How a call centre can support a Market Research agency?

If your Market Research agency requires additional skills or team members to perform telephone survey research, you could consider outsourcing part of the job while still coordinating the full project. In this blog, we analyse how a call centre can support a Market Research agency with additional headcount or with this small, standalone projects that could be easily outsourced.

Why use a call centre for your telephone Computer-assisted Telephone Interviews (CATI)?

Call centres have the technology and the manpower to quickly support any telephone survey campaign. Call centres’ telephony system allows them to quickly and easily upload large databases into their autodialler software and record all conversations. Additionally, the team have the right skills to collect all the information you need, whilst following a script and ensuring data accuracy.

Advantages of Survey Outsourcing to a Call Centre:

Outbound Surveys are crucial to learn more about your customers and gather data for product or service development. Innovative companies can also discover how customers react to their marketing efforts or how voters feel about issues and candidates. Since most survey strategies require the collection of very specific data to a tight deadline, many of our clients are choosing to outsource to a specialist.

Outsourcing to a Call Centre to support your market research campaigns has numerous benefits, including:

Objectivity: The use of a third party ensure objectivity in the data collection process. Call centre agents are familiar with the process of gathering information and using third party, independent agents helps to ensure integrity in data collection.
Set-up Speed: Telephone Market research Campaigns can be set up in a call centre environment within hours. All systems are in place to upload a database into an autodial, access any survey software and start collecting information as quickly as required, all whilst ensuring full compliance with GDPR legislation.
Information gathering Speed: Agents’ performance is constantly monitored to maximize the number of dials per hour while maintaining the quality of the data gathered. Additionally, script adherence is closely monitored to reduce any potential bias in the data collection.
Resource allocation: Using an outsourced call centre means you can maximise the allocation of team members and easily add more agents if deadlines are tight. Providing Market Research agencies with the flexibility to collect data within tight deadlines.
Cost-saving solution: Many call centres will charge lower rates compared with specialist outbound market researchers. You can decide between a price per survey completed or a fixed cost by dial made and contact made. Some call centres will even charge you just for the talk time. A fixed cost can help you to better control your budget.

What steps are commonly followed by the Call Centre?

The deployment and implementation of any market research campaign in a call centre often follows a similar approach:

Define campaign parameters (scope, script, objectives, timeframe….) and outline the responsibilities of each party (e.g. call centre = data collection; market research agency = data analysis).
Assign a key account manager and a dedicated team – matching the skills needed to the type of campaign to be delivered.
Receive the database – you need to decide how many you grant access to the database – It’s critical the partner you chose is clear on your requirements under the GDPR legislation.
Upload information in the required systems such as phone numbers into the autodialler software.
Train the team – this depends on the complexity of the task, but for most projects, the skills required are often already available within a contact centre team.
Run a test
Review and provide feedback
Perform the campaign
Review Quality
Provide daily / weekly updates
Return database and survey data for analysis