Editor’s note: JD Deitchis CRO of Alpharetta, Ga.-based market research firm P2Sample. 

In the sample space, technology holds the promise to even the playing field no matter a company’s size. Despite huge operations teams, larger legacy players are scrambling to keep up with new entrants using technology to gain market share. Automation especially offers irresistible price points and speed, putting the pressure on even the most unwieldy sample providers to follow suit. 

While no one has complained about shorter project cycles and lower costs, these races against the clock and wallet have contributed to well-documented problems of overused panels and miserable user experiences. It doesn’t have to be this way. 

Early and rudimentary implementations of automation focused on the most tedious work. However, automation technology can do much more than just speed up traditionally slow processes. In fact, more advanced implementations can start to fulfill one of our most important jobs as sample providers: ensuring respondents are engaged, satisfied and providing accurate data. 

We don’t have to stay caught in this vicious circle where important pieces of the puzzle are left out because we’re trying to be faster and cheaper. Instead, we can take a more virtuous approach by using automation to directly improve the user experience.

Automation has the potential to help in several ways:

Stop asking the same questions over and over. Respondents are frequently asked for basic profile data like age and gender and bounced around and around in routers searching for surveys for which they don’t qualify. 

Target surveys to the right users in the first place. The deep profiling data that’s available on the respondent, including their engagement level, can help match up the right person with the right survey, maximizing that individual’s likelihood to complete that survey.   

Keep only engaged respondents. Sample suppliers have access to massive amounts of data about respondents. This includes data that can indicate whether or not a respondent is attentive, engaged and real. If they are not, we can eliminate them from future studies. 

Shut down abusive experiences and promote good ones. By using quality indicators that include field statistics and even respondent ratings, automation can help us quickly identify and quarantine studies that are not doing well. A low-performing survey will have problems anyway – recognizing it in time to find a solution is precisely the job of a good project manager. Likewise, studies that perform well should step to the front of the line for completion. Sample should flow freely to the best experiences.  

We have yet to see widespread application of automation to improve user experiences and respondent engagement. Yet, it represents a concrete and necessary way in which suppliers must take responsibility for sample quality. It is time for suppliers – no matter their size – to take a stand on using technology for more than just speed and price and start using it to its fullest potential by improving engagement and quality.