Jason West, Owner of A-1 Cleaning, Began His Enterprise in 2001

Jason West, owner of A-1 Cleaning, began his enterprise in 2001. Jason's primary focus had been on office cleaning for large corporations. But in recent months Jason has seen a decline in demand for office cleaning. Surprisingly, the competitive environment appears relatively stable with no new competitors. However, Jason understands that office cleaning is a high-frequency service that is usually performed daily; therefore, competitors must be doing something to attract his customers. Building a competitive advantage seems to be the only option to offset competition. But as Jason pondered his dilemma, he realized that he needed to better understand how customers assess service quality and what they are looking for in a superior cleaning service before he could build his competitive advantage.

Jason developed a research plan. First, he gathered competitor information—primarily through pamphlets, but also from a few phone calls—to find out exactly what competitors offer in their cleaning packages. In addition, Jason obtained from the area Chamber of Commerce an updated list of local corporations to which he would send a short survey.

Though the list of corporations contained 141 local company names, Jason chose to survey 75 of them. To better understand customer service expectations in both small and large corporations, Jason divided his surveys into two categories. The survey questions were designed to extract specific data from respondents with regard to service quality expectations in correlation to service frequency and price.

Jason awaited the results. Though his primary focus had been on large corporations, he was flexible and would aim his efforts differently if needed.

-Could Jason have collected observational research effectively? Explain.