Redlands Survey in Redlands, CA

Redlands Survey

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The AboutRedlands.com Survey: Some Preliminary Findings and Perspectives

The AboutRedlands.com Survey: Some Preliminary Findings and Perspectives

During the month of December 2008 and for the first two weeks of January, 2009, subscribers were asked to respond to a survey posted online by AboutRedlands.com. Respondents were a sample from over 5,000 folks who signed up to receive monthly information “ABOUT Redlands,” in our newsletter. Newsletters About Redlands Online, were distributed via email to our proprietary list of community subscribers – each interested in receiving our newsletter of up-to-date information about our home town delivered to their personal computer. As a component of our online business, the newsletter has a 48% open rate. Of this number, almost 250 people who care about Redlands, took the time to complete the survey. Clearly, this large and special sample was vested enough to seek this local information, open the Newsletter and respond to a survey asking them about businesses in Redlands. These stakeholders have provided us with invaluable data regarding what they believe about and how they behave in relation to a wide sample of businesses in the community. This report presents an overview of what we have learned.

The survey and the respondents. The instructions for the survey indicated that “We want to know what you think, hear your voice, and get your input to help Redlands thrive!” As indicated, almost 250 subscribers responded. Most were female (85%), between 36 and 50 (37%) or 50 and over (48%) and reported family incomes of $50-100,000 (39%) or over $100,000 (40%). They responded to questions about how frequently (Not at All, Occasionally, or Frequently) they had eaten at, visited, or shopped at (respectively) a range of restaurants, nightlife/lounge establishments, or shops in Redlands. They were also asked to indicate the importance of factors that contributed to their restaurant choices and to indicate the local hotels where they have had out of town family or guests stay. Finally, they were also asked to respond to: “What can Redlands business owners do to create more traffic?” This report outlines respondents’ replies to this key latter question following an overview of the findings related to restaurants in Redlands. Restaurants were chosen for coverage herein as they were, as a group, indicated to be considerably more popular among respondents than businesses in the nightlife/lounge establishments, or shops in Redlands. The findings for the question of creating more traffic are pertinent across Redlands businesses.

Restaurants. Respondents were asked to indicate “how frequently you have eaten at each of the following restaurants in Redlands recently.” Most indicated that they ate at “Fast Food,” “Chain,” or “Pizza/Take Out” restaurants Occasionally (60%) or Frequently (22%). When compared to these widely used general restaurants categories (as a baseline for comparison) our Redlands restaurants actually look quite good! Across the local eateries included in the survey, an average of approximately 40% indicated that they ate Occasionally or Frequently at the 20 restaurants assessed. These ratings are impressive as several of the local eateries assessed were quite new, and have yet to be discovered by Redlands folks. More established restaurants were actually quite popular with respondents with, for example, a very high proportion (73%) of respondents indicating that they ate at Martha Green’s The Eating Room Occasionally or Frequently. Also, approximately 50% of the respondents indicated that they ate at some of the more specialized restaurants in Redlands (for e.g., Isabellas and Claras).

The value of the information collected for individual business owners in Redlands is further indicated in the availability of a breakdown of results for each individual restaurant (as well as for the stores, nightlife/lounges, and hotels in the survey) by age and income categories of respondents. Responses to Martha Greene’s Eating Room are provided for illustrative purposes.

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Director of Marketing Research Charles D. Hoffman Ph.D., Professor Emeritus in Psychology at Cal State San Bernardino. Dr. Hoffman has been a member of the Psychology department at Cal State for 35 years. He served as Chair of the department for 12 years and as Director of the Institute for Child Development and Family Relations for three years. Currently he serves as the Director of Research for the University Center for Developmental Disabilities. He has published over 40 research papers and book chapters.