Marketing Research Proposal: Apple iPhone Customer Retention

This marketing research proposal focuses on Apple's iPhone and its customer retention strategies. The study aims to analyze the impact of product quality and design on customer loyalty, assess consumer attitudes towards key iPhone features, and understand market competition within the smartphone industry. The proposal outlines the research objectives, including determining external factors affecting Apple, measuring customer attitudes, understanding consumer needs for new models, and recommending marketing strategies. The research design employs a qualitative survey approach, utilizing online surveys and questionnaires to collect primary data from 50 consumers. Variables such as product quality, design, price, and availability are examined to determine their influence on customer satisfaction, sales, and retention. The proposal also addresses ethical considerations, ensuring data privacy and accuracy throughout the research process, with the ultimate goal of providing actionable recommendations for Apple's future product strategies and marketing efforts.

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Marketing Research/MKTG2010
[Type the document subtitle]
9/18/2019
student name

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Contents
Overview of brand...........................................................................................................................2
Research purpose.............................................................................................................................2
Research problem............................................................................................................................3
Information needs............................................................................................................................3
Unit of analysis................................................................................................................................4
Research variables...........................................................................................................................4
Statement of the Decision Maker’s Purpose....................................................................................5
Research questions...........................................................................................................................5
Data collection.................................................................................................................................6
Research objectives.........................................................................................................................6
Relation between proposed variables..............................................................................................6
Research design...............................................................................................................................7
Administration method....................................................................................................................7
Measurement tool............................................................................................................................8
Sampling..........................................................................................................................................8
Ethical consideration.......................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Overview of brand
Apple incorporation is one of the technological brands that were founded by Steve jobs, with the
purpose of providing a new face to the technological products across the globe. The company is
an American multinational technology company offering various consumer electronic goods
globally. The major product that the company is offering include I phone that is a smartphone,
Apple TV, I Pad that is a tablet; I watch that is the smartphone. The company has been serving
clients across the globe with premium quality to be offered and premium pricing strategy. Apple
is considered to be one of the top technological companies along with Google, and Microsoft.
Apple is one of the popular brands across the world, for which the research will focus over the
phone in this brand that is I phone specific (apple, 2019).
Research purpose
A statement that reflects the goal of the study is the research purpose; this depicts the predicted
situation which helps to indicate the study type which is going to be conducted. The purpose of
this research is to analyses the impact of product quality and design for Apple Corporation to
retain its customer. The purpose also includes assisting the ways for the company to sustain in
the industry. This will include analyzing the consumers that are the existing consumers of Apple
I phone, which will let the company understand the expectations of the customer, and provide
recommendations regarding the future marketing activities and strategies to be followed by the
company (Gatti, Aquilani, Ruggieri, & Silvestri, 2017).

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Research problem
A research problem will include understanding the scope of the study that is the issues that
reflect the scope of the research. This depicts the research gap reflecting the major concerning
area, troubling question, condition that need to be improvised and difficulty that should be
eliminated. Increase in competition in the technological industry, specifically in smartphone
industry has brought up the threat for Apple Company. the reason being increase in number of
companies that have entered into the industry, reflecting threat of new entrant. Therefore, key
problem identified, it can be said that the problem statement of this research will consider the
competitive analysis of Apple phone range and understand the customer needs and expectations
in consumer electronic industry (Chari & Feng, 2018).
The research problem is to understand and assess the changing trend of the phone industry to
understand consumer needs and factors influencing customer retention for Apple iPhone.
Information needs
Information needs reflect the data concept that depicts the knowledge and collection of data
which would be refined for information required to assess to accomplish the research purpose
and relate to one another. These could include the situational observed facts and figures
supporting the research and acting as an ingredient to prepare any dish. The information required
for this research is to understand the customer satisfaction and the key variable is responsible for
the satisfaction or dissatisfaction among the customers. This will reflect the customer needs and
generate the ideas for the company to improve products and services to be offered to the
customer, so as to retain the existing customers and sustain in the industry along with me
position of top technical companies (Evans, 2011).

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Unit of analysis
Unit of analysis and research reflect the entity that will be responsible for framing and being
analyzed in the research study that will reflect the current and existing change through most of
the factors. However, this is not similar to unit of observation. The unit of analysis for this
research proposal is consumers, As through the research the consumer behavior will be analyzed
for Apple products specifically iPhones so as to provide recommendations to the company
regarding future strategy to sustain as top technological company across the globe.
Research variables
A variable in research is of various types that are dependent and independent variable that will
reflect any element that has quality or quantity and that may vary and may impact the result of
the research that is to be conducted. An independent variable is an element that is not cost by any
other very able during the research. On the contrary a dependent variable is the one which may
be in interest to the researcher as this will be dependent on another variable as the outcome for
dependent variable may change because of the interference or change observed in the
independent variable. For this research, the independent variables include product quality,
product design, product features, product price, and product availability. The dependent variables
for this research include sale of product, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer
retention.

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Statement of the Decision Maker’s Purpose
Statement of decision makes a purpose reflect the decision related to the investment in the
proposed product or company. Moreover, the decision maker for which the research is intended
is reflected through this statement (Feng & Chari, 2018).
Should Apple introduce a new iPhone model by changing the Independent renewables to satisfy
customer preference on expectation and retain through repetitive Sale?
Research questions
Research question provides an objective for the research problem identified so as to solve
through the research study. Selecting research question could include both the elements that are
qualitative and quantitative research. The research question for this research study includes
RQ1: How to assess the role of product quality and design in customer retention for Apple
Corporation?
RQ2: What is the changing attitude among the consumers towards each independent variable for
iPhone?
RQ3: What are the major variables affecting and reflect relevance to consumers?
RQ4: What are the consumers behavioral and preference intention towards the proposed new
Apple product in phone segment?
RQ5: How to assess external factors impacting and reflecting threat for Apple Company within
the smartphone industry?

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Data collection
Data can be collected from two modes that is primary data collection or secondary data
collection. These more reflect the way is to collect data and sources to collect data. The research
will include a combination of both types of data in this research study. Through the secondary
data, latest news articles, journals, Books and relevant official website will be considered as a
source of information that will be collected with reference to the research problem and research
objectives. Through this data collection method, the external factors of the company will be
analyzed. Moreover, primary data collection method will be used in order to understand the
consumer behavior for answering the changing attitude among the consumers as a research
question. There are various methods to collect data in primary data collection like interviews,
surveys, observation (Ding, 2018).
Research objectives
The key research objectives for this research include
1. To Determine external factors that will impact as opportunity or threat for Apple iPhone
2. To measure customer attitude towards Apple current smartphone range
3. To understand consumer needs an expectation towards proposed new iPhone models
4. To determine the consumer purchase preference for every proposed model
5. To recommend marketing and business strategies for increasing customer retention in
Apple Corporation (appleinsider, 2019)
The relation between proposed variables

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Major proposed variables include product quality, product design, product features which may
impact the customer attitude towards the range of iPhone. The variables like product price and
product availability may impact the purchasing intention of consumers towards iPhone product
range. Does customer satisfaction is dependent on the combination of all the independent
variables and so do the other dependent variables like sale of product, customer loyalty and
customer retention (Chari & Feng, 2018).
Research design
Research design provides a framework of techniques and methods selected for conduct of
research by the researcher which reflect the combination of various research components
considering a logical and reasonable manner in order to understand and solve the research
problem identified. There are various types of research design like qualitative survey, research
approaches, case study, action oriented study, and comparative survey. This research will include
qualitative survey as research method for conducting the research study. Through this research
design, the consumer's preferences can be analyzed by collecting primary data answered by the
potential consumers and existing consumers of Apple iPhone. Therefore it can be said that both
qualitative and quantitative research will be conducted in order to assist the consumer attitude
and external trends of smartphone industry. Descriptive research analysis will be considered as
research type for this research study (Camison & Fores, 2016).
Administration method
The method of administration will be survey research that reflects collection of information from
the target consumers that is said to be sampled through online surveys and paper questionnaires.

