How to Select a Consumer Insights Agency?

Editor’s Note: When reviewing this article, I was reminded of new data from the most recent GRIT report that highlights a critical fact: Reputation is supplanting relationship when it comes to the partner selection process. I encourage you to read this piece with that new trend in mind. And if you want to learn more about what we uncovered in this GRIT wave, join us for the upcoming GRIT forum.

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What factors should a client consider while selecting a consumer insights/market research agency ?

Typically, the answer may be one or more of the following factors, depending on the need of the research study in consideration…

1. Research Methodology
2. Research Design
3. Cost & Time
4. Research / Servicing Team
5. Experience & Expertise of the Agency
6. Brand / Reputation / Size of the Agency
7. References & Recommendations

Are these factors alone enough to ensure quality of the research?

Recently, while reviewing couple of Brand Health Research reports for one of my clients, I was surprised to find lot of mistakes in them (very basic ones including wrong reporting of Awareness measures) and the reports were more of data charts & tables rather than insights. Interestingly, these reports were from two of the top market research agencies in the country, who had fulfilled almost all of the above factors during the pitch.

This made me think, what else is missing in these factors for selecting a consumer insights/market research agency? What can be an indicator to identify that the research team will deliver quality insight basis their proposal?

So, I reviewed the proposals for these studies, both of them were standard templatized proposals which details the company’s profile & expertise and their proprietary model. The only additions were the research design from the research brief shared and cost & time investments.

There was no information in the proposal that could demonstrate the agency’s understanding of the client category or brand. And there was neither any mention of research considerations for the study nor any information about how they intend to customize their proprietary approach for the current research need.

Clearly, there has been no efforts to understand the research need or the client category while preparing the proposal by both the agencies…

Efforts in understanding the category while preparing the proposal is the key!

How can a client expect efforts on executing a research project when there are no efforts to understand the client category while preparing the research proposal?

So, the other key factors a client should consider while selecting a consumer insights / market research agency, in addition to the above listed factors are :

1. Understanding of the brief
2. Category understanding
3. Research consideration (if any)
4. Customization of the proprietary model to the research need (if any used)

These will let us know that the consumer insights / market research agency is really committed and interested in working on this research study — and will not just churn out run of the mill proposals and reports.

Also, there may be a sort of IKEA Effect on the research team to value and execute a study won by preparing the proposal using their own efforts better than a proposal won by using standardized templates — A food for thought for large market research agencies.

Summing up, efforts do matter in getting better results!

Caveat : Obviously, this will not apply to the proposals that are asked to be churned out in a day 🙂