In business, more often than not, the truism that you “get what you measure” tends to hold true. Therefore we wanted to make sure that metrics were at the core of the
GRBN Participant Engagement Initiative in order to drive substantial positive change.
Research Participants Want To Influence Things
Our research tells us that many people participate in research out of a desire, not just to share their opinions, but to actually influence things, for example by being part of the process to create new products and services. Participating in research can also make people feel closer to the brands and companies they feel affinity to, which is particularly relevant to participants in both Brazil and China.
Knowing Who The Survey is For Provides Additional Motivation
In the same research, as many as 43% of participants stated that they would be more motivated to take a survey if they were told the name of the company or brand who was sponsoring it. This is perhaps not surprising in light of their motivations, but is nonetheless a fact often ignored by practitioners.
So, Let’s Be More Transparent And Tell Participants Who Is Behind the Research
Participants tell us that, currently, only in a minority of cases are they actually told the company or brand behind the survey. Whilst there is often good reason for not exposing the sponsor of the research at the beginning of the survey, in the majority of cases there is probably no negative impact from doing so at the end, and in fact, we believe it can have a positive impact not only on the data collector, but also on the company or brand behind the survey, under the assumption of course that the experience was a positive one.
We will be testing this hypothesis over the coming months and will report back to you on the findings. If your project isn’t “top secret”, we encourage you to think about communicating something along these lines at the end of your participant interactions:
“This research was conducted by xxx on behalf of yyy. We would both like to thank you for taking the time and effort to participate. Your opinion is important to us.”
We know that participants value feedback, so we will also be testing the types and forms of feedback that are most appreciated.
People Think Negatively Of The Brands/Companies In The Survey When They Have A Bad Experience
Whilst many people clearly vote with their feet when they have a bad experience, i.e. they quit the survey, many also vote with their hearts and think negatively of the brands/companies in the survey. There is also the risk of negative word of mouth, which is of course amplified by social media these days.
Therefore, when we conduct a bad survey, not only are we risking losing a potential future participant, we are risking negatively damaging our clients, either in general or specifically, and their brand equity.
Do People Think Positively About The Brand / Company Behind The Survey When They Have A Great Experience?
This is another hypothesis we will be testing as part of the GRBN Participant Engagement Initiative.
Our hypothesis is that, in practice, many participants perceive taking a survey as a brand/company touchpoint, and if this is indeed true, then it would make sense for clients to see this in the same way. Obviously, this is not relevant for all research projects, and we are certainly not saying that we should endanger in any way the research objectives, but all things being equal, if we give participants a great experience, why shouldn’t we allow the client’s brand equity to grow as a result, for example by saying thank you on their behalf at the end of the engagement, or even better, giving them feedback on why their participation is/was so important to the client?
Hiding From A Bad Experience or Creating A Better Experience
So, what do we do if our / our client’s survey sucks from the participant’s point of view? We could go out of our way to mask the survey in the hope that the bad experience only affects the data collector / the next client, who wants that person’s opinion, in addition to the participant themselves of course.
No doubt, some will read this analysis and indeed draw this conclusion. We believe, however, that this conclusion flies in the face of the current trends of transparency and customer-centricity. We believe that there is, in contrast, much to be gained by grabbing the bull by the horns and creating a better participant user experience.
You Get What You Measure: Driving Change
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, we believe that we will get what we measure from this initiative.
If we only measure the user experience itself, this will not be enough to drive the needed change in behaviour amongst end-clients and research agencies, as well as data collectors. The partners in the Participant Engagement Initiative are therefore being asked to deploy two metrics at their end of their participant engagements:
1. User experience
2. Brand impact
We believe that measuring, and understanding what is driving, a positive / negative brand impact, as well as a good/bad experience, will give us the leverage needed to drive behavioural change:
- When an Insights Director knows that their activities are having a positive cumulative impact on the company’s reputation / brand equity she/he has a great story to tell the CMO.
- When he/she knows that their activities are having a negative cumulative impact on the company’s reputation / brand equity, she/he has something serious to sweep under the rug.
We hope that many clients will want to be in the first group and will
join the initiative to work together with research agencies and data collectors to deliver better user experiences, improve participant engagement and drive up participation rates.
We think this is the least we can do for the people who kindly give their time to participate in research or give access to their data.
Our intention is to prove that it also makes good business sense to do so.
Watch this space.
