Qlarity Access regularly partners with numerous focus group facilities across the US to facilitate research design projects on their behalf. These facilities operate as their own individual firms, with their own clients and own research recruiting practices. But like any business, they experience limitations in what they can accomplish, and how fast they can get things done.
When they run up against a roadblock or find themselves up against a large recruiting deadline, they often turn to Qlarity Access.
You may be surprised—focus group facilities turning to Qlarity Access to hit a deadline for research design? At a closer look, this makes sense. Most focus group facilities have their own panel of potential research respondents. This means that they enjoy the fruits of all of their research design efforts. Anyone they call, anyone whose information lands in their database is theirs to use and to target for future projects. But where focus group facilities run into challenges is when they take on projects that exceed their panel. For example, a focus group facility may have to perform research in many markets for one client, in markets where they don’t have a presence.
Enter Qlarity Access. We are not considered a direct competitor in this situation. We do not have our own facility and we do not have our own internal research panel data base. So in this sense, these groups can turn to Qlarity Access as a partner in their research versus a competitor.
This is critical, since there are notable downsides for facilities to turn to a competitor for help. The first is obvious and, yes, it is a kick to pride: they must hire a competitor to get the job done. The second part of that is that the competitor is likely to charge enormous rates, far above what’s fair, to get the job done, simply because they know they can.
Qlarity Access provides total custom recruitment solutions. What this means is that we partner with a focus group facility as a true partner, not a competitor. We have a presence throughout the US and any calls we make, and any data we collect, will be shared with the focus group facility. It is theirs. Because we don’t compete and because we do not have our own panels, we’re happy to share this information back to the focus group facilities. It is what they partner with us for, and it is what they pay for.
When we partner with a focus group facility, the engagement process typically looks like this:
This process came into play recently when we partnered with an Atlanta research group on research they were performing for a national restaurant chain. This group needed focus groups in Kentucky and Tennessee, in addition to Atlanta, to participate in food tastings. They required large focus groups for these tastings and extensive recruiting power in a very short time frame. Qlarity Access was able to deliver all of their recruits and then some, for just $75 / recruit.
Qlarity Access is skilled at using our training and refined internal processes for your use in research design. We do the outbound calling, we worry about the show rates and getting the right people in the room to participate. As a client of ours, focus group facilities can accomplish goals, meet deadlines and focus on their own clients.
Recruiting and research design is just one of the things Qlarity Access truly excels at. If you’re a focus group facility who has not previously considered partnering with a firm such as us, now is the time to give it some thought. We would be interested to hear about your latest projects and how we could be of help. You can contact us here.