It is rightly said,” In today’s complex and fast-moving world, what we need even more than foresight or hindsight is insight”.
Today, in this competitive world, it is nearly impossible to efficiently sell a product or service without having conducted market research. The importance of market research is that a business company gains a deck of solutions for developing upon the critical business processes, increasing profits, improving on the company performance, investigating through competitors and getting more satisfied customers.
For a company to have increased sales, better customer management, and business growth, market research plays a key role and has become a necessity in this modern competitive era.
In this blog, I will be guiding you on how to decide upon the best market research firm for your business.
Understanding of Research Objectives
This is the most important factor to consider when choosing a market research firm. In order to conduct a meaningful study, you have to be sure that the firm understands what you are trying to achieve with the research. It is vital that the research team has a “think like the client” attitude while developing an approach. Let us consider a company that is looking to conduct focus groups with customers to gauge their level of satisfaction and as a result improve services. The research firm needs to be well versed in recommending that the client should conduct a survey instead. In this case, a survey may be a more fruitful approach because it can reach a larger audience and provide the research team enough data to develop quantifiable conclusions. While focus groups would provide some feedback, it would not be effective in achieving the goals of the particular client. Verifying the research objectives should be the first and foremost step in every market research study.
Capabilities
Make sure that the firm you select is able to use various methods to conduct research. A firm that conducts only surveys will be good if a survey is necessary, but the methodology may change once the objectives are fully understood. You’ll want to have a few options. Sometimes it is necessary to combine multiple methods as well. If you see that the firm has a variety of methods in its arsenal, you can be sure that your questions will be answered effectively. In-depth interviews, focus groups, surveys, and mystery shopping are some key methodologies to look for.
Importance of Deadlines
A market research firm can have all of the right qualities to conduct an awesome study, but if it can’t commit to turning the project around in a time-efficient manner, you’re probably better off going with someone else. Being able to meet deadlines has been an issue for nearly one-fifth (19%) of companies, which say they have worked with research agencies previously that were not able to complete a brief on time, while 28% state that the findings they received from a supplier have been of poor quality. Perhaps adding further to these issues, 27% have witnessed the agency team they were working with got changed during mid-project, while 18% quote that the supplier did not have the expertise they thought they did while hiring them.
It is becoming increasingly important for agencies to achieve a quick turnaround on research projects. Projects happen quickly because the business needs to react and make strategic decisions at speed.
Cost
Cost is the most common factor that organizations consider when selecting a market research firm – and it shouldn’t be. Have you ever crossed upon a great deal on a generic product, only to find that it doesn’t serve the same purpose or isn’t as high-quality as the original? Anyway, later you probably ended up buying the more expensive one. The same holds true for market research as well, except the horror stories are far worse than one can imagine. A firm that drives the price down by taking shortcuts and skipping parts is doing you more harm than good – and charging you for it! Reliable market research comes at a price. The firm needs to have connections with enough people and the right people to get answers for you. Remember that market research is like an investment. An organization that sees it as such is the one who flourishes.
Experience
Though this is quite obvious the weight goes heavy on this one. Take a look at the firm’s client list from the past and present. Search for the key information on the individual analytics team members and decide whether their experience is fitting to your study. Find out their references and connect with them to get a little background. This is a good time to pull out your report card and go through categories to verify your own ratings.
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