Is your qualitative research helpful or harmful? | New White Paper from L&E

DWG Admin on October 24, 2019

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Is your qualitative research helpful or harmful?

Recent trends in the market research industry show that more and more researchers are looking to quantitative panels to complete qualitative research. The hope is that quant panels will reduce costs and save time, but are they actually faster and cheaper, and what is the quality of the data they generate?

With new research by Insight and Measurement’s David F. Harris and L&E’s Renee Wyckoff, and an in-depth interview with Procter & Gamble’s Tia Maurer, our paper proves that completing qual research without a specialized company poses a serious threat to data quality.

To continue reading, download our latest white paper, by clicking here (no form to fill out).

Recruiting the Best Market Research Respondents

DWG Admin on July 26, 2019

Whether you’re conducting qualitative or quantitative market research, the quality of your respondents is the most critical factor in your project’s success. Excellent recruiting is a three-way street requiring strong communication and understanding between the client, the market researcher and the recruiter. And because there are so many moving parts to recruiting, there are many ways that it can go wrong.Here are some tips to make sure you recruit the best respondents for your research project:

MARKET RESEARCH VIRGINS AND OTHER MYTHICAL CREATURES: Thirty years ago, it was typical that researchers specified that they only wanted respondents who had never previously participated in market research. Those respondents inevitably became known as market research “virgins”. While it is now cost-prohibitive to limit your recruit in this manner, you do want to avoid those respondents who participate too frequently in market research. (A friend once told me that his wife, who had taken early retirement from a large corporation, “did a few focus groups a month” to supplement her income. Talk about a “professional respondent”!)

KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE: The screener qualifications should be as simple as possible. After all, you don’t want to lose a qualified respondent because they got bored with long and overly-detailed screener questions! Keep the in-depth questions for the actual market research and use the screener to focus on the respondent qualifications that are most important to meet your project objectives.

FREQUENTLY EXAMINE THE RECRUITING RESULTS: Once the project starts, the recruiter will send you a report of the respondents that have agreed to participate. Take a look at the report as soon as you receive it and let the recruiter know of any changes you need. If the recruiter has missed a key requirement, or if the balance of the recruit is not what you want, the sooner the recruiter knows, the sooner they will be able to adjust. Don’t leave these reports until the recruiting is nearly complete; reviewing even a few recruits can give you valuable information to fine-tune the respondents with whom you end up.

A WORD ABOUT INCENTIVES: You have to manage incentives responsibly, but in nearly every case, you must offer an incentive to secure participation in a market research project. Consumers expect cash, cash equivalents (e.g., gift cards) or merchandise. Business respondents also expect incentives, but some may be prohibited from receiving an incentive due to their company’s policy. Giving a charitable donation in the respondent’s name, or providing a summary of the research results can sometimes work as an incentive to reward business respondents while keeping within the limits of their corporate policies.

BEWARE THE CLIENT LIST: Often businesses have a list of clients and prospects that they want to use to recruit respondents for a market research project. It is critical that the recruiter and the market researcher evaluate the list and understand how “good” it is as a sampling frame. In particular, is the list big enough? With screening questions and decreasing participation rates, it is not at all unusual to need a 10:1 list to participant ratio for successful recruiting. Because the list works for marketing doesn’t necessarily mean it will work for recruiting market research respondents. Work with a recruiting partner who has the flexibility to recruit from a client list first, but can draw from their own database if the client list is exhausted and you still need more respondents to fill a study.

UNDERSTAND INCIDENCE RATES: Do you know how many people in the United States bought a manufactured home between 6 and 18 months ago and who had a warranty claim for a defect with the home? Turns out to be 0.7% of the U.S. population. Do you know there are only 270 hemophilia doctors in the entire U.S.? (Both of these examples are real, so don’t assume this can’t happen to you!) Obviously, rare and unusual populations are more difficult to recruit and may require greater creativity from your recruiter. They will also probably cost more to recruit, may need higher incentives, and will likely take longer to recruit, so plan ahead!

UNDERSTAND PARTICIPATION RATES: It is no secret that participation rates for market research are declining. It is therefore critical to understand how the population you want to explore typically participates in market research before you get started. Participation rates are influenced by the length of the survey, how interesting the topic of the research is, convenience (e.g., time and location of in-person research, being able to start and restart easily for online surveys) and the value of the incentive, so take this into consideration as you plan your project. Often, being able to mention the sponsor of the research can make a huge difference in participation rates, so consider if keeping the identity of the sponsor confidential is really necessary for your research objectives.

