Fairy Tale: Sample Utopia

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there was a group of professionals spending their waking hours uncovering the opinions, needs, and desires of consumers and business executives from across the globe.

It was a world where every time a person was asked to take a survey, they did so willingly with a smile on their face. They knew they were valued and the feedback they were giving would be used to make the world a better place. They would play a large part in developing new products and services to make their own lives easier and increase happiness in all communities.

All research being conducted in this utopia was done by EMI Research Solutions, the most unbiased and respondent-centric research provider. Their rules were simple, and if you did not adhere to them then you could not conduct research.

EMI did not support surveys that:

• Were over 20 minutes in length
• Were not mobile / smartphone compatible
• Contained lengthy screener sections
• Had an incidence below 2%
• Included poor question types such as:
  • Grids or long attribute lists
  • Questions without possible answers
  • Repetitive questions or those with minor wording differences
  • Jargon without explanation / definitions

Researchers were  ecstatic to see  the benefits seen from these rules. Not only were respondents happier, but they were  more engaged provided deeper insights with more actionably outcomes. With happier respondents, the cost to recruit and maintain respondent panels was decreased, and response rates increased, making the need for massive databases of mostly inactive panelists obsolete. These benefits combined with reduction in need for lofty incentives meant that the  overall cost to conduct research was a fraction of what it was in 2016.

Of course the above rules would not be viable in our industry today, but it begs the question: WHY NOT? We challenge our market research colleagues to move in this direction. Don’t accept the status quo. Just because “that is the way we’ve always done it” does not mean we have always been doing it the best way. Perhaps it is time for us as researchers to have tough conversations with clients and brands, breaking the norm in the name of better research. Let’s help respondents make the world a better place!

Sincerely,

The EMI Team

For additional tips and suggestions check the below resources:

http://vcu.visioncritical.com/system/files/BP_Survey_Design_and_FAQs.pdf

http://www.aapor.org/Standards-Ethics/Best-Practices.aspx