The 2nd round of the ENGAGE MR coaching program will kick off this fall and we are inviting companies to nominate Participant Engagement Champions to join the program. You can read more about the program here. If your company understands the importance of engaged research participants to your own business as well as the healthy future of the sector, please show your colors and join the program. Participation has great benefits.
Who is the ENGAGE MR coaching program for?
The program has been designed to accommodate the needs of end clients, research agencies, data collectors and tech companies, as all have an important role to play in improving participant engagement. Indeed, experience tells us that when partners work together to improve the research participant experience at the different stages in the research planning and design process, then truly great results can be achieved. So, no matter where your company sits in the value change, there are good business reasons to participate in the program.
Recognition of Participant Engagement Champions
We believe that it is important to celebrate success and reward the companies and individuals, who work with us to create better experiences for their research participants and a brighter future for our sector. Therefore, as we announced in our last newsletter, we are excited to be partnering with the Insights Association to award certificates to their members who successfully complete the program. You can read more about the certificates, as well as the possibility to earn PRC credits here.
Data Quality, Brand Impact and Business Benefits FOR ALL
Participant engagement has a huge impact on data quality and therefore on the quality of the insights feeding into decision-making. The quality of the research participant experience can also have a hugely positive or negative impact on the long-term equity of clients’ brands. As one client we talked to put it: ‘It is in no way acceptable in today’s customer-first world that Insights (market research) is a negative consumer touchpoint.’  Clients therefore have huge benefits from participating in the ENGAGE MR program, especially if their agency partners also participate, as they can work together to embed processes, which guarantee better data more efficiently, and which deliver strong long-term brand benefits. Agencies also have much to gain by participating in the program. Champions are able to take on board the learnings from the latest research-on-research and embed best practices into their own internal processes, as well as into their processes dealing with clients, suppliers and tech providers. Not only does this provide increased efficiencies and reduce costs, but also ensures that clients get better data and insights. Agencies can use our framework to reinforce their relationships with their clients and set mutual goals around participant/customer engagement. Data collectors can reap immediate benefits from participating in the ENGAGE MR program by increasing participant engagement and reducing churn. You can read more about some of the data collector benefits in this thought-piece by Lisa Wilding-Brown at Innovate MR. And finally, there are also clear advantages to tech companies, who can gain competitive advantage by embedding participant/customer engagement tools into their solutions, which help differentiate their offering from their competitors and add value to the data collectors, agencies and end clients who use their tools. Tech companies can therefore use participation in the ENGAGE MR program to both cement client relationships and to help with business development.
Clients hold the Key
From the start, we have believed that end clients are the key to making a significant impact on the experience people get when participating in research. Whilst agencies, tech companies and data collectors can do much to create good experiences, it is understandable that they follow the money. If clients are only interested in a low price and a quick turn-around, with no real demand for data quality, then the research participants’ experiences are easily considered unimportant on this project-by-project level, so that despite the best intentions nothing happens in practice. You only have to look at the amount of non-mobile-friendly surveys still being pushed out today, to see the reality of this and its implications. For this reason, we are very honored to have Synchrony as the first end client participating in the ENGAGE MR program, and we hope that their foresight will act as a beacon for many more end clients to get involved. “Synchrony is proud to take part in the Engage MR program with GRBN. This program is critical to ensuring the research industry is being proactive and thoughtful about how we drive respondent engagement and continue to produce high quality insights. The training and thought-leadership Andrew and his team at GRBN have provided is exceptional and thought-provoking. I encourage all corporate and supplier research professionals to learn more about the Engage MR program and why this is so important to the future of the market research and insight profession.” COMPANIES PARTICIPATING IN ROUND 1 OF THE ENGAGE MR PROGRAM
  • Ronda Slaven, Vice President, Research & Thought-Leadership, Synchrony
Join the Participant Engagement Pioneers
We would like to thank the seven companies, which have shown their dedication to improving participant engagement by participating in the first round of the program. It has been fantastic working with the Champions from these companies on putting in place action plans to create improved user experiences which drive up participant engagement. COMPANIES PARTICIPATING IN ROUND 1 OF THE ENGAGE MR PROGRAM So, no matter what position your company holds in the value chain, if you care about the future of the sector, and see the need for engaged people to participate in research for the benefit of your business and your customers, then we are calling out to you to join the ENGAGE MR program and be a CHAMPION for change. You can read more about the program here. Or if you are already convinced that the ENGAGE MR program is for you, please contact Andrew Cannon.  

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR