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Good Question...

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Posted by Scott W. Spain on February 08, 2000 at 12:48:36:

In Reply to: What about the rest of the world? posted by Sherman Whipple on February 08, 2000 at 11:45:58:

I feel compelled to, once again, make my standard disclaimer: I've been a Web survey programmer since 1994. I also have 13 years of data collection experience, mostly with telephone interviewing. Great experience for what I do, but not "full-service" experience. That is, I have never been involved in making the kinds of decisions you are facing. I can only offer suggestions based on what our full-service clients (several of them top-50 companies) learn through working with us. Of course, I can also share my gut reaction, but who knows what that's worth. With that said, I will share my suggestions.

I hate to leave you in the dark, as I can see that you want to embrace this new beast we call online research. However, my typical recommendations are to consider online research in the following occasions:

"Dot com" clients.
"Warm market" interviewing (customer sat, employee sat and measuring the opinions of people who have already inquired about your client's product/service). Assuming, of course, you have email addresses for these people.
It's also a good consideration for many "testing" environments (packaging, ad, logo, etc.). This often requires a telephone recruit, but you can still save a lot of money over traditional phone/mail studies.

Outside of these scenarios (and maybe a few others), it's the client's gamble to try online research, and I clearly let them know that. All I can do is offer my best advice and let them decide whether or not to take it. Of course, this is much easier for me, as a programmer/data collector, than it probably is for you as a full-service supplier. I would imagine that you are pretty much required to provide strategic advice to your clients. Coming from me, advice is just gravy. It's up to them to decide whether or not they like the taste of it.

It would probably be much more profitable for me if I came up with the valid-sounding pitch of how perfect a replacement online is for traditional methodologies, that is becoming so (too, in my opinion) popular these days, but I'm afraid I can't. Research, for me, goes beyond making a living. I still need to be able to sleep nights.

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