Reinventing marketing research through automation

Posted by Thomas Naude-Filonnière on October 9, 2018

Automate tasks with no added value

I started my career in market research 10 years ago. At the time, producing a study, even a simple one, was a complex process that involved many steps. Between the questionnaire and the report that were given to the client, there were many more technical stages of programming, verification and formatting.

Each stage of a marketing study involves the intervention of one or more people - study director, study, field and treatment managers - who must coordinate. The number of tasks and participants requires the formalization of exchanges and the establishment of time-consuming processes. Checks must be carried out at each level to ensure that the information has been passed and the tasks carried out as expected.

This organization has proven itself and makes it possible to carry out the most complex studies successfully. The numerous stakeholders will each contribute their expertise and build on that of the others. In the case of simple studies, however, the technical functions - programming the questionnaires, processing the results - are often limited to data entry operations and do not have the opportunity to contribute their expertise. These steps thus complicate the process, creating in addition the need to supervise/verify them, without producing added value for the end customer.

10 years later: the steps remain the same

10 years later, that pattern hasn't really changed. The steps remain the same: humans always perform many tasks without added value for the customer. With the generalization of offshoring, production tasks have probably been outsourced to other countries but their supervision remains based in France.

But today, automation is starting to change the way marketing research is produced. Concrete solutions exist to relieve teams of repetitive tasks to allow them to focus on tasks with higher added value. The benefits are obvious for everyone:

• for the research institute: producing a study takes less time for the teams and is therefore more profitable
• for teams: they are relieved of tedious tasks and can focus on the most interesting and challenging tasks
• for the client: the teams can devote more time to their analyses and recommendations, the advice that accompanies the results of the study is of better quality. What's more, the study is (potentially) cheaper

We've more than halved the number of steps for which human intervention is required

With the poll&roll platform, we have more than halved the number of steps for which human intervention is required. Repetitive tasks are automated so our experts can focus on advice. Only the upstream steps remain - identifying the need and ensuring that the study will provide the insights needed for decision-making - and downstream - helping our customers analyze the results in order to draw the conclusions that will allow them to make the right decisions.

NB: The manual codification of verbatims is in the process of being automated

Results available immediately

In 10 years, the timeframe of marketing studies has also changed a lot. Where it took an average of 6 to 8 weeks to get results in the past, it only takes a few days or weeks to get first results. Our customers have access to the first results as soon as the first interviews are collected and can export cross-sorting or even a Powerpoint report in one click.

As soon as the last interview is collected, the data will be adjusted automatically based on the quota objectives. Final data is available a few minutes later. Our customers can immediately export flat data, cross-sorting or a Powerpoint report to their chart in one click. No need to point out or check the results, the processing is automatic and leaves no room for human error.

All you have to do is focus on analyzing your results!