Why conduct an annual survey?
An annual user survey provides an opportunity to collect standardized feedback about our brand and software from our global userbase. This information can then be used to establish benchmarks, measure company growth, and better understand how our users interact with us. The 2022 release is the second edition of the annual survey and has been updated to align with the company’s evolving business goals.
Methodology, Response Rate, and Responder Demographics
Salesforce contacts were used to construct the sample of 50,000 users who would receive a survey invitation. To ensure global representation, a stratified random sample by sales region (i.e. Americas, Japan, China, Europe, Rest of World) was used to create this subset. Survey invitations were sent through Qualtrics on November 9, 2022, and the survey closed after two weeks on November 23, 2022. In total, 1,062 responses were received resulting in a response rate of 2.12%.
Responder Demographics: Unlike the 2021 survey, this year’s survey asked a series of optional demographic questions to better understand the identities of responders. The following statistics represent the results of those who chose to answer these questions:
- Gender: 75% of users identified as male, 21% identified as female, and 0.6% identified as non-binary/third gender.
- Ethnicity: 90% of responders identified as not being of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish Origin
- Race: The majority of responders identified as either White (45%) or Asian (43%)
- Generations: Users were asked for their birth year from which generation labels were constructed based on ranges provided by the Center for Generational Kinetics. Most of the responders can be categorized as Baby Boomers (27%), Generation X (29%), or Millennials (30%). Users of the Silent Generation (2.6%) and Gen Z (1.8%) represented the minority of users.
Who are our users and how do they perceive JMP?
Responders of the survey have generally been using JMP for a longer period of time: 24% of users report using JMP for 3-5 years, 16% for 6-9 years, and 40% for 10 years or more. Newer users represented the minority of the sample with 5.6% of users reporting using JMP for less than one year and 15% using JMP between one and two years. JMP (66%) and JMP Pro (32%) were the most used platforms followed by JMP Clinical (0.3%) and JMP Live (0.2%). Regarding frequency, 35% report using JMP a few times a week, 28% use JMP a few times a month, 22% use JMP every day, 11% use JMP every few months, and 4.4% use JMP a few times a year or less.
Net Promoter Scores: A Net Promoter Score is a metric that measures the loyalty of customers and their propensity to recommend a company, product, or service to others. This year’s survey included two Net Promoter Scores: one to assess our company (NPSC) and another to assess our software (NPSs). For the NPSC, users were asked “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” to gauge their perception of our brand. Results showed that 55% of responders can be classified as promoters of our company and 32% as passive. For the NPSs, users were asked “How likely are you to recommend JMP software to a friend or colleague?” Results showed that 59% of responders can be classified as promoters of our software and 28.4% as passive.
User Sentiment: To further assess users’ opinions of JMP, a series of statements were provided, and users were prompted to state how well each statement described JMP from not well at all to extremely well. The results can be grouped into three domains: competitive insight, UI/UX insight, and trust/reliability insight.
Competitive Insight
- Is the market leader: 20% extremely well & 35% very well
- Has more advanced features than competitors: 22% extremely well & 37% very well
- Is a premium product: 31% extremely well & 43% very well
- Is a good value for the money: 18% extremely well & 37% very well
- Is the best software: 25% responding extremely well & 47% very well
- Is a product people love: 20% extremely well & 40% very well
UI/UX Insight
- Is easy to use: 25% extremely well & 37% very well
- Is intuitive to use: 21% extremely well & 35% very well
- Is enjoyable to use: 32% extremely well & 39% very well
Trust/Reliability Insight
- Produces analysis results that I trust: 46% extremely well & 40% very well
- Produces graphics that look professional: 33% extremely well & 35% very well
- Is dependable: 35% extremely well & 47% very well
- Has good documentation: 26% extremely well & 37% very well
Consumer Research Analysis
The consumer research feature of JMP was employed to uncover more detailed insights and generate recommendations for the company.
