Five Things You Can Do to Keep Your Research Participants Happy

No matter what industry you work in, creating and building a successful business relies heavily on knowing what your target audience thinks, feels, wants, and needs. Market research gives you access to those critical insights but is contingent on your ability to actually gather data from respondents. Keeping each market research participant happy is key.

Participant-focused research is the driving force behind many successful businesses’ decisions. It’s critical to focus on ways to communicate with your customers and extrapolate useful information from your interactions with them while maintaining a good relationship.

There is plenty of information out there about how to increase response rates from every potential market research participant. However, one often overlooked aspect of that process is ensuring your respondents have a positive overall experience with your business.

In this article, we cover the top ways you can improve your research participants’ satisfaction levels and make the process better for them and, ultimately, yourself. These include:

Offer Incentives
Make it Convenient
Ask the Right Questions
Personalize the Experience
Ask for Feedback

1. Offer Each Market Research Participant Something in Return

Getting people to interact with your organization voluntarily—especially if you ask them to spend their time on the process—is a challenge. The quickest and easiest way to A. have people participate in your research and B. have a positive experience with it is to reward them for their time.

Even something as simple as filling out a short survey involves people taking time out of their day to focus on something that may not directly affects them, so it’s up to you to show them why being a part of your research is worth it. There are plenty of different choices when it comes to incentives. Some ideal options include:

Gift Cards
Samples
Free Merch
Upgrades
Special Content

2. Keep the Process Short and Sweet

People are busy and have increasingly shorter attention spans, so it’s vital participation in your research be as straightforward as possible. For starters, be strategic when building out your survey, focus group questions, or any other interactions you’ll be having with each market research participant.

This approach includes creating fewer, more targeted questions that allow your audience to respond easily but thoroughly. Sounds complicated, right? Having professionals like our team at Sago on your side can help. Our experts help you customize your research processes to work best for your business.

Digital qualitative research solutions are also helpful in shortening the research process. When you allow your target audience to complete the research virtually, you reach more people and glean more specific information from willing participants.

Instead of having to come to you or meet you somewhere, participants use the internet to make their observations and answer any questions you have in a time and place most convenient for them.

Some convenient and popular digital qual solutions include online discussion boards and communities, virtual focus groups and in-depth interviews, and mobile ethnographies. Sago offers all these tools and more to help you reach your target audience.

3. Tailor Questions to Your Audience to Get Meaningful Responses

Similarly, it’s important to choose questions that get the most meaningful, specific answers without leading market research participants down a predefined funnel. Your goal should be to let people tell you their thoughts and opinions without bogging them down with too much information.

There are a handful of ways you can achieve this, including:

State how long the process should take at the start.
Make the purpose for your research clear.
Offer a mix of multiple choice and open-ended questions.
Ask simplistic questions that need minimal interaction.
Include a progress bar to show respondents how much is left.
Use “skip logic” to bypass questions based on participants’ past responses.

4. Personalize When Possible

People receive countless emails and other forms of communication from businesses for deals, discounts, offers, and more, so it’s up to you to make your message stand out. The best way to do that? Personalize your messages and talk to your customers instead of talking at them. Some personalization tactics include:

Use people’s names when you reach out to them.
Explain why you need their help with this research.
Be appreciative before they even agree to participate.
Follow up after they have participated in your research.
Always ask for feedback.

It’s also quite easy for people to forget to fill out information if you send them a survey or invite them to join a discussion group via email. Set up personalized push notifications reminding them to complete the study with an option to opt-out of these emails if they ultimately decide not to participate.

5. Ask Respondents for Feedback on the Research Process

As we briefly mentioned in the last section, asking participants for their feedback on their research experience improves your methods going forward. On top of your audience feeling heard, you can take that information and optimize your insights process.

There are two main ways to request feedback from your respondents. One option is to provide a space to talk about their experience at the end of your survey, focus group sessions, IDIs, or any other research activity. The second is to reach out a couple of days later and ask about their experience, but this may yield fewer results since the process isn’t at the top of their mind.

Improve Your Market Research Methods and Increase Respondent Satisfaction Levels Today

A healthy relationship with your consumers is key to a successful business, especially when relying on their thoughts and feelings to drive your strategies forward.

While it’s tempting to think about this relationship from your side alone, the best way to foster a long-lasting connection and keep your customers happy is to consider their levels of satisfaction in their interactions with you.

If you need help in this arena, choose a partner who puts respondent experience first. At Sago, we leverage some of the top tools and methods to make reaching consumers easier and more enjoyable.

Ready to learn more? Our experts are here to help. Reach out to our team to learn more about our solutions, so you can reach your target audience the right way.