SOURCE OF RESPONDENTS: Where is your recruiter going to find these respondents, anyway? Respondent panels, in-house databases, social media, purchased lists, association or company directories are all sources of respondents used by recruiters. What’s the best source for your project? It simply depends on your project. Is it qualitative or quantitative? Are you looking for consumers, business professionals, or medical professionals? How rare is the population of interest? How representative should the respondents be of the total population? Work with your recruiter to determine the best approach.

CONSIDERING MEDICAL RESPONDENTS: Market research with medical professionals and patients is understandably more complex due to the obvious confidentiality and patient privacy concerns. Before you begin your project, make sure that you are educated about medical and healthcare topics. You need to know enough to understand how to best explore your particular research topic.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT: The simple fact is that the more recruiting you do, the better you get. Make sure your recruiter has strong experience, especially if your project includes a difficult recruit. Check their references and look at the types of projects and clients they work with most frequently. An experienced market research recruiter will have the skill and expertise, as well as the creativity and resources, to get you the best, most qualified respondents for your project.

Quality recruiting is the difference between marketing research success and failure. While recruiting may take a large percentage of your market research budget for an individual project, don’t try to save money at the expense of good recruiting. After all, bad recruiting leads to bad information. And, in business, bad information can lead to bad decisions, which can be expensive. Invest in the best recruiting possible to make sure your market research project succeeds

Renee’s Takeaways – Get the scoop on L&E’s Tech Partners Webinar!

DWG Admin on March 7, 2019

Webinar Summary

L&E Technology Partners – A Deeper Look at Qual Research Technology – Webinar held on February 20, 2019

As the first webinar in our 2019 series, we focused on bringing some of our valued technology partners to the forefront. L&E has the opportunity to see the tremendous value that working with these partners brings to our qualitative work every day, so we wanted to share what we know hoping that spreading the word about what these partners can do, will add some value to your work as well!

This was a very charismatic panel, as you could tell that they were all very passionate about what they had to say! We began by introducing Chad Reynolds, founder of Batterii. Chad practically grew up in consumer research, as he had the influence of his mom who worked for P&G for over 30 years doing product research. He spent a good part of his childhood testing all sorts of products from shampoo to potato chips! We’re all glad he survived, so that he could join us and tell us all about Batterii. Next up, we had Dave Pataki, Executive Vice President of Focus Forward. Dave had been with Focus Forward for over six years. Prior to that, Dave spent many years in the CPG industry, helping come up with innovative ways to grow either a segment or a product line in ways that were not always top of mind. Next, we had Colin Valdiserri, Co-Founder and CEO of Informed Decisions Group. Colin’s background is in consumer psychology and multi-variant methods. IDG was started about 15 years ago with the concentrating on generating non-traditional research methodologies, focusing more on behavioral analysis. Then we moved on to the always delightful Allie Putterman of LivingLens. Allie is the Business Development Director at LivingLens. Allie’s background has always been in market research, working from the segmentation side of things to new product testing, and now, on the tech side of things. Last but not least, we met Jared Nguyen, Manager of Research and Technology Services at Recollective. Jared’s background has been in both marketing and technology as a whole, and he has always been interested in ways to interact with technology He’s really been enjoying watching online qualitative research space evolve in the past couple of years.

In this webinar, we focused on learning more about our valued tech partners, and the services they provide.

Let’s find out what they can do!

We started by asking our partners a little bit about what their company does, followed by a feature that their platform or service offers that their clients get excited about.

