How do you do more with less? With budget constraints, timeline pressures, and talent shortages, among other challenges, this question is all too common for teams tasked with market research. But the negative connotation isn’t always necessary, at least not when it comes to outsourcing what we call your research drudge work.
As a back-office research operations partner, we like to reframe this question to: “How do you do less and get more?” With outsourcing, you’ll be doing less stressing, less juggling, and spending less time in the weeds of your research projects. And in return, you’ll be getting more time to focus on insights and impact while gaining more confidence in your research results. Here are six reasons why.
- Deep Expertise You Can Trust
While market research project management, programming, data collection, or data processing might be 1/10 of your job, it’s 100% of ours. We do this all day, every day. Which is why, from scrollable grids to carousels to complex logic paths, we’ve seen (and solved) it all.
This allows your team to focus on what they do best, while your outsourcing partner uses their expertise to handle the back-office aspects of the research.
- Cost Efficiency
Why should you invest in software when you can invest in results? There’s no need to purchase multiple platform licenses and then take the time to learn how to use them all. Your outsourcing partner should already have those licenses, so you’re spending your money on their service, not a technology. And saving big when it comes to time.
What’s more, we buy sample in bulk so our clients can benefit from volume discounts while also saving them the hassle of managing multiple sample suppliers. All told, your outsourcing partner can help you avoid the hidden costs of internal overhead, unnecessary costs, and supplier wrangling.
- Time Efficiency
When you outsource, you can hit the ground running. There’s no ramp-up and no onboarding like there might be with programming, sampling, data collection, and data processing internally.
For example, our team of over 20 programmers has decades of experience in developing customized solutions for even the most complex surveys. We know the traps to avoid, the questions to ask, and how to optimize the survey regardless of the platform. Most internal teams can’t say that; they’re pulled in too many other directions.
- Scalability When You Need It Most
An outsourcing partner doesn’t replace your team; rather, we support them as your workload demands. An analogy we use is to think of us as a balloon you inflate when you need to and deflate when you don’t.
Say you have four simultaneous research projects and one internal programmer; your outsourcing partner can handle the overflow without requiring you to hire or delay. Or, if you need to launch a survey more quickly than your internal team can handle, we can put multiple programmers on the same job.
- Team Cohesiveness & Efficiency
With all the time pressures in research today, efficiency is everything. If you have one internal person doing programming and tabbing, they have to focus on one or the other, which can lead to delays.
Whereas, with an outsourcing partner, that’s not the case. A case in point is that our programmers and data processors work side by side, setting up the programming so that it’s optimized to turn tabulations quickly. And while we’re starting the tabs, the programming is happening. It’s a quick, seamless process honed over years of experience and expertise.
- Built-in Market Awareness
The fact is that little things can make a big difference in your research. An outsourcing partner will know details that can only be learned through extensive hands-on experience. For instance, we know how timing impacts sample, from weekends to holidays to religious observances, as well as how to plan around cultural differences and local response trends.
These aren’t just “nice to know,” they’re the kind of details that make or break a fielding schedule.
Add A Trusted Partner to Your Team
Outsourcing is no longer just about saving money; it’s about increasing your team’s impact while reducing internal drag. With Research Results, you’re not just outsourcing tasks—you’re partnering with people who know back-office research operations like the back of our hand.
For more information on how we can help with your outsourcing needs, contact Ellen Pieper, Chief Client Officer, Ellen_Pieper@researchresults.com, or 919-368-5819 today.