This blog post is a summary of a recent project completed by Research & Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS).
Background: In Spring 2015, a global manufacturing company partnered with Research and Marketing Strategies, Inc. (RMS) to conduct a B2B telephone survey with decision makers and buyers of their products. The client wanted to better understand the customer purchasing behavior and preferences of the company’s products for industrial applications.
Approach: RMS utilized its in-house data center (QualiSight) and experienced B2B project telesurveyors to manage the blinded telephone survey research (the interview participant did not know the name of the RMS client). Although RMS is well-versed is developing telephone scripts, the client’s in-house research team crafted the survey used for data collection, allowing the client to harness their own internal strengths and save on the cost of the research. Once received, RMS programmed and tested the survey prior to implementation. The client provided RMS with a database of industry business contacts used for data collection. RMS can use lists provided by the client, but can also purchase business and/or consumer sample to conduct surveys of this nature. The survey was brief, and only took 5 minutes to complete. The quota of 100 telephone completes was met, and field work lasted approximately three weeks. The survey instrument included questions about the purchasing habits and key drivers for choosing local distributors over ordering direct from the manufacturer. Respondents were asked to identify 4 factors that are most important to their decision making process. Then, the CATI script was programmed to pit one against another in a trade off analysis to determine what matters most to the customer when deciding who to buy from.
Results: For this telephone surveying project, QualiSight staff collected and compiled the data into an excel spreadsheet in an agreed upon format with the client, but did not perform an analysis of the data. While similar projects may include a graphical report or require the purchase of telephone sample, the client was able to leverage their own internal expertise to use the data provided from this project to develop a report for their internal stakeholders. QualiSight has the flexibility to provide customized options to clients wishing to conduct a telephone survey project but might not have the internal resources to conduct a phone survey to complete the fieldwork. These clients choose to work with RMS QualiSight as their “back office” research team. Below is a quote from our client, explaining how the company utilized the findings from the project.
“Obtaining high quality and relevant feedback from decision-makers in our segments is difficult. We reached out to QualiSight as our data center to administer our survey and they exceeded our expectations. We used the data from the survey to help guide our global decisions on supply chain management as well as identifying improvement areas in the process that were most valuable to our market. By using a randomized phone survey and separate third-party vendor we were able to ensure a high confidence in the data we obtained with no sponsor bias. RMS did a great job for us.”
RMS is a full-service market research firm located in Syracuse, NY. If you are interested in conducting a telephone survey or other market research project, please contact Sandy Baker, our Senior Director of Business Development & Corporate Strategy at SandyB@RMSresults.com or by calling 1-866-567-5422. Visit our website atwww.RMSresults.com.
