Project planning
Each research project is reviewed for potentially influential factors to ensure the appropriate methodology and scheduling. This may include:
- Review of the survey objectives to identify the right data capture method
- Site visits to identify potential conflicts and anomalies
- Local Police notification (and permission where required)
- Local Council notification (and permission where required)
- Local business notification (and permission where required)
- Sample size calculations to ensure statistical robustness
- Goals review (where appropriate) to identify key sampling points
- Market Research Society considerations
- Information Commissioners considerations (Data Protection Act)
- Project costing
Question set development
Questionnaires are devised using our unique and highly-effective 7-step question generation process which ensures the effectiveness of the survey. Once crafted, each individual question is tested for relevance, understanding, accuracy and output. No other research agency has such a methodical structure for ensuring questionnaire accuracy.
Project application & management
Data capture methods can include:
- Online (surveys and web-user tests)
- Telephone
- Face-to face (in-home, on-site, on-street)
- Postal
- Hall tests
- Diary study
- Focus groups
- Customer shadowing
- Site-specific footfall & vehicle enumeration
- Selection and briefing of data capture team
- Data capture team uniforms (if appropriate)
- Question set translation and print, show cards, name badges, project briefs
- Provision of all necessary materials
- On-site management & progress monitoring
- Site manager and security team liaison
Data input
- Transcription of data onto Word, Excel or SPSS
- Data cleansing and formatting
- Language translation (French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Welsh, ...)
Data analysis & report writing
- From basic data cross-tabulations through to Acorn customer profiling (CACI)
- Spend analysis
- Travel time analysis
- Priorities for change