Perception of JMP by Females Users: Females are underrepresented in STEM fields, so it should come as no surprise that females represented the minority of our sample (21%) compared to males (75%). When looking more closely at the data, two noteworthy findings related to gender can be identified: First, based on the sample, it appears that our female userbase is growing over the generations. Of the top three generations represented in the sample, Millennials possess the highest proportion of females (27.8%). This shows that JMP’s userbase mirrors the industry’s trend of an increasing population of female scientists and engineers. Second, when looking at the NPSC and NPSS by gender, both men and women show almost identical proportions of promoters, passives, and detractors and no statistically significant difference could be found between these groups. This suggests that JMP has been effective in avoiding any disparities in how men and women experience our brand and software—a trend that should be continued in the future.
Nuances in Net Promoter Scores: Overall, the Net Promoter Scores showed the majority of responders representing promoters of both our company (55%) and product (59%). But taking a closer look at the data can reveal some nuances in the types of users who are more or less likely to be promoters of JMP. First, filtering by generation reveals that earlier generations are more likely to promote our company and software than more recent generations. Baby Boomers, for example are 13% more likely to promote our company and about 9% more likely to promote our software than Millennials. Does this suggest that younger generation perceive JMP less favorably?
It could be suggested that users belonging to earlier generations may represent JMP users who have been using JMP for a longer period of time and their familiarity with JMP may be driving a more favorable perception. To explore this, the net promoter scores were filtered by the reported years of JMP use which showed that the longer people have spent using JMP, the more likely they are to be promoters. Those reporting using JMP for less than one year are least likely to promote our company and software.
These findings provoke the question of whether users’ likelihood of being promoters is more driven by generation or years of use. Two models were fit with NPSC and NPSS as the regresand and the variables Generation, YearsOfUse, and the interaction variable Generation x YearsOfUse as regressors for each. The results indicated that only YearsOfUse was statistically significant which suggests that how long someone has been a JMP user is the driver of their propensity to be promoters rather than the generation they belong to.
One may counter that of course users are more likely to promote us if they are longtime user. Yes, this should be expected. However, I would suggest for us to consider why these disparities exist: JMP being the powerful tool that it is, should there be statistically significant disparities in users’ likelihood to promote us based on how long they’ve worked with JMP? In other words, it shouldn’t take years for our users to understand the value of JMP. Ideally, someone who has been using JMP for one year—or even less—we would hope is just as willing to promote our company and software as someone who has been with us for 10 years or more. Even accounting for differences in the number of responses for each level of years of use, we would hope to not see statistically significant differences. Recall earlier that even though women represented the minority of this sample there appeared to be no disparity in willingness to promote JMP as compared to men.
So why are generational differences important to mention? Different generations have different attitudes and perceptions of the both the workforce and the products they consume which will be important to keep in mind for future marketing strategies. Further, in this sample, Millennials represent 41% of those using JMP for less than one year and 51% of those using JMP between one and two years. In discussions of how to enable new users, it is important to keep in mind these users comprise a large percentage of Millennials.
Opportunities to Reach New Users: With the previously discussed generational differences in mind, opportunities to reach new users can be identified in the data. Millennials are less likely to go to the JMP User Community, access technical support, or use JMP education resources when they need help using JMP’s capabilities to solve a problem. Finding ways to redirect users to these sources will be crucial as the majority of those who report using these the resources are highly satisfied with them.
Social media presents an opportunity to more rapidly reach a large number of users. Of social platforms, Millennials in this sample used YouTube most frequently (31.9% report using this platform everyday) compared to the social platforms Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This was interesting as only 7% of Millennials report using YouTube to look for help on how to use JMP yet most report using this platform quite frequently. Twitter had the highest proportion of users who said they never use this platform (56.8%) followed by Instagram (50.8%).
Further Study
To build off the findings of the 2022 Annual survey results, further data could be collected to address questions that arose from this analysis. These may include collecting information on how our users interact with social media for work vs entertainment and how users are directed to JMP resources when looking for help. Also, exploring why a user maybe more likely to promote our software than our company could be valuable to understand how users are perceiving our brand. To improve next year’s survey, having a different question path for new users may be valuable to directly ask about how users have been enabled since beginning their use of JMP. This may reveal opportunities for User Enablement to improve our connection efforts.
To explore further reports of the data please visit JMP Live.
For questions about this survey, please reach out to Taylor Ferguson (Taylor.Ferguson@jmp.com)
