Clean Recruiting Step 3: Eliminate Paper Sample

How are the screener responses handled?

We learned in Step 2 that most companies sort through the survey results looking for the respondents that answered the right way, and then distribute papers for recruiters from which to call. But what happens when the recruiters call?

9 out of 10 times they leave a message and wait for a return call. When the respondent calls back, hours or even days later, where is that piece of paper? 

Consider that a typical study involves speaking with hundreds, if not thousands of respondents. When these respondents are listed on paper, it’s virtually impossible to find their paperwork and it is certainly impossible to find it while the respondent waits on the phone. So when the final questions are asked to see if they qualify, there is no way to record the result.

If a respondent takes a web survey, why are there more questions? Certain questions like open-end responses, articulation and creativity questions, as well as segmentation questions are not well suited for web surveys. So, these are asked by phone. 

Back to the story of the missing papers. If a recruiter doesn’t have the right paper listing this respondent, he has no way to record that the respondent did not qualify and were not scheduled. That leaves the door open for another recruiter to call that same respondent back again, or for the respondent to call in for a second shot at getting qualified and scheduled.  

Do respondents really do this? Yes. They do. Respondents often try to guess their way in and, many times, they are even helped along by the recruiter.

What is the right way?  When a respondent completes our web survey, their record in our database is updated in real time with a Pass or Fail.  When calling out, all our recruiters work from computers that only present  respondents who Pass.  When respondents call in, the first step is to look them up.  If they were marked Pass, we move on to screening. If they're marked Fail, or were never selected for the project, the recruiter knows immediately and also knows how to politely end the call and move on to the next caller.  

Our recruiters can see the communication history for a typical research project (see above). Recruiters can see whether respondents were sent an email survey (ES), and if they did not qualify (WTR). If a respondent passed the ES, the communication record would reflect WPQ, for web prequalify, and our recruiter would know they could then proceed with the qualification process and invite the respondent.

QUESTION FOR YOUR CURRENT RECRUITER:  Does your web survey update your respondent database in real time?  The answer should be YES.

ANOTHER QUESTION FOR YOUR CURRENT RECRUITER:  Is your respondent sample printed out? The answer should be NO.

Clean Recruiting Part 2: Pre-screening Done Right

The first step in recruiting for most consumer jobs is an email invitation to a web screener…

For many companies, the survey questions are in the body of the email where they can often lead respondents, allowing them to easily guess their way in.  The sample survey to the right was based on a real email survey from a national focus group company that someone shared with me.

Regardless of how they collect the survey questions, for most recruiting companies that is where the automation stops. A supervisor then sifts through the results and hands out contact sheets for each person who appears to qualify. You will find out why this is  a huge problem in Clean Recruiting Part 3.

A proper web-survey tool (not Google docs, or questions in the body of an email) can be programmed to display only one question at a time. This way, respondents can't tell which way the survey is headed and answer accordingly to qualify.

We email, text and use OpinionWizard app notifications to alert people who fit the geographic and demographic profile for the study, excluding individuals based on status (Blacklisted), and past participation at three levels, client (usually never), end client (usually never) and last attended date (specified time period). 

QUESTION FOR YOUR RECRUITER: Are you using a true web survey platform for pre-screening, or are questions answered in an email or document? Answer should be: True Web Survey Platform (ask for the name or a demo, to verify).

Having fun? Want to See Another Bad Example?

Clean Recruiting Step 1: Prevent Duplicate Records

It sounds simple and it kind of is, if your vendor uses well designed software…

The panel must prevent duplicate respondents. The best way to do this is to base registration on phone numbers and email addresses.  If the database doesn't do that, then cheaters can create numerous records and have many chances to get into paid surveys.

Yes, people can have more than one phone number and an unlimited number of emails, but phone numbers cost money.  When people register, we allow them to provide as many phone numbers as they have.  The more, the better. This way, there is less chance of a second record being created for a person. 

If someone happens to register twice using different phone numbers, once we find them we consolidate those records into one family. 

BLACKLISTING: Once a respondent is found to be a cheater or disruptor, they are blacklisted, so they can never be used again.  Once blacklisted, they will not be sent any survey invitations. If they call in, our recruiters look them up and tell them there are no studies for which they qualify. They are still allowed to log in and update their profile and contact information, never the wiser that they have been outlawed.

QUESTION FOR YOUR RECRUITER: How do you prevent duplicate respondent records? Answer should be: Registration keyed on phone and email address which prevents duplicate entries.

Recruiting Done Right

PrecisionScreen - A Better Way To Recruit Respondents

Lanzi's Candy

Lanzi’s is a very special Chicago treat that was until very recently out of production. The old family recipe has been recreated. We hope you enjoy it!

Click image for full story

The Big Reveal

Have you ever had a need to get feedback on a large display, like refrigerators, beds, motorcycles or grocery store shelving but did not want to expose the display item until a later point in the session? 

What do you do?  Common solutions include, covering it with sheets, renting pipe and drape, locating the display in a different room which wastes time and limits exposure time. 

We have the perfect solution. Our Creative Suite is partitioned by curtains.

What do dialing reports have to do with Qualitative Research?

As qualitative researchers, many of us prefer to avoid numeric analysis. However, recruiting, whether for IDI’s, Triads, Focus Groups or Ethnographies, is a numbers game. How many people did we contact and where did they fall out? This information is invaluable to us in finding solutions when recruiting struggles.  The time to start collecting this data is before problems occur.

We approach every recruitment project with the tools needed to analyze production. Before we begin recruiting a consumer project we set up a single use link to a web based pre-screening survey, which tracks all disqualifications. Those that prequalify are spoken with again and our proprietary recruiting system logs all call dispositions.  The results of these systems are aggregated on one of our master reporting spreadsheets.

Most of the time you will never need to look at these reports. We do that for you. If there is a problem we have the data needed to support screening modifications.  We also have the ability to recall those that dropped out if changes are made to the qualifications.

Store Shelf Display Studies

For anyone researching or marketing products sold on retail shelves, a time may come, if it hasn’t already, when you need to conduct face to face research to optimize shelf layout or changes to packaging among a competitive set.   Often finding a place to do this is not easy. 

We can save you time and money.  With 32 feet of store shelves in-house we can set up displays to meet your needs.  In some cases you may want to run 2 or more interviews at a time or perhaps your competitive set is large, as with the toy display pictured below.  We can even set up two 16 foot shelf systems to create a shopping isle environment with competitive products on each side for a more real world experience.