Sometimes with survey data, people put tons and tons of numbers in it. And for us it’s fine, but we have to repackage it for higher level people because that just not the way they digest the information. But Joe was able to condense that information. Sometimes he would give us two reports, one with everything, and then another version with highlights and the supporting facts for wider circulation.

They’re very intuitive to our needs. For the first project they realized what [kind of report was needed] and were very clear and provided a style that the client would want to see. For the second project, they were very clear as to how an agency would want to read something. They were able to play off our needs to make that happen.

For being such a scientific person, and statistician that he is, he very much knows how to put on his marketing or PR or sales cap and think about how information could best be communicated in way that is going to resonate with our target audiences. So it’s just fantastic to have this report that becomes the foundation for how we’re going to communicate the information. When I developed my materials from the survey, it was a cut and paste job. He had already come up with the headlines, the three main points; I could just drop it right in. It was just unbelievable to not have to waste time and energy on our end to come up with a creative way to package it, because he’s already done the work for you.

With Joe, he could kind of read our minds or get at what we were trying to accomplish. He was very thoughtful in the way the questions were developed to get at what we were really looking for. And that’s hard to do. That’s really hard to do. . . . Because we were doing this for public release, we were looking for headlines. We were looking for things that were going to grab the media’s attention that they would write about, and then promote [our company] in a positive light. And if you don’t get that from the survey, you don’t have that golden nugget. That was very different from other folks that we had worked with.

Joe has the rare ability to fully understand the client issue and design an effective and efficient resaerch approach to address the research need -- and then execute the research design. He works closely with the client, demonstrating an ease about combining different target groups and reserach priorities saying, "here's how it all fits together." He's very sophisticated. I was always impressed how he could manage all of that. His reports were very rich and provided a stamp on where [we] should focus [our] interventions. He is excellent at describing how to convey what the data is telling us, and weaves an intelligent story based on this, making it more useful. What was most valuable to me was a story that's both valid and credible.

After having dealt with many other research vendors in my career, I appreciated that Joe really listened. He didn’t come in with a sales pitch. He really listened, really tried to understand our [needs] and base the research on us. . . . He’s easily the best vendor I have ever worked with. I wish there were more vendors like him. In every industry.