Wake UP Research Agency

Public opinion poll

Opinion polls are one of several types of social research. Its main aim is to find out the opinion of a certain group of people. In the case of online shops or companies that sell something, it’s all about the customers. Surveys should be carried out regularly. Preferably some time after some changes have been implemented. That way you will know whether the expected results have been achieved, or whether further steps are needed to take you there.

In the past, opinion polls were usually conducted by telephone or by face-to-face meetings. Today, one alternative is added to these traditional ways – online forms that you can conveniently send out via email to find out if customers are satisfied with services or products.

How much does an opinion poll cost?

The cost of an opinion poll depends on a number of parameters and is not uniform. For example, it depends on how many people you want to target. Depending on the number of persons, the number of data collected also depends on the number of data to be analysed. Usually, the more data you have, the more expensive the survey is. On the other hand, you will get much more accurate and better results from a large amount of data.

The process of collecting individual information through the opinion poll consists of several steps. To get the best results, you must not skip any of them. These are:

• defining the objective and purpose of the survey
• the preparation of topics
• the preparation of appropriate questions
• questionnaire programming
• data collection
• evaluation of the survey and processing into graphical form
• interpretation of results
• adoption of measures

If you don’t know how to properly prepare a questionnaire, evaluate a survey or interpret the results, leave it to the experts. They will process everything for you and provide you with the information you need.

What is our role

A survey is a sub-area of the whole, which is research. As such, research consists of developing a professional methodology, processing and evaluating data based on the data collected. Thus, our company occupies the position of an explorer, or so-called data collector for research agencies. If a research agency needs to gather information, they approach us with an assignment, which we carry out in practice as field data collection. We mostly carry out assignments on behalf of the agency.

However, we do not only conduct surveys for research agencies, but we are commonly hired by companies that have their own analysts. Our task is to collect the necessary data in a high-quality way.

Types of quantitative surveys

Telephone market research – CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) – is generally considered the most effective and objective form of quantitative research compared to other techniques. In principle, data collection can be carried out very flexibly and with a high level of quality with respect to the control tools (call control, comparison of recorded data, interview management.). The interviewer – call centre operator asks the respondent questions by telephone and records them in the information system on the computer.

Advantages:

• speed – it is relatively fast
• accuracy/representativeness – reaches the whole population, including marginalised groups, so is usually the most accurate
• quality control – possibility of high quality control, communication and recording of answers by interviewers

Disadvantages:

• it is not possible to ask questions related to product visualization

Online market research – CAWI (in the original meaning from English Computer Aided Web Interviewing) – the respondent fills in the questionnaire on a computer. Multimedia forms of questions, such as images or audio recordings, can also be integrated into the survey)

Advantages:

• the cost of printing sheets or pollsters’ salaries is usually the cheapest of all types of surveys
• it is also possible to ask about the visual aspect of the product
• information is gathered relatively quickly

Disadvantages:

• respondents are not representative of the population
• it is more difficult to check the validity of the answers and the identity of the respondent
• in the case of the so-called. of panels is the professionalization of respondents (people get paid to fill out questionnaires on the internet)

Personal market research – CAPI (in the original meaning from English Computer Aided Personal Interviewing, somewhere you can also meet the definition of F2F – face to face). A personal survey conducted using a professional interviewing network. This means that interviewers actually meet the respondent and complete either a printed questionnaire or the now much more common tablet questionnaire.

Advantages:

• all types of questions can be asked: text, visual and audio
• the product under investigation can be shown or demonstrated to the respondent

Disadvantages:

• geographically challenging, it is necessary to have a large network of interviewers to maintain representativeness
• high costs – usually the highest costs for conducting this type of survey

How the telephone market research works

A survey is a very sensitive matter and therefore requires precise planning, quality implementation and proper evaluation. How the exploration process is carried out from the beginning to the final output:

• defining the objective and purpose of the survey
• preparation of the topics we want to find out in the survey
• preparation of appropriate questions
• questionnaire programming
• data collection with prior interviewer training
• evaluation of the survey and processing into graphical form
• interpretation of results
• adoption of measures

What target groups will we reach in the telephone survey

• B2C survey – a call to residents, i.e. individuals from whom we seek personal opinions, attitudes, knowledge, etc.
• B2B survey – calls to companies, i.e. legal entities. The respondent is answering on behalf of the company or entity in which he/she operates. It can be a sole trader, a company, an office or another institution. The position of the person is individual depending on the topic of the survey (HR manager, director, person in charge of the area…)
• Public surveys – these are general surveys where respondents are approached randomly. This means that a call is made to a randomly generated phone number, and we don’t know who we are going to reach on the other end. Exceptions are public company surveys, where calls are made based on databases, numbers from public sources, or company websites.
• Customer surveys- when a company or entity needs to find out the opinions and attitudes of its customers. In this case, the contracting authority shall provide a database of its clients to be contacted. The customer can be a natural person, but also companies, i.e. that the respondent comes from a database supplied by the sponsor – there is a form of relationship (e.g. a bank where the client can be both an individual and a company).

Quality versus price of the survey

Something to be particularly careful about when choosing the right survey method is selecting the appropriate type of survey depending on its objective and the target group being surveyed.

Unfortunately, these attributes are often preferred to lower cost over survey suitability. It is important to note that if you do not choose the right survey design or the right target group, the survey results may not be correct. Thus, the subsequent decisions you make may not be the right ones.

In an effort to save perhaps a few hundred euros, we can calculate the damage caused by a wrong decision to thousands, even tens of thousands of euros.

Quality market research should be an essential tool in making business decisions. The form of the survey and the target group you want to target are important. If you need advice, please do not hesitate to contact us.

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