Batterii started out as a tech platform, realizing that working in innovation and research projects, there were two really big needs. The needs were collecting insights from consumers, and getting at the really interesting and intimate moments in their lives, as well as pulling all of that information together in a space were researchers and stakeholders can collaborate on it. When missions are launched, people tend to get really excited about what they can do when different communities or different populations are built out. They get really excited about the types of questions they can ask, and then follow that with being able to capture intimate video moments that can be shared in presentations.
Focus Forward started in the transcription business in 2003. Transcription could be looked at then as a word document in different formats, edited and summarized from notes. What gets clients excited now is a new tool called Enhance. Enhance takes the transcript and syncs it up audio or video where you can actually use the transcript as more of an interactive tool.
IDG focuses on shopper insights. Clients get most excited about the life-sized virtual aisle. The life-sized virtual aisle offers clients an extremely high 4k resolution screen in which can be touch-interactive, where participants can shop, take products off the shelf, turn them around, and look at them. The biggest advantage is not being locked into certain markets, the virtual aisle is portable, and can be set up anywhere in the world.
LivingLens is the friendly tech company! They enable better, richer insight by turning video and other multimedia into stories, data, and insights. What gets clients really excited is the capture, analysis, and the storytelling capabilities that come out of that. The time that they can save working with multimedia content and the new types of data they can work with to gather insight from.
Recollective is an online mobile community platform optimized for desktop and mobile access. Projects can be small and personal such as a three-day engagement with 10 participants up to 5,000 participants for a year or longer across the globe in multiple languages. Clients get excited about a diverse set of tools available, such as quick on-boarding, participant tools, abilities to screen them, and presenting activities to them. In that socialized or private environment, you can moderate and pull data for analysis. At the drop of a hat, a researcher can quickly build their project within the Recollective environment with intuitive tools, different methodologies, etc., which ultimately helps save time with analysis.

Next, we asked our partners what they feel their platform or service lends that provides something truly unique or different to the way their clients do qualitative.

Batterii provides the ability to story-tell through an entire project in a very different way. Within the platform, you can create consumer-driven stories by being able to quickly jump through the walls of your room and show the actual videos we started with based on the consumer need. Here’s how the journey map was created around the pain points, here’s the 10 ideas that were created based off of that, then here’s the mission that was run where concept testing was done with different consumers, in a different market, who have the same need. Being able to tell the story all in one place has been the most powerful thing that separates Batterii from what is being done today.
Focus Forward is now using Enhanced transcription where transcripts can be synced up with video or audio, allowing clients a more interactive experience with the process and the ability to jump right to the key points. Where before, the only choice was for a client was to read through a lengthy document to get to the point of what was really going on in the research. With Enhanced, in a matter of minutes, they can get to key words, highlight clips, can pull those clips for presentation purposes.
IDG obviously can be used for the virtual aisles. Clients are also using in different ways such as creating menu boards for fast food restaurants. Rather than them having to mock-up menu boards, or make changes within the restaurant, they can use the virtual aisles for that, and make changes based off of their qualitative research. Another benefit is that eye-tracking can be added. Researchers can get a quick view as soon as the person is done virtually shopping to see what they noticed and didn’t notice.
LivingLens can help deliver greater efficiency when working with video. From the moment a video comes in, it is automatically transcribed, from there, you have the ability to search the spoken work, find exact moments of emotion, exact moments of when a product is mentioned, etc. This really speeds the analysis process. LivingLens also help researchers tell great stories through using video. Show reels can be easily created from the video content making sure that their insight is memorable and delivered with impact.
Recollective features an activity based engagement approach that offers a lot of flexibility in the way you design your research. You can easily use multiple methodologies, so whether it’s concept testing, shop alongs, or even a live chat session, all of the tools are there for you to review images, sort and rank, even engage with participants on the platform. The intuitive tools help you draw the entire community into content that you want them to see and interact with, and automation such as notifications and reminders help keep the process easy and running smoothly.

We then asked our partners what they may be able to find out using the data that comes from their platform or service, that they may not be able to using another platform or service.

Batterii can take very loose questions and refine them down into a set of different activities. Missions can be created, and also follow-on polls. Several missions could be running in 10 different cities at the same time where different themes are popping up, from that there is the ability to quickly create a new mission in order to dig in a little deeper. The content coming back such as video, photos, poll data, gives the team the ability to create sketches or concepts that could solve a problem.
Focus Forward, with the use of Enhanced transcripts, allows clients to get to the information that they need quickly and efficiently, so they may save time writing a report, or being able to use the content for a presentation, etc.
While IDG does not actually produce data, it is the type of display used to deal with generic discussions and then collect data from other sources. What comes out of the virtual aisle, really depends on what is built into it. Behavioral data actually can be collected as participants interact with the virtual aisle. Moderators can know how many times something was picked up, whether they looked at the back of it, whether they put it back on the shelf, versus putting it into their virtual basket.
LivingLens allows clients to use video across a variety of methodologies. Video provides additional layers of insight where you may be able to see someone’s environment, watch them interact with products, and most times, that is going to reveal more than they might not have thought to share with you.
Recollective puts care and effort into designing data and content format to allow for seamless analysis across all areas of the platform by allowing to capture response in a number of different data formats. By keeping all of that under one roof, you can interact with the content immediately, and literally moderate and do analysis without even leaving the page.

