6 Steps to Perfect Qual Webinar Series Summary
Step 2 – Qualitative Research Recruiting Webinar – Webinar held on April 11, 2018
Let’s add another webinar filled with great information to the books! In this webinar in our series, we focused on Qualitative Recruitment and got to spend some time with three experts in our industry. First up, Teressa Johnnson, Director, Sensory Science and Technical Support at The Wendy’s Company. Next, Heather Hall, Vice President of Project Management at Illumination Research. And last but not least, our very own Brett Watkins, CEO and President of L&E Research.
In this webinar, we focused on Q&A based around Qualitative Recruitment, tips to help your recruiting go as smoothly as possible, and also help ward off any issues before they become issues starting with the design process.
Here’s what our panelists had to say!
1. We started by asking about kicking off a new project with a recruiting partner. What might our panelists be able to share with an amateur researcher in regards to getting recruiting started off on the right foot?
- Partner, partner, partner! You want to be sure to work with recruiting companies who not only care about helping YOU be successful, but who also align with your core values. In any good relationship, personal or business, communication and honesty are key elements to be able to have a true partnership. In the end, you’ll want to be sure that you can trust your partner to do what is best for your project.
- Be clear about your expectations for the recruit right from the start! Have a discussion about who your ideal respondent is. Ask your recruiting partner if they have any past experience with the population you are trying to reach, and if they can offer and advice on the best ways to reach them.
- Ask your recruiting partner what their plan is to find your population. If plan A does not work, what’s plan B? Having this mapped out at the beginning, will help keep your recruiting from getting hung up, and keep the process moving along.
2. Next we discussed what might be at the top of our panelist’s checklist when kicking off a new project.
- Be sure that your recruiting partner is fully aligned with you! Make sure you are crystal clear on who you really want for your research. This will help eliminate issues down the line.
- Have a kick-off call! Extremely important to have a kick-off call with your recruiting partner before getting started. In the age of email, some things may be uncovered in a phone call, that was not communicated in the email thread. This is a good time for both parties to ask questions, gain clarification, brainstorm, etc.
3. We also touched a little bit on screener development. What do our panelists always work into their screeners?
- False, or catch questions. Ask about product usage, and include a few items in a list that do not actually exist. If a potential respondent answers yes to using any of the false products, TERMINATE!
- Include your plan B right in the screener! If you anticipate that a question may not work, or may be a sticking point, make your plan B known from the start as to not hold up recruiting.
- Be careful of the way your questions are worded. It’s easy for a question to be interpreted by different people in different ways. It’s extremely important to be sure that your questions do not have multiple ways they can be interpreted. Let someone else on your team put their eyes on it, even take it for a test run if time allows.
4. Touching on recruiting partnerships again, we asked our panelists what some of their must haves are in a recruiting partner.
- Communication is key. Over communication is even better! Keeping the client in the loop, and always informed about what is going on with their recruit. If they are anticipating issues, let the client know, and even come to the table with some suggestions on what can be done to keep the recruit moving right along.
- Timely updates. A partner who understands that no news makes the client anxious! All ties in with the above, and if there is an issue, knowing about is sooner than later is best to be able to stay on top of it.
5. Along the same vein, we asked our panelists what the best service is that their recruiting partner can provide.
- Once a project is kicked off, get started quickly! If recruiting gets started quickly, you can have a gauge early on how the recruiting is going, and be able to identify any issues sooner rather than later.
- Be honest about feasibility! Work with a partner who does their homework up front, and can let you know, with certainty, if they can recruit the population you are after. If they cannot, they should come to the table with what they CAN do.
- A solid database. It’s helpful if a recruiting partner’s database holds a lot of preliminary information about potential respondents. This way, you can focus on the meat of the recruit, and get the demographics and such out of the way up front.
6. One question I think we all ask now and then is how we avoid some of the common issues that may arise with recruiting. Is there anything that can be done during the design process in order to get the most authentic participants?
- Blind recruit. Set up your screener to hide the topic, but as mentioned earlier on, include the red herring questions.
- Re-screen on-site. If someone was not truthful during the screening process, they will likely not remember how they answered if screened again.
- Work with a recruiting partner who uses technology to track things such as past participation, participant behavior, etc., so you are able to weed out non-qualifying participants early on in the process. Also a partner who is always working to grow their database to ensure fresh participants.
7. New technology and recruiting. What do our panelists think about it, what do they like, and what are some things that need to be overcome when working with it?
- Online research. You can reach a lot of people who you may not have been able to reach before, expand your reach. One of the issues with this are bots, and how they can mimic human behavior to answer questions. Better technology could be put in place to help with that.
- Webcams can give us some great insights into consumer behavior, and that can work alone as the sole methodology. It’s even better when you can use it prior to groups or interviews to get the conversation started before the respondents even arrive on-site.
We hope you found this summary to be helpful! If you didn’t register for this webinar you can listen to this webinar in its entirety, or download a free, transcribed version by clicking here.
Be on the lookout for our next webinar, which will be this summer. If you can’t wait until then, you can always view our on-demand webinars and learn about the latest technology solutions. Don’t forget to subscribe to our blog so you can keep up with what is happening at L&E!
Until next time!
Your Research Design Engineer at L&E,
Renee Wyckoff