If you stop to think about it, Moderators take on a lot of risk in their business when it comes to the recruitment of participants for their studies. Their profession takes them to many cities throughout the US, and they rely on focus group facilities in those cities to recruit participants for their studies. What has become an entrenched line of thinking, moderators believe that facilities in specific markets are the best at recruiting participants who reside in those markets. Why? Because they think these facilities have an “on the ground” presence and therefore must be in the best place and position to find consumers that will qualify for the study in that market. In addition, many Moderators have told us that they rely on facilities in the market to do their recruiting for them even when the facility will not be used, e.g., in-homes, shopalongs at stores, etc.
While some facilities may actually live up to this decades-old expectation of optimally recruiting participants who reside in their own backyard, many do not. Moderators surely have their favorite markets and their favorite facilities in those markets. However, often times it is their client who dictates which markets will be used for the study. When the call of duty is to take place in relatively unknown markets, relying on untested facilities in those markets is risky business. So, while Moderators work hard to serve their clients and maintain their business relationships by designing intelligent question guides that will yield important insights, the whole plan can fail as a result of underperforming participants that were recruited for the study. Due to relying on the “in-market” recruiting source, a study can be doomed from the outset.
At Accelerant Research, our crack team of recruiters has performed well enough to become the sole recruiting source for entire business entities. Whether it is the consumer insights team at a large organization, the field directors and the Moderators they support at major- and mid-sized research firms, or sole proprietor Moderators, we have established relationships with a variety of organizations and have the exclusive responsibility of providing the entire set of recruiting services for all studies.
These clients have come to enjoy the luxury of receiving high-quality service consistently. That is, clients have the same contact at Accelerant, as well as the same deliverables and communication processes. As such, they can rely on Accelerant to deliver the same standard in all markets, even in the relatively obscure ones, too. We do this again and again regardless of the methodology, including traditional focus groups, IDIs, phone- or online-based research.
A few important aspects of our offer to the insights industry enable us to achieve our level of success throughout the US:
· White Glove Recruiting team : highly trained, skilled, and closely managed recruiters who help weed out the inarticulate and cheaters and promote show-rates
· Agora USA : our proprietary panel of over 2 million households across the US
· Custom, Out of the Box Recruiting: While our panel is among the highest quality and most engaged in the business, we seldom rely on “the database” as our sole source of recruiting for a given project. We employ the right mix of local advertising and boots-on-the-ground recruiting to get each job done properly.
If you have your own “war stories” about venturing into a study in an unknown market, and having the recruiting completely bomb on you and embarrass you in front of your client, you should really consider establishing an Enterprise Recruiting partnership to inject more consistency into your own research activities.
We invite you to consider Accelerant Research as your enterprise recruiting partner. If you entertain this notion, request a cost estimate from us on a single project to take place anywhere in the US as a first step. Simply give us a call (704-206-8500) or send us an email (info@accelerantresearch.com). If we are granted the opportunity to work with you, we are confident that the quality of recruiting service you receive will be a marked improvement over the typical facility-driven recruit of study participants.
From the recruiting team at Accelerant Research…best regards and safe travels.
