Market Research (Survey)

Last weekend, I read about Msau’s blog about being conned by people using survey as a tool. I am working in market research industry, dealing with survey projects day in day out. We face a lot of difficulties in convincing people we are carrying out genuine market research – high refusal rate, thanks to these con men.

Anyway, coming back to the point. Genuine market research does not give gifts (we call ‘token of appreciation’ or ‘incentives’) by ‘CHANCE’. It is usually a standard gift for all respondents (people who participates the survey). Normal house-to-house or office-to-office interviews usually are without gifts or low value (RM10 max); e.g. pen, towel, mug, etc. Value of gifts depends on length of interview and subject. If it is a business-to-business interview, value of gifts would likely be higher; e.g. Selangor Pewter product that worths around RM50-200 (depends on how difficult is the subject).

We don’t give out incentives based on ‘your luck’. If we give, every respondent gets the same thing. There is no such thing as ‘scratch and win’.

There were a few occasions when interviewers come to my house. I always let them interview, as I understand how difficult their task is (am now with client side so qualified). However, I always get disappointed when it comes to the end of the interview – the interviewers would say that ‘as a token of appreciation, we are giving out gifts… it depends on your luck what you will be getting…’. The moment they said it depends on my luck, I knew it was a fake research. I immediately told them to leave – without even to see my ‘luck’ what I was getting. I was sure I would get something great – con man punya style mah!

So, you have my word – genuine market research will not tell you that your gifts depend on your luck. If you get something, it is always carried in their bag – you get it immediately after interview completed. If you don’t want the gift, they will leave it at your doorstep, because one of the QC we check on their work is whether they give out the gift or not (so the interviewers will not keep the gifts and sell it for side income).