Piggy backing on the last question, we asked our partners what kinds of tools they offer to make analysis easier on their clients.

Batterii does image and video analysis, frame by frame. If you have to find logos, key words, objects, places, facial expressions, etc., it’s easy to quickly spot different themes and content.
LivingLens removes the manual burden that comes with working with video. They leverage AI learning to speed up the analysis process of the content. They can also remove any language barriers for interpreting content in any language.
Focus Forward, from a transcription standpoint, they are allowing clients to quickly get to where they need to go by taking human transcript and marrying it with audio and video at any given point in time.
Recollective provides everything from word clouds to photos and video walls along with dynamic charts in a dashboard streaming format. Also, multilingual automatic video transcription that feeds directly into text analytics and data discovery tools.
IDG’s biggest piece is the eye tracking they can provide in conjunction with the virtual aisle. Simply because moderators can talk about the different packages that are being tested, talk to the participants what they like and don’t like. Eye tracking helps convey information that a participant may not have been able to get across, such as what they noticed, what they didn’t.

For the last question, we asked our partners what they thought about AI and machine learning, and what impact they see them having on qualitative research.

Colin of IDG shared that from his perspective, there have already been some advancements in terms of visual recognition. Something that used to have to be done on a frame by frame basis, can now be done using visual recognition, delivering results more quickly.
Dave of Focus Forward shared that while AI has certainly made some advancements, it still has a way to go when it comes to transcription. Maybe ten years from now, but right now, nothing can replace the actual human transcript.
Chad of Batterii felt that we’re still in an infancy stage when it comes to AI machine learning for qual research. However, down the road it will help add a much more human element to the work we’re doing by giving us more time to actually spend with people. A lot of emotional benefits that we’re not seeing just yet, but it’s coming.
Allie of LivingLens shared that AI and machine learning are already driving a lot of the capabilities on their platform. An example would be by using object recognition during an ethnographic diary study, where a participant is shopping, we can pinpoint the exact moment that the shopper is at a certain place in the store. It really helps eliminate the need to watch through all of the content, or manually tag points. It’s still evolving, but it’s helping figure out how to work with qualitative research in a new way.
Jared of Recollective felt that leveraging AI is about bringing efficiencies to things, and that there are elements of qualitative research that can only be improved with AI. Recollective is always looking to find those efficiencies, whether it just being time saved.

We hope you found this summary to be helpful! If you didn’t register for this webinar you can listen to this webinar in its entirety, or download a free, transcribed version by clicking here.

Be on the lookout for our next webinar, which will be in June 2019. If you can’t wait until then, you can always view our on-demand webinars. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up with what is happening at L&E!

Until June!

Your Research Design Engineer at L&E,

Renee Wyckoff

6 Steps to Perfect Qual Series: Step 6 – Maintaining Client Relationships | New White Paper from L&E

DWG Admin on December 6, 2018

6 Steps to Perfect Qual

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Step 6: Maintaining Client Relationships

A good marketing strategy is paramount in building client relationships, from generating new business to encouraging former clients to use your services again. So, how can you use your resources to effectively nurture your leads?

The final white paper of our series explains the importance of building trusting relationships between your company and clients.

Download this white paper to discover:

The importance of maintaining client relationships and impact on business
How to build impactful marketing strategies using email and social media
How to create engaging thought-leadership content to demonstrate industry expertise

To continue reading, download our latest white paper, 6 Steps to Perfect Qual, by clicking here.

Partners not vendors

DWG Admin on November 8, 2018

When interacting with clients it’s important to use the right terminology to describe the relationship you have with them. Using the wrong word risks devaluing the work you do together, making the valuable contributions you bring seem unimportant. Describing yourself as a ‘supplier’ or ‘vendor’ can be interpreted to have this effect.

Recent articles on Quirk’s have highlighted this debate. Brooks Deaton, Senior Director at Consumer Insights at NASCAR, recently wrote: ‘“Vendor” feels cheap. It reminds me of a baseball game where I’m buying a hot dog and, more than likely, a beer. It is a transaction that doesn’t require much thought and represents something generic in exchange for money.’ From the agency side, Isabelle Albanese, President at Consumer Truth wrote: ‘I don’t supply – I contribute. And my contributions are considered to be a valuable part of the relationship, unique and constructive.’

