With market research firms transitioning to CAPI using computers, tablets, and/or smartphones, numerous PAPI related issues have been solved. Still, many risks are threatening data and control quality due to the nature of the fieldwork that can jeopardize the integrity of the surveys and entire projects. To successfully overcome these risks several vendors have started offering tools and solutions. Before choosing the right tool for your project, below are the 5 most valuable features you should seek for:
1) A survey timer
Having a survey timer makes the data collection experience much more robust, as it controls the survey pace, and guarantees the data to be more accurate and complete. Knowing there is a survey timer helps respondents to adhere to the planned survey LOI (length of interview). Tracking time will indicate if questions take longer/shorter than needed, as well as track any idle time spent, weeding out suspicious interviews where the time of the survey is too unreasonable. A survey timer will also weed out external influence or invalid responses. If the engagement took much less time than expected, it indicates the respondent (or interviewer) rushed through the survey and the answers are unreliable. Also, if there is a video to be seen as part of the survey, having the survey timer will increase the respondents’ attention.
2) GPS & Location support
The powerful function of location technology tracks and collects data on the survey itself. Location tracking is one of the greatest quality control indicators, allowing field/QC departments to verify the location of those interviews and cover the correct areas as well as which locations are more popular, as well as tracking the duration of visits. The GPS should also track the walking routes of interviewers allowing optimization assessments. Another huge advantage to the location feature is that it allows the interviewer to easily find the location of the respondent while the company can track that it’s the right respondent. This allows market research companies to target higher accuracy.
3) Silent recording
Recording interviews serves several functions to excavate ineffective or inaccurate data and assure quality data. By analyzing recorded interviews, genuine answers can be detected resulting in stronger reporting that ends up helping your clients succeed. It allows certainty of what was said by a respondent and through careful transcription provides more useful information to the client. Recording software also eases data management as it allows reporting only the most substantial data to your clients and it enables opportunities for coaching your interviewers. It also permits adjustments needed and makes sure questions are asked and in the correct manner they were intended. The silent recorder captures every moment and can increase the trust between you and your client using some of it to show the accuracy of their research reports.
4) Logic checks
Logic really matters in market research. Responses to any question should match up to responses for other questions. If respondents do not provide consistent answers, the logic check will flag it as such, and possibly remove the survey from the data file. This feature will weed out responses that don’t make sense and will assure your quality data remain uncontaminated by illogical responses in surveys.
5) Auto flag of suspicious interviews
This feature detects quality gaps and makes QA work more efficient, allowing you to remove the suspicious interviews immediately. Auto flag will save you painful and costly errors bringing your clients only reliable and accurate data. Problems like broken question logic, methodology errors, compatibility, compliance issues, and others, will be flagged to allow you to detect, delete and redact poor quality responses with a single click and you can repair the situation as fast as possible.
Among the various diverse software companies who offer CAPI market research tools, these are the most valuable features to look for to succeed most in your market research. The further you rely on technology to organize your data more methodically, the happier your clients will be, with more accurate results and even more so, to know that their market research firm is evolving as a business using the latest tools in the market.