A Research Rockstar client shared a great story yesterday, one that I just have to pass on. I have sanitized it a bit, to “protect the innocent.”
Theresa is a market research manager at a consumer electronics company. Her team of 4 researchers used to be a team of 7, so workloads are pretty rough.
She recently had an executive from another department share his concern that customers were being over-surveyed. He knew some non-research employees were using SurveyMonkey and similar tools to conduct customer surveys. He asked Theresa to recommend a course of action.
Knowing that the issue is a lot more complex than just telling people to “stop,” she recruited six people from the different departments involved in the rogue activity. Once gathered in a conference room, she showed them the Research Rockstar class, “Embracing Rogue Research.” The 1-hour class acknowledges the pros and cons of decentralized research, suggests policy options, and even tools to make everyone’s life easier.