MaxDiff Analysis/Best-Worst Scale for Market Research

Introduction

Understanding what consumers like is super important for businesses. It helps companies to make great products, set the right prices, and plan how to reach customers. One powerful tool to figure this out is MaxDiff Analysis, also known as Best-Worst Scale. It's like a super detective, giving companies really valuable insights into what people prefer. MaxDiff is often better than other methods like Direct Ranking or Likert Scales it captures the smaller differences effectively . Conjoint Analysis is strong too, but it's not always the best fit for every situation and can take up a lot of time and resources.

What is MaxDiff Analysis?

MaxDiff, short for Maximum Difference Scaling, is a research technique used to gauge preferences among multiple items. It helps in identifying the Most and Least important features or aspects among a given set of choices. Rather than asking respondents to rank items directly, MaxDiff presents them with Subsets and asks them to indicate the most and least preferred options.

What are the benefits of MaxDiff Analysis?

Efficiency and Accuracy

MaxDiff efficiently handles a large number of items, providing a more accurate assessment of consumer preferences compared to traditional ranking methods.

Relative Importance

MaxDiff helps in understanding the relative importance of each item within the choice set, offering deeper insights into consumer decision-making.

Reduced Respondent Burden

By breaking down the evaluation into manageable subsets, MaxDiff reduces respondent burden, leading to higher response rates and improved data quality. It's simple for respondents to evaluate a subset of 4 or 5 attributes and pick what is least and most preferred. For most market research surveys, a ranking question is inefficient for respondents to evaluate. When there are ten attributes to rank, it becomes increasingly difficult to rank items accurately, leading to fatigue and lower quality data.

Eliminate Bias

MaxDiff Forces a respondent to pick what is least important and most important. Respondents will likely rate all features as important if separate rating questions or a matrix are used instead of MaxDiff. This drawback could be referred to as "List Order Bias." In that scenario, an organization wouldn't have the data needed to maximize the budget; the company would use resources in areas that aren't truly important.

How to set up a MaxDiff Question in BlockSurvey?

Let us consider an example where you wanted to know what facilities customers look forward to for their stay at a resort, BlockSurvey's Max Diff Question can be be used as follows to identify customer preferences.

1. Select the MaxDiff Question component from under the Market Research Question group.

2. Edit the data labels. For example, instead of default "Most", you could use "Most Important" or "Highest Priority." The custom labels will show throughout the survey and in your survey results.

2. Next add relevant Attributes to your MaxDiff Question. In the above example of the resort, facilities, ambience, services offered by them such as "Security", "Swimming Pool", "Entertainment Facilities", etc. become the Attributes.