Case Study: QualLink Helps Make Error-Ridden Process Foolproof
Susan Saurage-Altenloh of Saurage Research in Houston has never been afraid of conducting hybrid research. In fact, most of the work she does for her clients is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. “I was a statistician first and became a moderator later,” she says. In other words, inexperience with hybrid research wasn’t the problem when we introduced Saurage to QualLink™, our patent-pending system that allows seamless integration of a quantitative survey and a qualitative bulletin board. Her problem had to do with logistics.
The challenge
Specifically, what do you do when 2,500 members of a large employees’ credit union opt in for a follow-on qualitative study, but you need only 30 participants?
Saurage-Altenloh started doing what she’s always done in that situation, albeit with much smaller recruitment pools. She and her staff were manually handling all of the responses and selecting participants based first on a specific financial profile and then on quota. Her next step was to contact all of the participants—using a relationship management tool like Constant Contact—to either invite them to participate in the bulletin board focus group or thank them for volunteering to participate. “We had to be very careful about the way we treated them, because we were talking about someone’s valued customers, and their brand was associated with this,” she says. “That’s a problem with sorting through respondents manually—it’s not foolproof.”
The solution
About midway through the selection process, Saurage-Altenloh learned about QualLink™, which bridges the gap between a quantitative survey and QualBoard™—20|20 Research’s in-depth bulletin board focus group software.
Participants are auto-enrolled based on qualifying responses and quotas, so there was no need for Saurage-Altenloh and her staff to keep sorting through thousands of survey responses. The technology then invites participants to the bulletin board focus group. Once the participants opt in, QualLink™ pushes demographic data, key survey responses and other panelist information directly into the QualBoard™ participant profiles, allowing the data collected in the survey to be used in the qualitative research for targeted probing, segmenting and/or analysis.
The technology works with most survey software platforms, including QuestionPro, SurveyGizmo, Checkbox Survey Solutions, WorldApp Key Survey, Vovici, Confirmit and SurveyWriter, which means researchers new to QualLink™ don’t have to learn a new survey tool.
The results
Because the process is automated, Saurage-Altenloh was able to start the QualBoard™ sooner than anticipated—which allowed her to complete the project ahead of the original deadline. She estimates that QualLink™ will be able to help her reduce her client’s time to decision by 25-35 percent. “Time is the most precious commodity now,” she says. “CMOs and brand managers have fewer hours available and they wear many more hats, so a product like QualLink™ provides a tremendous opportunity for them.”
Saurage-Altenloh’s company benefited in several ways as well: “Not only was the selection process faster, but we saved time getting all of the participant data into the QualBoard™,” she explains. “We always want to have that information on hand, but it takes time to input it—and sometimes that responsibility falls on me. With QualLink™, that information is delivered into the participant profile automatically, so not only did we save time, we also eliminated another chance for error.”
A huge opportunity for error also exists when manually sorting and selecting participants, but that risk was reduced with QualLink™ as well. “That’s one of the reasons I love automation. It helps prevent that ‘oops’ that sometimes happens,” she says. “Our client was kind to share its customers with us, and so we have to make sure we treat them with care.”
Why she recommends 20|20 Research
Saurage-Altenloh wasn’t surprised when the project went off without a hitch—“We have a lot of confidence in 20|20 Research. You never have to worry about something going wrong,” she says. “There are no glitches, no server failures and participants don’t get bumped off the boards. Everything always runs the way it’s supposed to—all the time.”
Saurage also is impressed with the quality of the infrastructure of 20|20 Research’s suite of online research software, pointing out their intuitive designs and easy-to-use dashboards. “Everything is so fluid,” she says. “Clients don’t have problems demo-ing the software, and you can upload videos and other attachments so quickly and easily.”
For more information about QualLink™ or any of our other online qualitative research platforms, attend one of our free webinars, or contact one of our Technology Product Specialists who are available to answer your questions.
