Introduction

If you're planning a B2B technology market research project, first make sure you understand your respondents and then select appropriate questions to ask them! Companies struggle with this process, so we've come up with some questions for them to approach it. In this post, we'll introduce our questions. Let’s have a look at them below:

Some types of questions you can ask in a B2B technology market research project

There are a few types of questions you can ask in a B2B technology market research project:

-Survey Questions: These are the most common types of questions in B2B technology market research. They usually ask for demographic information, but they may also ask about usage habits and preferences.

-Focus Group Questions: These allow participants to discuss their thoughts on a topic more freely than survey questions do, which is important when you're trying to understand their opinions and experiences.

-In-Depth Interview Questions: In-Depth interviews are one-on-one sessions with a person who has experience with your product or service. This allows you to ask very specific questions and get detailed answers that would be difficult through the other methods mentioned above.

Quantitative questions

Quantitative questions are used to gather numeric data in a B2B technology market research project. They can be as simple as asking a respondent to give you an exact number or percentage, or they can be more complex and involve multiple steps. For example, if you're conducting research about whether businesses are interested in implementing artificial intelligence tools for their sales teams, one quantitative question might ask "How many hours do your salespeople spend on social media?" Another might ask: "What is the average amount of time spent per week by members of your team?" In both cases, respondents will have to provide some kind of numerical answer (hours or dollars).

The most common types of quantitative questions include:

• Open-ended questions that require respondents to provide their own answers without assistance from survey designers (for example: "What do you think is the most important benefit of using AI?") These tend not only to allow respondents greater freedom when answering but also require less effort on behalf of those who are designing them because there's no need for pre-scripted responses or multiple choice options.
• Closed-ended questions that ask respondents to choose from predetermined options (for example: "What is the most important benefit of using AI?") These are often referred to as "forced choice" questions because respondents are required to pick just one answer.

Integrated questions

Integrated questions are a combination of different types of questions. They are often used at the end of an interview to help you capture additional information from your participants, such as their level of interest in a particular product or service. An example might be asking someone to rank three technologies in order from most preferred to least preferred.

Questions that focus on their priorities and needs

You can ask questions that focus on respondent priorities and needs in a B2B technology market research project. The reason you want to know what's most important to your customers is that it will help you decide how best to meet those needs. For example, if they say they care more about reliability than cost, then maybe you should offer a service or product that's more expensive but less likely to fail.

If you want some examples of questions like this one, here are a few:

"What is your main goal with this technology?"

"What are the most important features for success?"

"Describe the biggest challenges you have right now."

"What is your ideal solution to this problem?" 

Questions that require the respondent to give examples and support their answer

You can ask the respondent to give examples and support their answer.

Examples:

• "Can you give me an example of how your company uses this technology?"
• "How have you used this technology in the past?"

Questions that require the respondent to quantify the measure of the impact they receive from the technology under discussion

• How much money did you save last year using the technology?
• What is the total value of your company's inventory?
• How many hours does it take for your team to complete a task with the technology?

These questions ask respondents to quantify the measure of the impact they receive from the technology or service under discussion. The answers may be expressed in terms of time saved, dollars saved, and so on.

Why is your organisation looking to create a new technology?

This question focuses on the pain points of the users and goes into the reasons why a better technological solution is needed.

• What are the problems you're facing?
• What are the solutions that you've tried and why did they not work?

How do you purchase new technologies?

This question focuses on purchase intent in a B2B technology market research project.

• What is your budget for technology purchases?
• How many vendors do you typically evaluate when purchasing a new technology, and what are the criteria used to determine which vendor(s) will be selected to present their product or service to the decision-maker in your organisation?
• How do you evaluate new technologies?
• What are the criteria for selecting new technologies?

If you're conducting a B2B technology market research project, it's important to understand how often companies purchase new technologies. In fact, this is one of the most important questions to ask in any type of research project because it can help you understand how likely they are to buy from your company and why they might not want to purchase from your company.

If a company purchases new technologies frequently (e.g., every year), then there may be more opportunities for you as their vendor than if they only purchased new technologies infrequently (e.g., once every five years).

What are the challenges of purchasing new technologies in your industry?

This is a high-level question that focuses on the possible roadblocks to buying technology in an industry. 

