Launch of Raw Research

Chris Wood, formerly Director of Qualitative Services at Perspective Research, has launched a new fieldwork company, Raw Research. The company specialises in telephone, web and field based data collection, from recruitment and interviewing to first stage data analysis.

Wood joined Perspective Market Research as a Field Manager at the start of 1998 and helped it grow to an established operation with over £1.5 million turnover. His understanding of fieldwork and fieldwork interviewers comes from working his way up through the ranks - he began his career as a telephone interviewer with Harris Research in 1995 - and one of his aims is to help clients to recognize and utilize more fully those responsible for collecting raw data, 'taking the call centre mentality out of fieldwork'.

'The industry has lost sight of the fact that the key to good quality fieldwork is the recruiter / interviewer, and it's time the traditional fieldwork model was changed' argues Wood. 'For too long telephone interviewers have been an underused resource, many of whom are paid very little to sit in a booth following often very inflexible working rules and having little involvement in or ownership of the project... At Raw, we make sure interviewers understand who the client is and what they are trying to get out of the research; we make them feel like they're working directly for the client and that they're valued members of the whole project team'.

Raw Research's web site is at www.rawresearch.co.uk

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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