As part of the corporate researcher work life survey we of course had to pose some questions about vendors.
Ah yes, vendors. You love them. You hate them. You can’t live without them.
One open-ended question asked researchers to elaborate on a part of their job that they wished their vendors had a better understanding of and the other asked them to describe a time when a vendor came up short.
What did respondents wish vendors knew about their work?
“The last-minute nature of corporate life. I feel super unorganized when I come to them last-minute asking for a change. I wish they knew it wasn’t me but rather [due to] requests coming from elsewhere in the organization.”
“The political complexity of my organization and the impact that has on the design, development, deployment, interpretation and reporting of research.”
“I think most of our research vendors understand that it comes down to time/scope/cost and that we are accountable to our clients and when things get messed up, it’s not just me or my team that is impacted.”
“I wish that all of our vendors had a better understanding of our business and the issues we face. We strive to develop strong ongoing relationships with vendors so that they can develop a better understanding in this area.”
“That there are hundreds/thousands of them out [selling] the same tools. That they have five minutes to impress me but as part of that five minutes, there better be a discussion on pricing.”
“I don’t care if they are full-service. Quit trying to cram absolutely everything they can do into a presentation or phone call. Pick a focus for the meeting/call/Webinar and demonstrate expertise and ability to transition a case study to other industries.”
“That I don’t have time to field their ‘toss a noodle against a wall and see what sticks’ cold-calls. I get 5-8 cold-calls/e-mails a day with vendors wanting to set up a meeting so I can tell them all about our business needs and they can tell me how they can do everything. Cold-call voice mails are a complete waste of their time.”
“All the red tape and layers to do ANYTHING or get anything approved to move forward.”
“I wish I would receive two reports – one for me, the client research, with all the detail including crosstabs, and one for presenting that REALLY boils down the learning to an easily-digestible story that we can take action on.”
“That I am busy, so don’t waste my time casting big nets for business. The worst are suppliers who cold-call with e-mail and ‘proactively’ choose a date and time for a meeting that they would like to have right off the bat, without asking if I would like to meet. That requires me to respond and waste time trying to figure out who they are.”
“Young, inexperienced project directors on the supplier side go unsupervised and make too many rookie mistakes.”
“Really understanding the struggles we have internally when trying to get management approval for new techniques or getting additional budget. Some of our vendors have this understanding because they’ve worked with us for years but others struggle with this.”
“The complexity of the markets we operate in. Very few research vendors take the time to do research on the company and this makes them unable to tailor their offering to meet our needs. When we come across research vendors who go the extra mile, it’s almost always guaranteed that we will do business with them.”
“That the business doesn’t always care about the ‘pureness’ of the research.”
“That I am knowledgeable on research techniques. Wish they would stop talking to me like I’m a newbie and don’t know what is going on.”
“As a government agency, our needs are very different from a for-profit organization. The insights we’re looking for are all about what customers really want and how we can offer the best possible service for all our customers. [Their] insights about ‘return business’ and being ‘top of mind’ are evidence that the vendors are merely repeating phrases they often use for other customers, rather than really giving thought to the business and research objectives we have provided.”
Dropped the ball
For the section on vendors coming up short, the questionnaire offered some response choices to help give a shape to some of the ways providers had dropped the ball.
At 56 percent, vendors over-promising and under-delivering was chosen the most, followed by a project being handled by low-level staffers (51 percent), the vendor not taking the time to understand the client’s business (50 percent), poor communication (39 percent), not taking the time to understand the project’s needs (36 percent) and, at 35 percent, a tie between vendors missing deadlines and perceived data integrity issues.
Asked to elaborate on problems they have experienced with research suppliers, our respondents didn’t hold back.
“Psychotic sales VP at a major research house is apparently never checked on or managed and just BS’s her way through her job. The worst.”
“Copying key sections of a report to us from a report to a different client and not realizing that the lead brand manager had worked at both companies.”
“Where to start? I honestly cannot tell you how many times I’ve been disappointed in my primary external vendor in the past two years (for a large-scale tracking study). Issues with their project management and deliverables have moved them from handling about 90 percent of the project (from data collection to reporting, to management) to about 10 percent. They have offered up ‘special analyses.’ When we’ve taken them up on it, it takes 12-16 weeks to provide results, which is simply too late to have an impact.”
“Vendor tried to talk me into being non-compliant in a heavily regulated industry. Um, no.”
“This past year I had a vendor show up for a presentation of research results without having copies of the presentation or something to project the presentation on. She didn’t bring her laptop. She looked at me and asked me how we were going to present the information. I had to run back to my desk and get my laptop, set it up in the room and, in doing so, start the presentation late. My whole team was wondering why there was this delay. This was not a new person; she is an experienced researcher. Needless to say, I haven’t done anymore research with this company. They don’t seem to understand why not, even though I’ve explained.”
“There is a very strong tendency to say yes early on and then force-fit an off-the-shelf solution when a more customized, nuanced approach is needed. Also, sending in the smart VP new business development guy who knows all about retail and then offloading the project to lower-level, less-experienced staff right after the project is sold in.”
“Researchers on the client side have had to become a lot more nimble in how we get things done but the bigger research vendors haven’t followed suit. They continue to be constrained by their legacy siloed processes where the client team needs to pass off a simple request to the data analytics team, who will get to our request when the conveyor belt of other client requests are fulfilled.”
“A few years ago, I worked with a start-up company that has an amazing new technology for research. They had invested a lot in their technology but hadn’t invested in hiring experienced marketing research professionals. It was obvious from the data issues and the poorly-written research report that the study had been conducted by a low-level staff member. They had cut corners by hiring researchers fresh out of college who didn’t fully understand how to properly execute the research.”
“Vendors often begin with the line that 80 percent of business is the same. We often debate that about our industry and our business, as we believe we’re a bit unique both as an industry and a business. Even if vendors understood this point, they often miss a critical difference and don’t think to ask whether something makes sense prior to implementing it in their research. More than once, this has led to inappropriate assumptions and questionable results.”
“Submitting a low bid for a project up front but then nickel-and-diming on extra costs (tabs, data cuts, getting the right sample) on the back end.”
‘Never had an issue’
Still, for all the problems cited above, there were some respondents who found little to complain about.
“I have never had an issue with our research vendor.”
“We like to work with the same small group of vendors when possible so that problems don’t happen twice. They learn our business, customers and our complicated organization.”
“Haven’t really had these problems in quite some time. Vendors don’t get to make these mistakes very often before they become former partners.”
“When vendors come up short, it can also be the fault of the client side for not concisely articulating their needs.”