clients concerned by the negative impact of a poor experience on brands<\/strong><\/blockquote>\r\nAt our recent annual Client Symposium, a diverse gathering of corporate research professionals, nearly all in attendance were surprised and concerned by this finding.\u00a0 Poor survey design leading to poor respondent experiences has a real and negative impact on brand<\/u>.\u00a0 Certainly, Consumer Insight\u2019s work should not negatively impact the very brands it supports!\u00a0 Just the opposite is true, and all attendees agreed: if companies are spending millions on consumer engagement in other areas, shouldn\u2019t we be working to create goodwill among those whose survey answers feed into insights so integral to moving the organization forward?\r\n\r\nIn the U.S., only a small minority of survey respondents feel there is any social value to market research. That\u2019s not good for anyone in Consumer Insights.\u00a0 By contrast, the market research industry in Germany is working to build trust and further consumer engagement, and as part of this initiative, advertise the value of research to consumers – \u00a0 \u201cthis product was created with the input of consumers like you\u201d).\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n \r\n

increasing transparency and engagement<\/strong><\/blockquote>\r\nSo we asked symposium attendees, \u201cIs anyone currently working to identify a branded way to let respondents know what was done with their responses?\u201d\u00a0 No one in the room currently does this, but several indicated they were willing to consider the notion, perhaps re-contacting respondents to let them know what decision was made using their feedback or sharing some small tidbit of information about how their answers were ultimately used within the organization.\u00a0 All agreed that this makes sense and it\u2019s natural for people to want to know that the time they spend on something is valuable and valued. However, it was also conveyed that regularly providing this kind of information to research participants is easier said than done.\r\n\r\nThe conversation then moved on to some more familiar territory, starting with consumers\u2019 concerns about their privacy in relation to participation in marketing research.\u00a0 One attendee pondered that given people are already sharing all kinds of personal and personally identifiable information (PII) on social media platforms, why the concern when it comes to research?\u00a0 The simple answer is the cost-benefit balance to the consumer.\u00a0 While people do express concern about sharing PII on social media, many have ultimately decided that the privacy trade-off is worth the benefit they get from their social interactions.\u00a0 Since most people don\u2019t see the social value of research, they don\u2019t see the benefit they receive from participating as worth the trade-off of their private information.\r\n

how ci functions can use brand impact as a driver of change<\/strong><\/blockquote>\r\nFinally, survey length and other \u201cabusive\u201d survey techniques are deterrents to those who actually have a desire to take consumer surveys.\u00a0 Not surprisingly, the ever present struggle for corporate researchers is that their internal clients want MORE answers for their money \u2013 not less!\r\n\r\nInterestingly, there were some in the room who work for organizations with a corporate mandate to keep all surveys to 10 minutes or less.\u00a0 Great conversation ensued amongst the corporate researchers in the room, with one attendee asking, \u201cHow did you start the conversation with your internal partners to convince them that keeping surveys short is a good thing?\u201d\u00a0 The answer is that Insights Leadership in these companies realized the way they were engaging people was outdated and potentially harmful to their brand, so they formed a team to create survey standards, found opportunities to test and learn, then used this information as proof of concept.\r\n\r\nOne attendee summed up perfectly why we should ALL care about respondent engagement: given all of the aforementioned concerns that survey respondents have, think about who is staying on panels and who is leaving.\u00a0 Are those who are staying truly representative of our market targets?\u00a0 We can only ensure business partners of the value of consumer insights if sample quality is maintained.\r\n\r\nAs an entire industry, we need to take responsibility now for the engagement and experience of our research participants.\r\n\r\nDave Rothstein<\/strong>\r\n\r\nCEO, RTi Research","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a recent GRBN study, conducted as part of their \u201cBuilding Public Trust Charter,\u201d only 10% of recent online survey takers have high trust in the Market Research industry.\u00a0Equally concerning is that 70% say they\u2019ve had a bad survey experience lately, with one-third of these people saying it made them feel more negatively about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2839,21,19,59],"tags":[2798],"yoast_head":"\n