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For the current study, the approach used to administer or implement the research design will be
through survey method that can provide the quantitative data through which the consumer's
preference can be understood and can be interpreted in order to provide recommendations
relevant to the Apple proposed product strategy (Bruggeman & Baerdemaeker, 2015).
Measurement tool
There are various measurement tools available to assist the qualitative and quantitative research
that includes informal observation, interviews, surveys, scale, and indexes. For Current research,
survey as measurement tool will be used to collect primary data from the samples and analyses
the result and interpretation through the questionnaire filled by the potential samples. 10
questions will be framed through the questionnaire which will help to answer the research
questions relevant to the consumer behavior and the result and interpretation can solve the major
research problem identified. Through this the key reason for losing consumers for Apple
Corporation can be analyzed which will eventually help to recommend changes or innovation to
be made by the company for newly proposed iPhone models. Moreover the demand for
upcoming models can also be analyzed through this questionnaire (Birasnav, 2014).
Through the implementation plan, the information will be analyzed through exploratory data
analysis which will interpret the current quantitative data (Feng & Chari, 2018).
Sampling
The current study is majorly focused on primary data collection for collecting the relevant
information from the consumers in order to understand their attitude and preference reflected
towards the product so as to provide recommendations to the company. In order to conduct

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questionnaire the sampling method used through the study of research include simple random
sample link so as to reduce the business in the collection of data and make the data more
relevant, this reflects that each potential consumer and existing consumer of Apple iPhone will
have equal chance all probability for selection procedure in the sampling. The reason being this
is considered as most straightforward method in sampling and could be easier to collect the data
while using this sampling method. The sample size for the research will be 50 Consumers (Craig
& Douglas, 2015).
Ethical consideration
Ethics reflect the values and norms while conducting the research process, various initiatives
regarding ethical consideration are followed through the stages developed by the researcher. The
key ethical consideration while collecting data and analyzing the data will be privacy and
security, considering the information shared by the consumer like their personal information
(Ferrell, Fraedrich, & Ferrell, 2015). Moreover, the collection of data will be considered for this
research so that the results are accurate and are not manipulated. While considering various
ethical principles different variables and parameters will be evaluated so as to make the research
more validate and appropriate recommendations can be made to the company regarding the
upcoming phone models (statista, 2019).

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References
apple. (2019). au. Retrieved from https://www.apple.com/au/
appleinsider. (2019). apple-ranks-among-best-in-class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-
study. Retrieved from https://appleinsider.com/articles/17/07/26/apple-ranks-among-best-
in-class-brands-for-loyalty-in-new-marketing-study
Birasnav, M. (2014). Knowledge management and organizational performance in the service
industry: The role of transformational leadership beyond the effects of transactional
leadership. . Journal of Business Research,, 67(8), 1622-1629.
Bruggeman, W., & Baerdemaeker, J. (2015). The impact of participation in strategic planning on
managers’ creation of budgetary slack: The mediating role of autonomous motivation and
affective organisational commitment. Management Accounting Research, 29, 1-2.
Camison, C., & Fores, B. (2016). Does incremental and radical innovation performance depend
on different types of knowledge accumulation capabilities and organizational size?
Journal of Business Research, 831.
Chari, S., & Feng, H. (2018). Research in marketing strategy. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 1-26.
Craig, C., & Douglas, S. (2015). International Marketing Research. Chichester: John wiley &
sons.
Ding, K. (2018). Platforms, innovation and capability development in the Chinese domestic
market. The European Journal of Development Research, 1-16.
Evans, J. (2011). Retailing in perspective: the past is a prologue to the future. The International
Review of Retail, Distribution and Consumer Research, 21(1), 1-31.
Feng, H., & Chari, S. (2018). Research in marketing strategy. Journal of the Academy of
Marketing Science, 1-26.
Ferrell, O., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2015). Apple Inc.'s Ethical Success and Challenges. In
Business ethics (11 ed., pp. 551-565). Cengage.
Gatti, C., Aquilani, B., Ruggieri, A., & Silvestri, C. (2017). A systematic literature review on
total quality management critical success factors and the identification of new avenues of
research. The TQM Journal, 29(1), 184-213.
statista. (2019). apple-brand-value. Retrieved from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/326052/apple-brand-value/

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