Final Individual Assignment

The objective of the final individual assignment is twofold. One is to assess a student's understanding of the concepts and tools covered in the course and her or his ability to apply these in practical marketing contexts. The second is to provide a student with an opportunity to demonstrate an ability to draw marketing insights by using real-world data involving real business challenges. Some reflections completed in Canvas weekly modules will be part of the final individual assignment. It will consist of reflection and data case analysis for marketing challenges.

Datasets (CCD and CCND datasets)

· CCD (Comsumer Complaint Database): CCD 89.csv

· CCND (Consumer Complaint Narrative Database): CCND 9. csv

· Data dictionary: Data Dictionary (2025 S2 Updated).txt

· SVI documentation for socio-demographic variables: SVI2018.pdf

The final individual assignment consists of two parts as detailed below.

Part 1 – Reflective Essay (10pts, word limit 2 pages, 12-point font with 1.5 spacing, not including the appendices)

Reflection on reflections: In this reflective essay, you must choose one of your weekly reflections and one workshop content from week 1 to week 12. The purpose of this reflective essay is to demonstrate how your knowledge about marketing research has progressed across the semester in ways that have helped you better appreciate and understand marketing research.

Part 1A – Reflection on Canvas Learning Modules (1 page)

Within your weekly Canvas modules, you are asked to reflect (think) about your current understanding and also what you have learned at the end of the module - to capture your understanding directly after learning the new material. Please review your reflection collection and choose ONE reflection that was the most illuminating moment that really advanced your understanding of marketing research. Describe the weekly reflection that allowed you to see new, interesting and important ideas of marketing research. You should copy and paste the most illuminating reflection into an appendix (a screenshot of your weekly reflection)

· A reflection should NOT just be a description of what you have learned, description is only one part of a good reflection.

· You should reflect on

o What you thought and felt about what you learned

o What you think and feel for now about what you learned

o How what you have learned has changed how you think

o How what you have learned has changed what you intended to do in the future

Part 1B – Reflection on Workshop Activities (1 page)

We have learned a number of practical skills and techniques for marketing research throughout the semester: data visualisation (weeks 2 and 4), focus group interview (week 3), survey questionnaire design using Qualtrics (weeks 5 and 6), A/B testing (week 8), text analysis using Python (week 9), data analysis and statistical tests (weeks 10-11), and some advanced techniques (week 12). Please review the workshop activities and choose ONE workshop activity or topic area that you find most interesting and useful. You should reflect on

· What you thought and felt about what you learned from the workshop

· How what you have learned has changed how you think about marketing research

· How what you have learned has changed what you intended to do in the future. For example, what skills you intend to develop further in the future and why?

Part 2 – Data Case Analysis (20pts, word limit 8-10 pages, 12-point font with 1.5 spacing, including all components such as figures, graphs and tables)

Overview

The objective of data case analysis is threefold. One is to provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to draw marketing insights by using real world data involving real business challenges. The second is to evaluate your ability to conduct critical marketing research including the entire processes of marketing research such as data preparation, data analysis, and communication and presentation of the key findings. Note that we do not expect any advanced statistical tests for this data case analysis. Remember that you should be professional by achieving effective visual and written communication. Data case analysis would be no longer than 10 pages (Word document), including all components such as tables, figures, references, although we don’t penalize upon the word count and page length.

Scenario

You are leading the headquarter marketing research team at Equifax Inc. Equifax is an American multinational consumer credit reporting agency. Equifax collects and aggregates information on over 800 million individual consumers and more than 88 million businesses worldwide. Its customers include thousands of businesses globally. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Equifax's 2024 revenue was US$5.68 billion. It is one of the three largest credit agencies, along with TransUnion and Experian (known as the "Big Three").

Currently, your team is undertaking an important marketing research project which aims:

1. To understand the state of customer dissatisfaction about the credit reporting services in the United States.

2. To quantify and visualize the historical and geographical trends in consumer complaints.

3. To understand the state of consumer dissatisfaction towards the Big 3 credit reporting agencies, including your company (Equifax) and the two major competitors (TransUnion and Experian).

4. To improve the customer experience and complaint management system at Equifax.

Data

A dataset about consumer complaints about financial products and services are obtained from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/) which is an agency of the United States government responsible for consumer protection in the financial sector. Each week CFPB sends thousands of consumer complaints about financial products and services to companies for response. Data from those complaints helps to understand the financial marketplace and protect consumers. For further information of CFPB and its databases, you must explore their website (https://www.consumerfinance.gov/). The database includes general and descriptive information of about 500,000 consumer complaints and company responses about the Big 3 credit reporting companies in the U.S. The information available in the database can be found here. This dataset (CCD) is enhanced further with US census data which includes a number of socio-demographic information at the county-level (FIPS) from SVI. A complete dictionary and description for the variables in the dataset is provided on Canvas (Data Dictionary). In addition, there is a supplementary dataset of consumer complaint narratives about Equifax for text analysis (CCND) which contains around +34,000 unique complaint narratives.

Note that you will be provided with different datasets depending on your SID. Please check your SID and the last digit of SID, and download and use an appropriate dataset. Don’t try to collaborate with other students as it is an individual assignment involving different datasets. In addition, you are expected to bring different and unique angles to the dataset.

Key Deliverables in Data Case Analysis

Task 1 (10 pts): In the first task, you must provide “thick descriptions” of the state of customer dissatisfaction about the financial products and services in the United States. For this task, you may consider the following questions to answer, but you can attempt to generate other insights about the state of customer dissatisfaction about credit reporting services in the United States.

· What is the state of customer dissatisfaction? Quantify and visualize the historical and geographical trend in the complaint volume and complaint rate by location (e.g., ZIP, FIPS, or States) or issues?

· How effectively have complaint cases been managed over time?

· Are there any event-related (i.e., Covid-19) or seasonal effects on the volume of complaints?

· Are there any socio-demographic factors influencing consumer complaints about credit reporting services?

· What are the primary drivers of complaints? Analyze the top-ranking 'Issues' and 'Sub-issues' and track their growth or decline over time.

Task 2 (10 pts): In the second task, you want to understand customer dissatisfaction about your company (Equifax) and major competitors (TransUnion and Experian). In other words, you have to provide some descriptive insights that can be translated into prescriptive insights for customer management and complaint handling system. Note that Task 2 is a very open-ended question, meaning that you can communicate any strategic insights you find important and interesting. Below are some example questions you may try to address:

· How many complaints have Equifax and its major competitors received? And where do such complaints come from? What is the historical trend in the complaint volume by company or before and after Covid-19?

· What kinds of key performance metrics you would use to evaluate the complaint management performance? Based upon some metrics, discuss and compare how effectively Equifax and its competitors have managed consumer complaints.

· What specific pain points are mentioned in the consumer complaint narratives for Equifax? (Use CCND dataset)

· Produce few recommendations for Equifax to better manage consumer complaints and experiences

Tips…. The above answers are examples only. You may decide on focus on other questions not mentioned above. Consider the use of Tableau for data visualisation and NotebookLM for the text analysis (pain points identification). Good luck!