Feature: Respondent Co-operation Summit

In late September an industry summit bringing together around 30 of the most influential people in US research will attempt to break new ground on the perennial issue of respondent co-operation. Have we been here before? MrWeb's Michael Kenyon asks the event's convenor Bob Lederer what makes it special.

Lederer is Founder and President of RFL Communications, Inc. and Editor & Publisher of Research Business.He will chair and moderate IIR's Research Industry Summit: Improving Respondent Cooperation to Revive Data on September 28-29 in Chicago.

Robert Lederer (RL): Let me start by explaining how this all came about because I think that's an important issue.

Over the past twelve plus years that I've been in the research industry, I've heard speaker after speaker at conferences and one-to-one, talk about respondent cooperation with comments about how difficult the problem is and that we have to do something about it.

Because I'm not a market researcher by training, profession or background I sometimes don't know what I don't know. What I decided to do – having become very tired of hearing the moaning and groaning about respondent cooperation – is to attempt to do something about it. Back in January, I reached out to CMOR and CASRO. I asked CMOR first, whether they would be agreeable to a third-party effort to help them do various things, including raise some funds and raise awareness about respondent cooperation so that they, as the organization in our industry that is responsible for respondent cooperation, could get help with the situation. Since their inception in '92, CMOR has attempted many times to take out the problem. What they have always lacked is the financial and physical muscle from big companies to make something happen. They have had some success initiating ideas and bringing them to the attention of the industry but not really getting the industry to salute and say, 'Yup, we're ready to do this!' So what I decided to do, with a go ahead from CMOR, was to attempt to recruit the presidents, chairmen or CEOs from the ten largest market research companies. I also decided that I wanted to try to recruit at least ten research directors from some of the leading client companies. And I also reached out to people who I not only considered friends but also true experts who have studied respondent cooperation over the years and talked to me in very honest person-to-person tones about exactly what's involved and what the problem is.

My idea was a 'UN Roundtable' – so-called because seated around it will be 30 to 35 true leaders in our industry who have the power and the muscle – financial as well as company size influence – to make something happen. CMOR will deliver a plan, a campaign and a program for the industry to take on respondent cooperation. I was very happy to see that we had a great deal of success recruiting the people that are going to be around the table and make the difference. I'm talking to each one of these people before the September 28th-29th meetings about their attitudes and feelings – pro and con– about respondent cooperation and what are they willing to do about it at major companies.

Michael Kenyon (MK: It seems as if respondent cooperation has been talked about forever. In addition to your inclination to get this discussed at a very high level, have there been other particular recent triggers?

RL: My thinking process was entirely focused around the idea of absolute tiredness of hearing complaints about it and not seeing any action. I've had to be extremely careful, because I don't want to come across as being critical of CMOR. I think CMOR, given its relative size as an association, has done a very good job over the years of trying to combat this problem. And as you know, they have two primary tasks. One is trying to minimize government regulation. And the second is respondent cooperation.

MK: If there were straightforward ways to improve respondent cooperation, do you have any sense of why something like what you've put together hasn't been done before?

RL: I think in all fairness to everybody else and everything else that's been tried, nobody has attempted to do what we're doing here and that is to really focus on the power brokers. I don't think there are any concrete ways that this is going to be done that everyone's going to do or that are easy to do. Respondent cooperation is a not even a multi-faceted but a multi multi-faceted situation that is going to require reachouts to consumers. It requires changes in the ways that research agencies operate and look at things. And I think that clearly, clients must have their involvement in this as well. It's going to take the cooperative efforts of researchers from both agencies and client organizations along with respondents to really make something happen. My goal for this meeting is to try to help the industry stop the erosion in respondent cooperation that as far as anyone can tell has been going on for 20 or 25 years. Until we stop the erosion we can't attempt to turn it around and try to build it back up.

MK: Are there any other aspects of this meeting, aside from the very high level people that are being brought together, that are meant to stem the tide of respondent cooperation?

RL: When you look at the two-day program, it's clear that it's not just a four-hour roundtable discussion. I think it will be an extraordinary and memorable event for the industry because there will be tremendous insights and comments that people haven't necessarily thought about. And as I mentioned before, I am pre-interviewing all 30-35 people that will be around the table to get a pretty good idea of where they're coming from so I can pull from them the most interesting comments that they're prepared to make about the situation. The conference will include information about respondent cooperation and best practices. There are even attitudes about respondent cooperation and how serious it is. There are some people that actually question whether it really matters.

Anyone who participates as an attendee or presenter has been invited to prepare for inclusion in a CD that will be handed out at the meeting, their best practices in respondent cooperation.

MK: I saw in the collateral materials, that an outcome of the conference is the idea that an action plan is going to be produced. Is there likely to be funding behind this, and if there is where will it come from?

RL: That's something that CMOR will have to decide. I made it clear to CMOR when I asked them to join in with us on this, that we would need a plan that would be the core, the nucleus of this meeting. I also told them this was a golden opportunity to try to get commitments from companies to raise some additional monies. It seems that some of the monies may come from new memberships in CMOR. I don't know for a fact how many of the people around the UN Roundtable are members of CMOR, but I would guess it's probably less than half.

MK: Are the conclusions of the conference likely to be aimed purely at the problem in the US, or might they open themselves up to applicability around the world?

RL: I think it has global applicability in the sense, that particularly for developing nations; the problems with respondent cooperation aren't all that different. My impression is that the difficulties that we have with online and telephone research are similar, although they may not be exactly the same as in France, England, Germany or other countries as they are here. My hope, if this goes over well here, I'd take a look at trying to go international with this.

This is a huge undertaking on our part. I'm hoping this won't even necessarily be the one and only session that we have like this in the States.

My feeling about this meeting is that it's the single most important meeting that anybody in the industry should be looking at this year. I say that because if your career is in market research, there is certainly nothing more important that trying to repair the respondent cooperation problem. And I like to tell people, that every day we don't do something about it, it only gets worse.

Bob Lederer was interviewed on 21 August 2006 by MrWeb's US Director, Michael Kenyon. More details are at www.iirusa.com/respondentcooperation/index.xml .

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