Rep Data helps Research Design Specialists improve audience representativity and deliver quality data for the automotive sector
Background
Research Design Specialists (RDS) is a full-service firm specializing in customized market research in the automotive and motorcycle industries. The firm provides comprehensive insights for a wide variety of high-level clients, and strives to complete projects in the most efficient and valid manner possible. In the fast-paced and extremely competitive automotive space, RDS must have access to respondents who accurately represent the sought-after demographics.
When the RDS team saw the quality of their study respondents declining, they knew they needed to make a change to their sample sourcing and data collection processes to ensure solid results at the end of each study.
The Challenge
As market researchers in the automotive sector, there were instances where RDS needed to reach very specific audiences, such as owners of luxury vehicles or a specific make or model of car. RDS was encountering problems with respondents who didn’t actually own or have experience with the vehicles in question. Answers to open-end questions and other quality checks suggested that many were not properly qualified.
In addition to not providing reliable respondents, sample vendors were not checking their sources or listening to the needs of the RDS team. Higher quotas were projected in order to ensure feasibility, instead of ensuring that they had the right participants from the beginning.
Situations like this left the team with the time-consuming tasks of assessing engagement and data quality, resulting in slower turnaround times.
The Solution & Outcomes
RDS turned to Rep Data for a solution. With a commitment to collaboration and creative respondent recruitment methods, Rep Data was the perfect partner to solve these challenges. The expert Rep Data team listened closely to RDS’ needs for each project, recruiting respondents with the right demographics to bring forward quality data.
Rep Data’s strong focus on data quality and respondent engagement were important factors that weighed into the partnership. Their project managers take a hands-on approach that ensures projects run smoothly and deliver reliable results, relieving the need for RDS to clean up data.
Research Design Specialists has estimated that, by partnering with Rep Data, there has been up to 60-70% less data removal than with previous studies. They have seen cleaner, quality information included in open-ended questions and respondent comments, as well as more representative audiences overall.
“With Rep Data, data quality is much better. The vehicle ownership data was great and the open-ended responses that were used for our quality checks improved. I’m providing data with more confidence and more accuracy. It’s just made the process so much easier to run these online studies.”
Geoff Yeaton, Director of Online Services for Research Design Specialists