Online Surveys Can Be Highly Reliable

The reliability of online surveys and online focus groups can be very high when the right procedures are employed. To optimize quality, Persuadable Research recommends focus on three key areas:

Respondent Recruitment
All survey and focus group respondents should be opt-in. The Persuadable Research panel, for example, is comprised of a million individuals, all genuinely interested in sharing their opinions and who enjoy the survey process. We also have gone to great lengths to identify and access to the world’s best list sources. We deliver sample worldwide...international, national, regional, and local markets. We know where to find all types of sample, including specialty lists like teens, Hispanic, and B2B, and can efficiently aggregate lists from multiple partners to help target specialty and hard-to-reach audiences – in the tightest geographies – and always with the numbers needed for reliable results.

Survey Design
How questions, and questionnaires, are created makes a big difference in their ability to involve respondents. Our experienced Research Project Managers know how to write perceptive questions that produce superior results. They design each online survey and online focus group script to engage respondents fully. Frequently, they employ quality photos, sound clips, and even video to test advertising or product concepts, or simply to make the survey experience more involving. And because our respondents participate in the privacy and comfort of their own home or office, at their own pace, they have more time to provide thoughtful answers.

Response Validation
Our Research Project Managers manage every online survey or online focus group 24/7, start-to-finish, to satisfy response quotas and ensure a glitch-free response. They check all lists for errors and duplication. Every respondent is reminded in writing at the outset of the survey of importance of his or her veracity. “Validaters,” special questions with crosschecks, are included right in the survey to screen-out unqualified participants. And every response is time-checked the completion of each survey to help ensure that all responses are focused and thoughtful.

Online Focus Groups Expand Qualitative Research Options

Now you can do qualitative research, fast and affordably, while observing online from the comfort of your own cave. With our online focus groups you can evaluate products and concepts, advertising, packaging, websites, and more. Without travel requirements or expenses, Persuadable Research can effectively recruit panels of consumers, executives, and professionals. Our online focus group managers do it all…write the discussion guide, screen and select focus group participants, moderate your session, and deliver your final report.

We offer two types of online focus groups:
Real-Time Groups – A live, moderated online discussion, usually engaging 6-8 participants, lasting 90 minutes or less.
Bulletin Board Groups – An interactive online discussion, usually among 15-25 participants, lasting 3-5 days.

In the relaxed, anonymous online environment, both Real-Time and Bulletin Board Group participants feel at ease. They often feel more open to discuss sensitive topics and offer candid opinions than they might in traditional groups. Participating from their own home or office, respondents are not intimidated by the presence of a video recorder or a one-way mirror found in traditional groups. Nor are they influenced by peer pressure or group dominance.

Online focus groups actually expand recruiting capability while lowering costs. Without the travel requirement of traditional groups, it is often easier to recruit respondents wide and far, including specialized and high-level individuals who would otherwise seldom volunteer. We can conduct multi-city or even worldwide groups in the same day.

Some marketers are combining online surveys with online focus groups to get an in-depth look at current and prospective customers.