Customer Success is a relatively novel concept in the market research industry when the customer in question is a respondent who is actively participating in surveys and other research projects. The advent of social media networks and omnichannel engagement methods allow for many touch points with a respondent who is constantly thinking about where to judiciously invest his/her spare time. A good onboarding and post-onboarding user experience, then, becomes paramount to maximize the marketing ROI. The market research industry, until now, has seldom invested time and resources into ‘looking after’ its respondents but that is about to change.
Market research is people and cost-intensive. Traditionally, it relied more on face-to-face interviews to fulfill its objectives. The transition to online surveys has been more of an evolution rather than a revolution where accessibility to reliable tech, high-speed networks, targetable audience, and data quality were the major roadblocks that prevented the widespread adoption of online market research universally. Developed nations such as the US and UK were the early entrants to online market research, but the fire soon caught on in other countries. With digital consumer panels spawning across the globe, a race began to capture the interests of the audiences for conducting market research.
Online survey is the most commonly used digital market research methodology. Though incentive is the key driver for any respondent to participate in such surveys, the manner in which you facilitate the surveys and how you make the respondent feel important in the overall process of generating insights can determine the lifetime value that you derive from each respondent. The methodology itself, however, has its fair share of challenges.
First, every survey has quota and termination requirements, which leaves the respondents confused and furious whenever they hit those blocks. Data suggests that a respondent is only able to successfully complete 1 out of every 4 surveys that are sent, with the remaining 3 falling into quota and/or termination conditions. Second, the security and verification processes involved in ensuring data quality results in a few false negatives, resulting in the removal of good respondents and/or good-quality data, adding to the frustration of respondents. Last but not least, competitive pressure results in reduced incentives for respondents for the same or higher length of interview with the passage of time, resulting in lowered intent from respondents, dropouts, and increased recruitment costs.
There’s a lot more success to be had if market research companies realize the value of nurturing their active respondents. Investing in hi-tec such as machine learning to understand respondent behavior patterns, setting up multimodal respondent notification engines, creating avenues for respondents to earn additionally from survey gamification methods, and creating interventions where respondents can directly participate in the insights generation process and/or see the results can extend the lifetime value derived from a respondent by as high as 35%-40%.
Market research is more than just collecting data and generating insights. The industry has to shift to make the process as inclusive and fair as possible to the respondents who are spending their valuable time answering a survey or participating in a research project. Personalizing each respondent’s experience on the platform is the way to go forward; this would mean personalized sampling, rewards, and other value-added benefits. Investing in such methods would not only improve the efficiency and effectiveness of market research but also align the interests of the respondents towards the platform, thereby making them sticky customers.
