished. Q. What is wrong with our wheels? .. A. No idea but you need to find out... anyway I only buy Bachmann trucks, it saves the cost of changing the wheels. Q. You do like anything else that we make? A The Maunsell coaches - they rock...Some of your coaching stock is excellent - bought a ton of Hawkworths once they were reduced... Q... etc... With modern application of AI it is possible to produce a questionnaire that will auto customize itself to the person taking it... But I suppose only if the company actually cares about its customer base, will they actually do it... and take the time to study the results.. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karhedron Posted May 12, 2014 Share Posted May 12, 2014 I think perhaps Hornby would run the risk of spending more time producing the ideal questionaire than models. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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