It seems more prudent to take your cue from the customer advisory board than from the focus group, so you've decided to focus on the issue of price. But slashing price would have major ramifications, including a hit to your bottom line and a possible price war with competition. Before taking this step, you need more research to confirm whether or not the exploratory data was correct.

  The relentless pressure to hold down costs leads you to consider a relatively inexpensive survey using the company's mail panel. Like any mail survey, it would enable you to reach a diverse group - not just social media fans or other Internet regulars. You could develop a simple, standardized instrument asking respondents to rate the importance of price and other factors, like performance, in their purchase decisions. But you know that people who take time to participate in panels may differ significantly from the general population.

 It may be worth spending more to do a mail survey of a national consumer sample. You'd feel more confident moving forward based on results from a large, relatively unbiased pool of participants. Low response rates could be a problem, but enclosing coupons or other incentives may help.

Should you Survey a mail Panel, or a national Consumer sample?