Survey (human research)
Survey research is often used to assess thoughts, opinions, and feelings. Surveys can be specific and limited, or they can have more global, widespread goals. Psychologists and sociologists often use surveys to analyze behavior, while it is also used to meet the more pragmatic needs of the media, such as, in evaluating political candidates, public health officials, professional organizations, and advertising and marketing directors. A survey consists of a predetermined set of questions that is given to a sample. With a representative sample, that is, one that is representative of the larger population of interest, one can describe the attitudes of the population from which the sample was drawn. Further, one can compare the attitudes of different populations as well as look for changes in attitudes over time. A good sample selection is key as it allows one to generalize the findings from the sample to the population, which is the whole purpose of survey research.
Customer satisfaction research
Qualitative studies are used by firms to provide a more detailed and/or unconstrained understanding of customer experiences. In most cases, the results of qualitative studies are based upon dozens of interviews. Qualitative studies are not designed to provide insights that are projectable to the customer population: qualitative studies are used for initial exploration of experiences and topics or to probe more deeply the reasons behind customer perceptions. Focus groups (group depth interviews) and "one-on-ones" (individual depth interviews) are the common examples of qualitative studies.