Business to business relationships inevitably involve some risk, but only a few of these contracts devolve into an unpleasant enough experience to send the client packing. In the world of research consultants, such horror stories are even fewer and far between.
It can happen, however. Here are some of the most common reasons we have heard in the past for why clients swear they will never work with a particular market research consultant again.
They are Impossible to Get a Hold Of
Communication blackouts are incredibly frustrating to clients, who shell out money for a service then hardly hear back from their vendor. In this day and age of dozens, possibly hundreds of communication channels, there is simply no excuse for falling out of touch.
Even in the best case scenario, requests end up getting ignored or implemented too late to make a difference.
They Steamroll Their Client’s Project
To steamroll is to disregard a client’s instructions and do the project in their own way. This troublesome behavior becomes a serious problem when it involves research consultants outright ignoring the wishes of their clients. Like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole, the end results are typically messy and not at all what the client was hoping for.
A similar issue arises when market research consultants take their client’s project details and reshape them to suit their own needs such as implementing a particular research method which will somehow benefit their personal interests.
They Shoehorn You Into Their Favorite Methodology
Related to the above issue, some research consulting firms have a nasty habit of hard-selling their preferred research methodology, usually not to the benefit of their client. Someone might insist, “Oh, a phone survey would be perfect for this!” ─when the idea was to take advantage of email attribution, or say “You absolutely HAVE to try this new mobile survey app!” ─that happens to cost thousands of dollars and offers no extra benefits.
They Outsource Everything
Outsourcing some work is part and parcel of the modern “gig economy,” but when little to no work comes from the company paid to do it, clients may wonder what they were paying for in the first place. The problem arises when there is a huge disconnect between the project managers and the actual people doing the work. Like a game of telephone, instructions get diluted, and the end results may be poor.
With that said, plenty of consultancies know when to outsource, whom to outsource to and how to retain quality control of the final product while doing so.
They Make Huge Mistakes … Or Just Fudge the Data
There is no question that misleading market research is worse than no market research since it could cause some very misinformed decisions.
Read some of our research agency reviews to see exactly what our happy clients are saying about us.
