It’s been a challenging few years, to say the least. As we look ahead to the coming years, we wanted to uncover the biggest challenges currently facing market researchers. So we did what we do best: designed and conducted a study of 145 insights pros to learn more about the difficulties they’re facing – and then provide ways to address them. Here’s what we learned.
Watch the on-demand webinar here to see the full research report from our study.
Participants said the most problematic and common issues they faced included the need to:
In other words, the top challenges revolved around the need to move faster while dealing with limited resources. These are the biggest challenges because insights pros are just that – pros – who want to do quality work. We all get that – we take pride in our work, and we know it takes more than an algorithm to come up with meaningful insights and recommendations for a team.
Use best practices to ensure quality. Here’s what we suggest:
Timelines: Seek out insights technology providers that can offer highly targeted qual + quant recruiting within hours or days. They have automated study templates and reporting dashboards, so you can get instant reporting to drive faster decisions.
Quality: Look for tech solutions that can capture context and experiences rather than just attitudes. You also want the ability to recontact quantitative participants or have multiple touchpoints in your qualitative studies, so you can drill deeper into the whys and iterate on your learning.
Resources: Seek out technology with reporting dashboards that include built-in sentiment and theme analysis in addition to charts and graphs. Also look for built-in comparisons, benchmarking and stat testing. When looking at your tech options, also consider on-demand services or assisted DIY capabilities. It’s a great alternative to full DIY, if you’re limited on time and need some help getting it all done. It’s also a doable, cost-effective alternative to working with full-service vendors.
Budgets: Working with a tech platform on a subscription basis can be a smart decision. Not only do you save more than traditional discounts with full-service vendors (sometimes 20% or more), but it can save your team time in dealing with bids and approvals on every project. And tech solutions that offer on-demand services can give you the benefits of full-service partners, without the cost.
So what should you do next if you want to be more agile? First, get leadership buy-in by demonstrating the potential benefits to your timelines and budgets. Next, start building agile skills in your team by experimenting with smaller research sprints. Find a technology partner that can help you – you need to feel comfortable with them and be able to collaborate. As you move forward, take time at the end of each agile study for a short retrospective. Look at your results: Did you get what you needed? Did you work too many hours? What went well? What was inefficient? How can you streamline going forward?
To learn more about agile methods and best practices, check out our new 3-part eBook series: Ready, Aim, Fire: A Guide to Agile Insights for Consumer Product Teams.