• How do they compare to those of other industries?
• Is there anything that makes it easier or harder for you to adopt new technologies?
• How do we decide which technology to use?
• Describe how these challenges compare to those of your competitors?
• How does your industry's adoption of new technologies compare to other industries?

What kind of information do you look for when researching a new technology?

You can ask the respondent:

• What kind of information do you look for when researching a new technology?
• How do you know if the technology is right for your business?

How did you first hear about the technology that you're interested in purchasing?

You can ask the following questions:

• How did you first hear about the technology (the source)?
• Who recommended that you consider this particular technology?
• Have you ever purchased a similar technology before? If so, what was the experience like? How do you think this new technology will impact your business and life in general?

What are the key features/benefits of this technology that make it valuable to your organisation's goals and objectives?

In order to determine if a technology is right for the respondents of the study, it's important to understand what makes the technology valuable. You can ask questions like:-

• How do you see this technology helping your company achieve its objectives?
• What challenges have you had in implementing the technology, and how did you overcome them (if applicable)?
• How will using this product or service help increase revenue or decrease costs?

What other technologies would you consider if this one doesn't meet your requirements?

Other technologies you can ask about include:

• Other databases, such as Oracle and MySQL.
• Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
• Cloud storage services such as Dropbox or Google Drive for Business.

Would you recommend this technology to others within your company or sector who may be considering adopting it as well? 

To understand whether respondents are likely to recommend this technology to others, you can ask the above question in a B2B technology market research project.

A response you can get can look like this: "Our customers have been able to achieve a 40 % reduction in service costs by using this technology".

Or: "The technology has helped us identify opportunities for growth in new markets."

What is the name of your company and how long have you been in business?

This question is a great way to start a B2B technology market research project. It allows you to get a sense of who you're talking to and how knowledgeable they are about their business. You'll also be able to gauge whether or not they have a strong grasp on their company's history and culture, which can help paint an accurate picture of its current state.

What are your main products or services?

Another question you should ask is: "What are your main products or services?" This will give you an idea of how much time and resources you can dedicate to the project. If they say they have many different technological products that they sell, then it may be more difficult to choose one specific product line for them to focus on during the research.

If they only have one main product, then this will make things easier as it will allow us to focus on just one thing at a time when conducting surveys with customers.

Which of your products are most important to your customers?

As a market research consultant, you may be tasked with determining which of your products are most important to your customers. This can be difficult in B2B technology markets where there are numerous product offerings and it's not always obvious which ones will resonate best with consumers.

In order to determine this information, ask questions about each of your company's products and how they compare against one another in different aspects like price or performance. For example:

• Which technological product do you prefer? Why?
• Is there anything about [product] that would make it more appealing than [another product]?

Questions that focus on similar or substitute products

Another approach is to ask the respondent to name three or four other companies or organisations using similar technology. This will give you some insight into their perception of competitors and help you understand whether there are other players in the market with whom they have relationships.

• Who else would they consider as a client prospect if not you or your competitors? (Pick three or four companies or organisations using similar technology.)
• Why do they think that? What are the main reasons why they selected these companies/organisations as potential clients?

This question is useful because it helps you understand what other competitors have done to win over the potential customer's business. It also gives you insight into how much effort it will take for a business to compete against those companies in the future.

If you're planning a B2B technology market research project, first make sure you understand your respondents 

If you're planning a B2B technology market research project, then ensure that you understand your respondents and then select appropriate questions to ask them!

Here are some tips for how to do that:

• Make sure you know who the audience is and what they want. For example, if they're in IT or engineering, they may have different motivations than those working in sales or marketing. How will this affect the type of question you should ask?
• Be aware of possible biases when asking questions. For example, if there's something about your technology that would make people feel uncomfortable saying negative things about it (e.g., because it doesn't work well).
• Make sure you understand the industry and your customers. For example, if you're selling software to engineers, ask questions about what they do on a daily basis and how it affects their lives. This will help you understand what they need more than anything else from your technology.

Conclusion

And that's it! You've now completed your B2B technology market research project. The next step is to take all of your findings and compile them into a final report. This will help you understand how well (or not) the technology aligns with your organisation's goals and objectives, as well as provide insight into some potential areas for improvement. Also check out: The basics of a TMT B2B survey.