ABSTRACT
The goal of this concluding chapter is to position customer visits within the context of the market research toolbox (McQuarrie 2006). That is, customer visits represent only one alternative within the larger set of available market research techniques. Although customer visits offer a distinct mix of advantages and disadvantages not duplicated by any other market research tool, the same could be said of any other research technique. Good research planning thus means finding the proper place for customer visits, neither neglecting visits nor giving them undue prominence. The customer visit technique will be crucially relevant to some kinds of business decisions and of little relevance to others. Put another way, in planning research your goal should be to select the right tool for the job at hand. Therefore, this chapter is intended in part to serve as a check on any excess enthusiasm for the visit technique that the preceding parts of this book may have engendered in the reader.
