Looking back, here are what we consider to be the five biggest changes that shaped current challenges faced by market research and opinion polling:

1. Online data collection using sample panels became the dominant mode of surveying, displacing a huge industry in telephone surveying.  Plus there has been a dramatic decline in households owning landlines, which makes the ideal of probability sampling extremely difficult to achieve.
2. Survey technology made data collection easy and cheap which means that a lot of market research became a commodity, resulting in industry consolidation and need to find new ways of adding value.
3. An explosion of too many surveys, which are everywhere, powered by simple tools like Survey Monkey.  Along with this there has been a dramatic decline in response rates, bringing the issue of quality to the fore like never before.
4. Statistical and mathematical expertise grew in demand.  There is so much data and information, and it is so easy to get.  But who knows what to do with it all?
5. “Audience-ready” reports became more valuable.  Newspapers laid off staff and market research departments downsized, demanding a level of professional involvement to ensure that research reports are easy to read, interpret, and ready to deliver to the audiences who need them most.

One product of these five trends is Versta Research’s focus on high-level expertise and academic brainpower so that you get smart, creative, and flexible market research.  Another is the skill and commitment we have in helping you communicate research to managers, clients, reporters, and the audiences you need to reach.

In our next post we’ll highlight what we predict will be the five biggest trends that will shape market research challenges in the decade to come.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

But the problem is rarely “bad respondents” – instead the problem is lazy researchers.  When people discover that the survey they just agreed to take is boring, tedious, repetitive, or too long, they either quit altogether or they stop providing good answers.

It is our job to elicit good data through good design, and to keep respondents – the lifeblood of our work – satisfied and thoughtful.  In a recent article in Alert, a publication of the Market Research Association, Jackie Lorch, VP of Survey Sampling International suggested one way to do this:  Use wording within the questionnaire that “speaks” to respondents, thanks them, and encourages them, in the same way we might do during a one-on-one interview.  Here are four specific suggestions she offers (reproduced verbatim):

1. Acknowledge the considerable effort people are giving.  For example:

The survey is quite long, and there are many questions, which you will have to think quite hard about.

2. Thank people for their effort with specific words which go beyond the usual, casual “thank you for your opinion.”  For example:

Thank you for completing the questionnaire so far. We realize that some of the questions you’ve been answering are not easy, and have required some real thought, especially that last group.

3. Remind people that we know they have a choice to take part or to complete the whole questionnaire.  For example:

Please click on the “next” button when you are ready to continue.

4. Reassure people that survey-taking is an activity in which people like them participate – but at the same time there are some aspects which may seem a bit odd.  For example:

People all over the nation and from all walks of life are taking part. The questions may seem a bit strange at first.

Versta Research believes that to serve our clients, we also need to serve our research respondents.  They are the ones who provide the information and data that we transform into stories, providing the deep insight that clients need.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

The reason?  Many clients have been using focus groups not for deep understanding of consumer needs and preferences, or to generate creative group dynamics among participants.  They were using them to get reactions and “votes” on package designs or product concepts.  Do you like the blue package, or the red package, and why?  Current technologies make it much easier and faster to answer simple questions like this through online surveys.  Since there is not a lot of research design or analysis involved, clients can do this work themselves.

There will always be a role for the expertise that a good focus group moderator or analyst offers, but helping clients pick between the red box and the blue box is not it.  When technologies make our work easier, faster, and cheaper, it makes sense that we bring key elements of this work back in house, while we work with partners and experts to tackle the tougher research challenges we face.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

Research seems to show this is not the case.  Further, a study just published in the Summer 2009 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly outlines three ways that we can improve the quality of responses in on-line surveys:

• Make the boxes in which respondents type their answers larger

• Explain to respondents that their answers can exceed the size of the box

• Tell respondents how valuable their input is, and encourage thoughtful answers to each open-ended question

These simple techniques will encourage respondents to give more complete, detailed, and thoughtful answers to our questions, yielding rich and insightful data.

–Joe Hopper, Ph.D.