This article was recently featured in the April 2013 edition of Quirk’s Marketing Research Review. You can find the full article on Quirks.com/articles – ID 20090416. Thoroughbred Research Group and DataPrompt International assisted Quirk’s in authoring this article. The article discusses questions you should ask when selecting a telephone facility for your market research survey or recruiting needs.
If you are looking for a facility to handle some or all of your market research calling component(s), think about these five factors before making your choice:
1. Basics
- Can the facility accommodate small and large projects?
- Does the facility have inbound and outbound calling?
- Does the facility provide multi-mode research options (web, email, etc.)?
- Does the facility have international/multilingual experience?
2. Staff
- What are the required qualifications of the interviewers?
- Have the interviewers conducted similar industry/client studies in the past?
- How are the interviewers trained and what ongoing training is provided?
- What is the supervisor-to-interviewer ratio?
- What percentage of the interviewer completes is monitored?
3. Technology
- Does the facility have remote monitoring capabilities?
- Does the facility offer live monitoring of active interviews?
- Are the interviews recorded?
- Does the facility have interactive voice response (IVR) or predictive dialing?
- Does the facility offer real-time access to data?
- Does the facility offer CATI software to ensure routing is correct?
4. Procedures
- What are the quality control procedures?
- Is there a secure on-site server?
- How often is the server backed up?
- What percentage of phone calls are actively monitored for quality?
- Do interviewers read verbatim or are they allowed to paraphrase?
5. Deliverables
- During and after the telephone interviews – what are the deliverables?
- What time are my reports ready each day and how do I receive them?
Research & Marketing Strategies (RMS) has an in-house call center QualiSight, which can be utilized for your market research call center and recruiting needs. If you are interested in using a call center for your market research study please contact Lauren Krell at LaurenK@RMSresults.com or by calling her at (315) 635-9802. Lauren is the Manager of RMS QualiSight and can assist you with your request.