A few days ago, I posted a blog about market research agencies and their websites.

Do these websites matter? Aren’t they just electronic billboards?

I think they do matter.  A lot of people who buy and use market research visit agency websites. And frankly, they are more likely to visit an agency site than that of a professional association (such as the MRA or CASRO) or of a trade publication (such as Quirk’s or Research Magazine). So these agency websites are, intentionally or not, a key source of client education.

And at the risk of sounding preachy, I think all market research professionals have a responsibility to promote market research ethics, professional standards, and innovation. And one of the ways to do it is through our public faces.

The Method to My Madness

I selected 6 websites from the Honomichl list and applied my 4 criteria. To refresh, the criteria are:

1. Educational content.
2. Standards and ethics.
3. Friendliness.
4. Innovate thinking.

Grades of A-D were assigned based on specific criteria within each metric. As an example, an agency that has at least 20 educational white papers, videos or similar forms of content got an A on the Education metric. As another example, an agency that has no mentions of market research ethics or adherence to ethical standards got an F on that metric. And if I had to search for an item for an hour only to find it buried in press releases, that gets a D. Please note that in some cases I may have missed relevant content—but if I spent an hour seeking out content for a given metric and could not find any, it is for all purposes, a low grade.

So how did the agencies do? I selected the following agencies from the Honomichl list:

Burke

IPSOS

Maritz

Market Probe

Synovate

TNS

And to be clear, I am not looking to pick on anyone. I did this as an exercise to see how well agencies do on these metrics.  My key take-always:

• Educational. Incredibly inconsistent, though a few shining stars.
• Standards and ethics. As a group, agencies do this poorly. None had mentions of ethics or standards on their home page or other prominent pages on their web sites.  Professional association badges are hard to find, if evident at all.
• Friendliness. Again, very inconsistent.
• Promotes innovative thinking. Very inconsistent. A couple of agencies do a good job; a couple seem to neglect this angle altogether.

So How Did They Do?

The top 2 grades go to….drum roll….IPSOS and TNS.  Both have web sites that have the highest scores on the metrics applied. IPSOS has a bit more content that promoted market research innovation. But both sites do a great job on education and friendliness.

I welcome any feedback here, or by phone: 508.691.6004 ext 705. Thanks!

Websites are the virtual storefronts of market research agencies. It’s where you often get your first impression of a potential research supplier. You peek in the window and see if the goods are narrow or diverse, dated or current. You get an impression about personality and culture. You may even get a sense of trustworthiness.

But if you have ever looked at more than 2 or 3 agency web sites, you will see that the quality and content vary dramatically. Almost dismayingly so.

So how to compare them? How to decide if an agency is worth further consideration?

The difference between good market research and great market research can be significant.

But sometimes the incremental time, cost and sweat of that extra effort simply doesn’t make sense. Sometimes, “good” is just perfect.

I was reminded of this last week at the Launch Camp conference in Cambridge. The event, for entrepreneurs seeking social media wisdom, had some interesting speakers, though the one from whom I learned the most was Dharmesh Shah, Chief Technology Officer and Founder of HubSpot (on Twitter as @Darmesh).

These days, there are innovators out there. Agencies using cooler tools, applying newer sample quality processes, and even offering new deliverables. Their methods may push you out of your comfort zone. Their proposals may be harder to read because they won’t be full of the same boilerplate you’ve been seeing for years.

The original article recommends NPS (Net Promoter Score) as the optimal standard for customer satisfaction with telecommunications providers. Ummm, no. So since I didn’t get to share on the TMCnet site, let me share some information here for those of you interested in measuring customer satisfaction in the telecommunications space.

If you need to set expectations with colleagues about the quantitative market research process, here you go (see bottom of post): the key steps layed out in a simple flowchart.

I have used this diagram to walk market research newbies through the process many times, and it always gets rave reviews. While the chart is pretty self-explanatory, a few items are worth pointing out…