Terms such as ‘vendor’ imply speed and ease and while these aren’t necessarily bad qualities, it’s questionable as to whether these are the most important things you want to get across to potential clients. What about the meaningful work you do to add value to their business and your relationship with them? Is that not something you want to illustrate up front, before mentioning how fast your work is? Terms such as ‘partner’, on the other hand, imply a consistently strong level of commitment that reflects hard work and honesty on both sides. It suggests a long-term effort to produce a positive impact, rather than the ‘use once, throw away’ attitude which can be deduced from ‘vendor’ or ‘supplier’. What you give to a client is worth reflecting in the name you give yourself. As Isabelle Albanese said, you ‘contribute’ to your clients to add value to the research process, so why degrade your contributions with a demeaning title?

Your aim as a qualitative researcher is to understand people, and a term such as ‘vendor’ does not imply any level of comprehension either of consumers and customers or of your clients as a business or as individuals. It does not imply that you’ve given up any time to appreciate their offering. As Brooks said, ‘vendor’ and ‘supplier’ imply sales, and a cheap, quick and easy transaction at that. We have written previously [insert link] about why you should get rid of the business pitch and gain new business through thought leadership, and relating to people through honest and approachable conversation. Referring to yourself as a partner and collaborating with a client as a partnership is essential for this.

Finally, Brooks Deaton said in his Quirk’s article that when he sees agencies describing themselves as ‘vendors’ he believes it cheapens the valuable work they do. That this terminology is ultimately off putting to the clients it’s meant to attract raises a clear problem. Calling yourself a ‘partner’ will emphasize the confidence you have in your company’s ability. It’s not worth risking losing new business prospects before they’ve even fully checked out your offering, simply because you’ve chosen the wrong word to describe yourself.

Renee’s Takeaways – Get the scoop on L&E’s Qual Research Recruiting Webinar!

DWG Admin on April 23, 2018

6 Steps to Perfect Qual Webinar Series Summary

Step 2 – Qualitative Research Recruiting Webinar – Webinar held on April 11, 2018

Let’s add another webinar filled with great information to the books! In this webinar in our series, we focused on Qualitative Recruitment and got to spend some time with three experts in our industry. First up, Teressa Johnnson, Director, Sensory Science and Technical Support at The Wendy’s Company. Next, Heather Hall, Vice President of Project Management at Illumination Research. And last but not least, our very own Brett Watkins, CEO and President of L&E Research.

In this webinar, we focused on Q&A based around Qualitative Recruitment, tips to help your recruiting go as smoothly as possible, and also help ward off any issues before they become issues starting with the design process.

Here’s what our panelists had to say!

1. We started by asking about kicking off a new project with a recruiting partner. What might our panelists be able to share with an amateur researcher in regards to getting recruiting started off on the right foot?

Partner, partner, partner! You want to be sure to work with recruiting companies who not only care about helping YOU be successful, but who also align with your core values. In any good relationship, personal or business, communication and honesty are key elements to be able to have a true partnership. In the end, you’ll want to be sure that you can trust your partner to do what is best for your project.
Be clear about your expectations for the recruit right from the start! Have a discussion about who your ideal respondent is. Ask your recruiting partner if they have any past experience with the population you are trying to reach, and if they can offer and advice on the best ways to reach them.
Ask your recruiting partner what their plan is to find your population. If plan A does not work, what’s plan B? Having this mapped out at the beginning, will help keep your recruiting from getting hung up, and keep the process moving along.

2. Next we discussed what might be at the top of our panelist’s checklist when kicking off a new project.

Be sure that your recruiting partner is fully aligned with you! Make sure you are crystal clear on who you really want for your research. This will help eliminate issues down the line.
Have a kick-off call! Extremely important to have a kick-off call with your recruiting partner before getting started. In the age of email, some things may be uncovered in a phone call, that was not communicated in the email thread. This is a good time for both parties to ask questions, gain clarification, brainstorm, etc.

