[GRIT COMMENTARY] Shared Goals Linked by a Shared Challenge

Better, cheaper, faster.  That’s what buyers want from panel companies.  And guess what?  It’s what panel providers want from buyers.  Here’s the catch… These shared objectives are inextricably linked by the survey instrument.  Because there is a third partner in this relationship that is often ignored – the survey taker.  If buyers want better, cheaper, faster data, then it’s time for the survey to evolve to meet the needs of the survey taker -- Better designed surveys, that are faster for respondents to complete, and that are cheaper to field because they don’t result in expensive survey abandons and panel attrition.  It’s the only way everyone wins.

Online panels are no longer the new kid in town.  With the first digital panel established more than twenty years ago, the space has matured quickly.  You can now reach survey participants in nearly every country in the world in moments, and count on them to give you opinions that help shape business decisions great and small.  From billion-dollar due diligence, to food packaging feedback, to advertisement testing, and most recently with helping elect our world leaders, online panels are making an incredible contribution to market research.  They have lived up to the speed and cost promises, and continue to disrupt with the addition of advanced technology. 

Given the amount of work conducted with panels every year, GRIT dedicated a portion of their research to asking participants questions about their panel relationships, including overall satisfaction, cost, the purchase process, time in field, feasibility, customer service, ease of access, and quality.   Overall, scores were relatively similar between agencies and corporate clients, with heavy use of the neutral point for all measures. Buyers want more. Much faster.  Still better. Even cheaper.  All while maintaining great service and yielding data that has predictive power.  The area with the largest opportunity for improvement was quality respondents. 

Quality data is a shared responsibility, and requires buyers and sellers to truly partner.  This is no different than it was in phone, in person, and mail survey research, but for reasons that we cannot fully understand, in online research our industry is quick to blame the participant rather than analyse the research process. 

Research Now has spoken about quality from every aspect we can think of, but today we want to boil it down to two simple steps:  Reach people where they live and ask them to do things they can and will do.  It’s really that simple.  And this advice is no different than what we tell our clients selling goods and services to these same consumers.  Reach people and understand them, then engage them based on that understanding.

• Reach people where they live – on their mobile devices.  Globally, this is the absolutely best place to reach them today, but requires true understanding of where they are and how they use it.  And RE-designing every interaction to respect that understanding. 
• Ask them to do things they can and will do – which can be quite a lot if we are open and honest.  Panel members all over the world are incredibly generous with their time and information if we help them understand why we need it, and make it easy for them to participate.

Both of these points mean shorter, better, surveys.  So while buyers push for better and faster, survey participants and panel providers are demanding the same in return.  Better surveys that are shorter and faster to complete.  It’s no longer a good idea – it’s required to survive. 

Research Now is more committed to the panel model than ever before, investing more in 2015 than in our history in building great panel.  We are bullish about the types of data and insights that can be gathered when you combine a willing participant with a reasonable request for data. Integrated data solutions, combining survey answers with matched and appended data, as well as behavioral information from cookies, tags, pixels, and meters has real appeal and potential, but requires a healthy, trust-based relationship with an extremely large number of people globally.  The only thing standing in our way is finally learning how to engage people in data collection that actually makes sense.  Being reasonable in our survey process.  Asking them to do things they understand.  Being transparent about our activities and trustworthy with the data. We all win, or we all fail, based primarily on how well we design the survey.