All of our focus group recruitment is carried-out entirely in-house, so you can be rest assured that each participant has been checked and verified by our own UK based team (and none of the work has been passed on to third party recruiters!), allowing us to deliver a cost-effective recruitment service.
As part of our recruitment package, you will receive regular updates - between every 1 to 2 days - which will detail the number of participants recruited, their full screening criteria, demographic information, and steps that the MRFGR team have taken since the last update.
Our internal focus group recruitment procedures are the most rigorous within the whole of the market research industry, which is why we are able to personally guarantee that you'll only ever get respondents from us who have the following important attributes that make for a successful recruit:
Genuine Respondents
The team are trained to pay special close attention to so-called 'professional respondents' who behave deceptively on market research screeners in order to be selected for a project. We utilise a multiple screening approach (more on that later), and an in-house, highly effective respondent management tool, so that only suitable & honest participants take part in your research. To put it bluntly, when a respondent fits certain recruitment criteria, we don't just take their word for it - we check, verify and validate every single person before booking them in for research. Some recruitment agencies may find this to be an unnecessary step, but at MRFGR, we're committed to the authenticity needed to ensure your findings are as valid and useful as they possibly can be.
Engaged, chatty and polite
Our team will personally speak to all of the respondents before they are booked in for your market research session. During this chat, a number of things are assessed - including engagement, interest, conversational etiquette, comprehension, along with speaking and listening skills. Insightful conversation has never been more important than it is in market research, which is why we won't recruit respondents who 'just answer your question' with "yes", "no", "maybe" or a 'grunt', but ones that will engage with what you're asking and help toward a lively and insightful discussion.
Screening process
To ensure maximum transparency between participants and our clients, we operate on a three-stage screening process:
- Participants are screened via our own in-house online screening tool.
- They are then re-screened over the telephone in a more informal setting. In a world where everyone is different, recruitment screeners can be an arbitrary method of defining who a person is, so further telephone screening aims to spot any differences in what the respondent says and what they've detailed on the initial screener.
- For hard-to-reach respondents or business users, these will be further checked where circumstances allow - usually through the provision of hard-proof (an email, company profile, vehicle documents, etc). Such steps will also be further clarified at the commencement of a project.
Punctual and going to attend
There could be nothing worse than hiring a venue, planning a market research discussion, having the moderator prepared, only to find that a number of respondents don't show up. Over the years, MRFGR have maintained an 'extremely' high turnout rate of 95%+ and developed a reliable method of making sure everyone attends.
- We will touch base with respondents a minimum of three times, including the morning of their session.
- For longer or longitudinal market research, we will set up regular respondent reminders as agreed with the client.
- We provide full directions and maps to respondents, ensuring that they can find the venue without issue.
- We are always on hand to field any last minute calls from respondents that may still be experiencing problems with finding the focus group venue (or in the event of remote groups, helping them with any technical issues).