3. We also touched a little bit on screener development. What do our panelists always work into their screeners?

False, or catch questions. Ask about product usage, and include a few items in a list that do not actually exist. If a potential respondent answers yes to using any of the false products, TERMINATE!
Include your plan B right in the screener! If you anticipate that a question may not work, or may be a sticking point, make your plan B known from the start as to not hold up recruiting.
Be careful of the way your questions are worded. It’s easy for a question to be interpreted by different people in different ways. It’s extremely important to be sure that your questions do not have multiple ways they can be interpreted. Let someone else on your team put their eyes on it, even take it for a test run if time allows.

4. Touching on recruiting partnerships again, we asked our panelists what some of their must haves are in a recruiting partner.

Communication is key. Over communication is even better! Keeping the client in the loop, and always informed about what is going on with their recruit. If they are anticipating issues, let the client know, and even come to the table with some suggestions on what can be done to keep the recruit moving right along.
Timely updates. A partner who understands that no news makes the client anxious! All ties in with the above, and if there is an issue, knowing about is sooner than later is best to be able to stay on top of it.

5. Along the same vein, we asked our panelists what the best service is that their recruiting partner can provide.

Once a project is kicked off, get started quickly! If recruiting gets started quickly, you can have a gauge early on how the recruiting is going, and be able to identify any issues sooner rather than later.
Be honest about feasibility! Work with a partner who does their homework up front, and can let you know, with certainty, if they can recruit the population you are after. If they cannot, they should come to the table with what they CAN do.
A solid database. It’s helpful if a recruiting partner’s database holds a lot of preliminary information about potential respondents. This way, you can focus on the meat of the recruit, and get the demographics and such out of the way up front.

6. One question I think we all ask now and then is how we avoid some of the common issues that may arise with recruiting. Is there anything that can be done during the design process in order to get the most authentic participants?

Blind recruit. Set up your screener to hide the topic, but as mentioned earlier on, include the red herring questions.
Re-screen on-site. If someone was not truthful during the screening process, they will likely not remember how they answered if screened again.
Work with a recruiting partner who uses technology to track things such as past participation, participant behavior, etc., so you are able to weed out non-qualifying participants early on in the process. Also a partner who is always working to grow their database to ensure fresh participants.

7. New technology and recruiting. What do our panelists think about it, what do they like, and what are some things that need to be overcome when working with it?

Online research. You can reach a lot of people who you may not have been able to reach before, expand your reach. One of the issues with this are bots, and how they can mimic human behavior to answer questions. Better technology could be put in place to help with that.
Webcams can give us some great insights into consumer behavior, and that can work alone as the sole methodology. It’s even better when you can use it prior to groups or interviews to get the conversation started before the respondents even arrive on-site.

We hope you found this summary to be helpful! If you didn’t register for this webinar you can listen to this webinar in its entirety, or download a free, transcribed version by clicking here.

Be on the lookout for our next webinar, which will be this summer. If you can’t wait until then, you can always view our on-demand webinars and learn about the latest technology solutions. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up with what is happening at L&E!

Until next time!

Your Research Design Engineer at L&E,

Renee Wyckoff

More time to focus on the good (participants)

DWG Admin on March 6, 2018

Looking for respondents who wear glasses three times a week, eat steak tartare once a month, and go for just one run a year (every January)?

In our last blog, we discussed the power in using recruitment software to fend off and quarantine problem participants, such as those troublesome ‘professionals’. The latest technology and quality recruitment methods take care of these problem participants for us – allowing us to move on and focus on the good.

With technology in defense mode, recruiting companies can switch their focus to offense -to proactively search for the best participants – those ideal candidates most suited for any qualitative research project, no matter how targeted.

So, how do you know if a participant is the right participant? Of course, you want to attract only the people that are in research for the right reasons. Researchers want the people who are excited to help and want to share their opinions about the products and services they are passionate about. They want to help a brand meet their needs.

But once again, recruitment technology and leading software platforms are here to support an easy and high-quality recruitment process. The technology secures the highest quality participants by tracking behavior, while also providing a great way to engage with participants prior to the in-person research taking place.

So how does a research company locate these quality recruits?

The technology makes it easy to search for top recruits. It uses specific keywords and product mentions to perform a thorough search, in order to continue building the database. The software finds and adds more than 100 new participants each day. The search criteria and strategy in itself is rigorous, and it includes filtering tools from basic demographics to many other data points (over a hundred to be exact). For example, basic data points would include age, ethnicity and marital status. More specific criteria could be home type (such as owning a town home), food restrictions (gluten free) and technology (owning a Google Home). This allows researchers to zero in on precise recruits. So basically, you can afford to be picky.

