While I would expect some sort of correlation between telephone complaints and refunds, the precision (CI?) of the estimated correlation would, IMHO, depend a great deal on the sophistication of the typical product consumer and the nature of the reason for refunds.
American consumers are, in the main, a pallid, inarticulate bunch of milque toasts. We rarely complain to a supplier, and when we do, it is often in an inarticulate, poorly directed manner.
I should add, that most companies are not prepared to work with the consumer to develop the real issue at hand so they might improve future products. Most companies can only handle clear, extreme claims, which often occur well after the first consumer unhappiness, masking the deeper reasons for the call in the first place. Finger pointing can go both ways.
If the number of complaints, and refunds, is enough to be 'statistically' interesting, I think a very interesting bit of work could be done to see if there are any clusters of related causes to both. But it would take a bit of work, and Rich's comments about data collection could be well aimed.
BTW, I know of one company that logged each customer call, for information or whatever, and reviewed these in the REsearch Dept. quarterly for hints on how to inform their customers and future customers, better.
Cheers, Jay
Rich Ulrich wrote:
On 14 Jan 2004 21:31:55 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Smooth) wrote:
My company has a consumer hotline which we field comments(ususally
complaints) from consumers of our products. I want to be able to
compare the monthly frequency of these calls to the actual product
refund frequency. I've already plotted both and it appears that there
is little, if any, ability to predict future product losses based upon
the hotline calls. However, I want to be able to demonstrate this
mathematically. What is the best statistical way of accomplishing
this?
I posted to this in sci.stat.consult.
If this is a real problem, the data-collection is what is apt to be
so bad as to prevent any useful conclusions....
-- Jay Warner Principal Scientist Warner Consulting, Inc. 4444 North Green Bay Road Racine, WI 53404-1216 USA
Ph: (262) 634-9100 FAX: (262) 681-1133 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.a2q.com
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