Building a Relationship With Your Agency

(part of Chapter 5: Planning Your Agency Relationship)

 

Before you select a market research agency, think carefully about the type of relationship you want. It’s important that the agency you choose can work with your team in a way that will truly meet your needs.

There are hundreds of agencies out there; they do not all have the same styles or collaboration approaches. Read on to learn how to build a great relationship with your chosen agency.

 

Planning Your Agency Relationship

Before you hire an MR agency, you need to consider what type of relationship you want to have with that agency.

There are a lot of research agencies out there, and some will be a better fit than others in terms of how they work and manage clients. So even if you find, for example, four firms that are technically qualified to do your project, all four are probably not an equal fit.

 

Types of Agencies

Agencies fall along a continuum of “value add.” At the extremes, there are staff extension agencies and full-service agencies (see Table 5.1). Of course, many firms fall in between these two points.

 

Table 5.1 Types of Agencies
	Staff extension	Full-service
Role	Augments your staff and follows your directions. Lower level of accountability for project success. Often a one- or two-man shop. Or, sometimes an agency that specializes in only the data collection and basic data analysis parts of the process (sometimes called a "field and tab" agency).	True consultancy: Designs methodology, conducts all phases of project execution, delivers recommendations. Ultimate level of accountability for project success.
Value	Basic skills: questionnaire programming, data collection, and data analysis (often cross-tabs).	High-end skills: Advises on optimizing success, provides leadership on all phases, has rich contextual knowledge.
Fees	Lower, and sometimes hourly.	Higher, and often project-based. May include clauses for contingencies.

 

How to Choose a Relationship Type

MR agencies vary greatly in the degree to which they truly act as a consulting agency vs. the degree to which they act as more of an extension of your staff. Which would best meet your needs?

A true full-service MR consultancy will be the best fit if you are seeking these types of conditions:

• You’ll come to it with objectives, and it will design the research project, getting your approval at key milestone points.


• It will run the show in terms of the details of how to execute the research. It will recommend exactly what methodology to employ.


• It will report the research results and deliver recommendations based on those results.


• It will give you weekly status reports and hold meetings at key junctures to report on status.

With a true, full-service consultancy, you’re counting on it to be the professional and contribute the expertise needed to plan, execute, and deliver the research.

 

Can I Trust an Agency’s Recommendation About Methodology?

So you want the research agency to recommend a methodology— and you are entirely open to qualitative, quantitative, or a combination of approaches.

How will the research agency make its recommendation? A respectable agency takes multiple factors into consideration:

• Project objectives


• Geographic scope


• Population parameters


• Audience needs


• Budget parameters


• Timeline parameters

These things can occasionally conflict. I have seen many cases where, in an ideal world, we would take an approach that was optimal for the objectives—but realities of budget and timelines mandated a compromise. It’s just reality that sometimes trade-offs need to be made. However, your agency will advise you accordingly when this arises.

It is up to you to state any boundaries you have. If you convey to the agency that budget is more of an issue than time, that will lead to a very different recommendation than a scenario where time is more of an issue than budget.

One note of caution: Some agencies have specific strengths, and tend to see projects accordingly. If you are unsure if you need qualitative or quantitative, be sure to talk to agencies that are equally strong in both so you don’t get a skewed view. It’s like going to a surgeon for a medical opinion: Everything looks like surgery when you are a surgeon. If you talk only to agencies that are quantitatively oriented, you likely will get a proposal that is weak on qualitative methods.

At the other extreme, there are MR agencies that act more as an extension of your staff. If the following statements are true for you, then you will want a staff extension approach:

• You, the client, are pretty much delegating, on a weekly if not daily basis, exactly what you want and how you want it done.


• You are using it more to execute to your plans, not to contribute substantive research design or methodology expertise.


• You are leading the direction of analysis and interpretation of findings, and will lead the final presentation of results.


• You will not be asking the agency for recommendations based on the research; you and your colleagues will develop them yourselves.

If you have a lot of market research expertise and really just need somebody to augment your staff, this is certainly a fine choice. Remember, though, you get what you pay for. If you hire a firm to act as a staff extension, don’t expect it to be a true consultancy. As you search for this type of agency, you should start by looking at data collection firms or “field and tab” houses. There are also many MR freelancers available for this type of work (check out the various professional placement websites, such as Guru.com).

Just to be clear: If you hire a staff extension supplier, it is taking orders; it cannot be relied on to push back on you if you’re making a poor decision. For example, if you design a questionnaire that isn’t clear or has some issues with scales, it won’t necessarily recommend alternate suggestions. It will cost a lot less, though, and if you are confident in your expertise, this can be an absolutely fine choice.

 

How to Manage the Chosen Relationship Type

If you hire a staff augmentation agency, you will need to manage it accordingly. This will be more of a hands-on, daily project management scenario for you. Daily check-ins or status updates are appropriate. You also will need to document your requirements at each phase.

For example, in this scenario you may be designing the questionnaire yourself. Or, you may have the agency design it—but with your significant input. If this is the case, you will need to give clear direction on any preferences you have for questionnaire design. If you know what types of analysis you will want to do at the end of the project, you will need to tell the agency how to design the questionnaire so that you have appropriate data with which to work.

If your organization does not have a full-time research department (or has one and it is fully booked), chances are you will be looking to hire a full-service firm. If you hire a full-service agency, treat it as such. It is a costly mistake to hire a full-service agency, and then treat it like a staff extension. Misery for all involved will surely ensue.

A full-service MR agency is staffed with highly skilled, experienced consultants. If you treat them like a staff extension by micromanaging them, they lose motivation, and you simply will not get the benefit of the expertise for which you are paying.

In addition, if you manage this type of agency as a staff extension, you actually will start to incur extra costs. After all, when the agency originally scoped the project, they assumed you were going to trust its judgment and its recommendations, and any points of disagreement would be resolved in a peer-level discussion.

But, for example, if the questionnaire design process takes three times longer than planned because of excessive reviews and an onerous number of unnecessary requests, it’s understandable that the agency will start experiencing delays and incurring additional staff time.

It’s like an old joke my dad used to tell: A man is driving along one day, and his car breaks down. He has the car towed to the auto shop. The auto mechanic says, “It’s going to be $40 an hour for me to fix the car, plus parts.” Then the man says, “Well, what if I help?” The auto mechanic doesn’t hesitate. He says, “If you help, it’ll be $80 an hour.”

 

This is an excerpt from the book, "How to Hire & Manage Market Research Agencies," which is available on Amazon. Published by Research Rockstar LLC. Copyright © by Kathryn Korostoff. All rights reserved.