Are online respondents as representative as those in face to face research?
In which countries can you do research online?
How do you keep data quality high?
Can you use our list of customers as respondents?
How do you source your panellists?
Why are we called Qubiq?
How do you write concepts correctly for NPD work?
How do you keep new concept images secure online?
Where are your Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy?
In which countries can you do research online?
How do you keep data quality high?
Can you use our list of customers as respondents?
How do you source your panellists?
Why are we called Qubiq?
How do you write concepts correctly for NPD work?
How do you keep new concept images secure online?
Where are your Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy?
- Are online respondents as representative as those in face to face research?
Of course! You just need to remember that people online are slightly skewed towards being more tech savvy, in the same way that people being polled in the high street for face-to-face research at 10am on a Tuesday are skewed towards being in the high street at 10am on a Tuesday! We can use quotas to provide a demographically rep sample and with internet usage going through the roof, we’re very satisfied that our respondents are representative. We’ve shown time and again that our results stack up very favourably when compared with other methods; so please contact us if you have any doubts whatsoever. - In which countries can you do research online?
Anywhere that has good internet access – i.e. most developed countries. It obviously depends where panel providers have built up strong panels (we aren’t tied to any one supplier). Countries such as the big 5 in Europe, the USA, Canada etc. are of course no problem, whereas panels are smaller in Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden etc. as the day to day demand for research is much smaller. Panels are growing fast in Eastern Europe, Russia, South America, the Pacific Rim, Australia and China and we’ve run many successful projects in these areas over the last couple of years. New countries come online all the time, so please get in touch and ask us where we can cover. - How do you keep data quality high?
By keeping our surveys interesting, relevant and focused – if respondents get bored they will naturally start to pay less attention to their answers. If you find you are bored when testing your survey it is likely the respondents will be too! We use our interactive methods to keep interest levels up (see our demos) and also try to keep the language we use fairly informal so people don’t feel like they’re filling in a dry form.
It is possible to use a very long and dull online questionnaire and you’ll still get the results filled in eventually… but, unbeknown to you, quality will have diminished rapidly as the survey progressed – not ideal when you’re making important business decisions!
Overall we find data quality to be very good in our online surveys and indeed better than most other forms of research. This is partially because there is no interviewer present to bias the answers given – which also helps with open ends which tend to be very frank and answered more fully than with other forms of research.
At the end of the survey we check for data quality – if people have sped through the research, or if they have answered grid questions with the same answer repeatedly, we compare their data to everyone else in the sample and deduce whether they have answered the survey properly, throwing them out of the data if not and reporting them to the provider. - Can you use our list of customers as respondents?
If you have their email addresses then yes we can – this is the most cost effective way of reaching the people that already use your products or services and something we would always recommend doing if you have sufficient numbers. You will probably need several thousand email addresses, depending on the response rate, which in turn depends on how engaged your customers are with your product/service. If your customers love (or hate) your brand you are more likely to get feedback – if they don’t really care much either way or haven’t used your services in a while, then response rates will be lower.
There is also the issue of ‘data protection’ – if your customers are not expecting to be contacted by third parties (us) then we can script an email for you guys to send out, directing your customers to our survey.
You should also consider contacting non-customers via our panels; after all, you want to know why people aren’t using your services too. - How do you source your panellists?
If we aren’t recruiting from client supplied lists we outsource to our panel partners. We ensure these partners have procedures in place that satisfy our requirements in terms of sampling sources, frequency of usage of panellists, screening information held about panellists, regularly pruning the database for non-response, pruning respondents that complete surveys incorrectly etc. They utilise various recruitment methods and ad formats (banners, e-mails, keywords, text links, referrals, search engines) using a variety of ad messages and a broad range of partners. The objective is to have an overall balanced panel membership, broadly reflecting each country worldwide. We’ve got a separate document that goes into further detail if you want to know more. - Why are we called Qubiq?
Well, the short answer is “why not?” - in truth it doesn’t mean a great deal… it’s not Swahili for “market research pioneers” and nor is it a cunning acronym related to Questions and IQ. The bottom line is that when we came up with a list of names to choose from, it was the one we kept coming back to and remembering, so it was the natural choice.
NB – we are not called Cubiq, Qubic, Quibiq or Quibic! - How do you write concepts correctly for NPD work?
You need to adopt different styles depending on whether you are running early stage or later stage NPD research and there are many pitfalls you need to avoid, or you run the risk of ruining your research before you’ve started. We’ve got a whole separate document on this so please give us a ring to find out more – it’s really not as straightforward as you might think and is key to the whole process. - How do you keep new concept images secure online?
We use various bits of cunning programming to protect images, but unfortunately no company can 100% protect an image shown in research either online or face-to-face. Anyone can take a picture of stimulus (either on their monitor or in a face-to-face interview with their phone), so if something is genuinely incredibly confidential you probably shouldn’t research it at all! Having said that we’ve done loads of projects on highly confidential new concept ideas for some of the biggest brands in the world, and it really doesn’t seem to be an issue – most panellists have seen it all before and are reasonably blasé about new concepts. In fact we advise not to bring too much attention to the issue; if you state “These images are highly confidential, do not copy or save them” you are just inviting people to do the opposite as it’s human nature! - Where are your Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy?
You’ll find a link to these at the bottom of every page.