In order to keep things accurate, the management tools also provide respondents with 24/7 access to their profiles for continual updates. The participants are also constantly tracked. For example, tracking participation and behavior in previous studies can eliminate respondents based on participation requirements. Behavior tracking also allows panel companies to build relationships and tap into new consumer segments. Reward programs make a big difference, and they can really work in terms of referrals. The software runs reward programs that help to build panel through the company’s funded initiatives and people who are dedicated to panel growth and panel integrity.

So, you might be wondering if the technology can be used to help you find an entrepreneur in Arthur, Nebraska (population 119)? The answer is yes.

Looking for more best practices on recruitment? Download our latest white paper on best practices in qualitative research recruitment here (no form to fill out).

The myth of cheaters and repeaters – An insider’s look into qualitative research participants

DWG Admin on February 22, 2018

If you think professional respondents and problem participants are disrupting the quality of your insight, then you’ve fallen for the tired propaganda of those on a mission to steer clients away from qualitative research.

That’s right, it’s a myth.

Of course, professional participants do exist, and a lot of people only want to help for the sake of the incentive. But the thing is, they don’t actually prove a problem for qualitative researchers. It’s not because these people don’t try to cause a problem, but it’s because as an industry we have barricades in place to fend them off completely. And if they slip through, we have the knowhow to quarantine them before they can affect the insight. Therefore, although cheaters and repeaters do exist, they just don’t make it in the world of qual – and certainly not in our panels.

The first thing to say is that it’s not proprietary screening processes, cold calling or digital marketing alone that prevents these naughty participants from passing through. It’s technology that does the trick.

It’s all about the pre-emptive maneuvers. Having the right technology in place to support the recruitment process is standard for the respected qualitative panel companies. Sophisticated database management systems diligently track behavior, and therefore they can denote the problem participants while making them unaware of their disqualification.

Of course, there are the lower quality panel companies among us who simply don’t invest in the proper panel development. They’re the companies who are busy trying to convince clients of their ‘secret sauce’, which is said to defend against professional participants. But that sauce just doesn’t exist. It takes the right technology, management systems, and human engagement to immediately disqualify the people who are just in it for the money.

The software used by the well-respected recruitment companies tracks participation behavior on an ongoing basis, and quickly identifies any issues from the screener questions at the very start. This allows us to rule out or eliminate the problem participants before they can influence the insight. In fact, the technology can track over a hundred different data points for each respondent to ensure the participants are of the highest quality. With these intricate and all-encompassing searches, the system is able to find 120-130 new participants every day to join our already large panel of extremely engaged people, which means we can avoid recycling the same participants over and over again. This active search strategy offers plenty of first-timers who are prioritized for lists, which eliminates professionals. But of course, the search and screening processes run by the software is always followed by real human interaction – a final opportunity to verify the quality of the participant. At L&E, we have someone on staff whose full-time job is dedicated to building the quality of our database, so problem participants don’t even have a chance.

So, it’s not a ‘secret sauce’, but a rigorous process of selection and elimination, powered by state-of-the-art database software, supported by the latest technology, and backed with real human engagement.

Plus, it’s that same technology that supports our effort in finding the very best respondents for each individual qualitative project. While fighting off the naughty guys, the software provides a great way to engage with the good guys, which helps to build relationships and encourage participation. Stay tuned for more on how technology helps us engage with only the best participants in our next blog.

And in the meantime, you can download our latest white paper on best practices in qualitative research recruitment here (no form to fill out).

6 Steps to Perfect Qual Series: Step 2 – Qualitative Research Recruitment | New White Paper from L&E

DWG Admin on February 13, 2018

6 Steps to Perfect Qual

White Paper Download

Step 2: Qualitative research recruiting

How do you get the best insight? You recruit the best possible participants.

This L&E trust guide shares the power behind quality recruits with a series of best practice steps.

Turn these qualitative recruitment best practices into actionable plans to lead your clients to true insight.

This paper includes:

Critical steps and valuable tips in getting the right participants
Leading techniques taking advantage of new (and old) resources
Leveraging the best technology in recruitment software
Support for finding those rare, hard to reach people for quality insight

To continue reading, download our latest white paper by clicking here (no form to fill out).