Smarter Strategies, Better Experiences: What We’ve Learned

Welcome back to the final blog of our Challenging the Status Qual series, where we delve into L&E’s journey to enhance participant experiences in research. In the previous blog, we dug deep into how participation in research can become a meaningful activity rather than just another task. Now let’s look back at the insights from our study, explore how L&E is acting on this feedback, and share practical tips to elevate participant experiences across the industry.

Respect, Rewards, and Results: Engaging Research Participants

Understanding the motivations and barriers of qualitative research participants is key to designing an experience that will not only deliver valuable insights, but also foster engagement and fulfilment.

People enjoy being part of a something larger. It is clear from our study that the opportunity to share opinions is rewarding, especially when participants see how their input is used. This remains true even when the primary incentive is monetary compensation – many take pride in their contribution, find the process interesting, and value making an impact. One participant shared, “I enjoy being part of the process… Hopefully, some of the things that we talk about do provide some value”.

However, a common frustration is having to fill out long, rigorous screeners that ultimately disqualify them. This makes them feel rejected or used for ‘data mining’. Respecting their time by informing them promptly when they don’t quality, ensuring transparency on the process, and sending clear, targeted invitations are key. One participant states that L&E’s approach was preferable because “efficiency is a big thing with you guys, making it user-friendly to go from the email process to getting booked.”

It is no surprise compensation emerged as a top solution to improve experience. Participants are interested in gamified reward points they can accumulate for gift cards, as well as opportunities for shorter, paid surveys with no qualification screener – even when compensation is lower. These are adjustments that would make research participation more attractive and gratifying.

Best Practices for Suppliers and Researchers

Having heard participant feedback, we identified the best practices for researchers and sample recruitment suppliers looking to get better engagement and reduce participant frustration. Sample recruitment suppliers can consider these best practices to ensure participants feel their time is valued and improve their experience:

Leverage dynamic technology and smart technology and smart techniques to target participants, as well as using demographic datapoint tracking to improve acceptance rates and reduce disqualification.
Streamline all opportunities into a central member portal.
Clearly communicate expectations.
Offer rewards for screener attempts, even when they get rejected to ease frustrations around screens – a major point for many.
Referral incentives can also help your member base.

For researchers, keeping in mind these strategies can significantly enhance participant experiences and reduce frustration:

Be mindful when designing screeners: respect participants’ time by keeping it short, and only ask what is necessary.
Notify Participants promptly if they are disqualified and consider collecting profile information through a check-in activity or during the session, rather than at the screener to best prioritise their time.
Participants take pride in their contribution, so sharing research results, when possible, helps keep them invested in being part of the research.
Keeping discussions lively during activities is essential to maintain their interest.
Avoid further taking up your participants’ time by changing details that will affect and confuse things.

From Feedback to Action: Driving Participant Satisfaction at L&E

At L&E, we’re actively addressing this feedback to optimise our member engagement. Our team has been busy improving the user experience on our member portal: making finding and doing screeners more accessible, improving the survey experience, and simplifying the login process. We are also in the process of developing our mobile app, intended to enhance communication, especially with younger people, through notifications rather than email.

Gamification is now embedded in our process, allowing members to earn points and badges, translating to monetary rewards. Beta testing shows a 5% increase in engagement rate in just a short few months, demonstrating the power of a more interactive and fun experience.

We’ve strengthened our communications, ensuring that screener expectations, such as time length, uploads, are clear from the get-go. Enhanced technology will also further support these improvements, enabling us to better target participants based on their profile datapoints to reduce outreach fatigue.

With the insights gained from this series, we’re excited to see our participant engagement continue to grow as we work on enhancing their experiences. Our roles as researchers and sample recruitment suppliers extend beyond conducing quality research; it includes ensuring a positive, fulfilling process for participants. Addressing their key concerns will strengthen relationships and emphasize the invaluable role they play in our work, because, at the end of the day, at the heart of qualitative research are the people who contribute to it.