Confirmit 2013 Market Research Technology Report highlights key industry changes over the past ten years

London, UK and Oslo, Norway and New York, NY: 29 May 2014: Mobile technology, social media and multi-modal research have been the most positive technological developments in Market Research (MR) over the past decade, but firms have been challenged by disruptive elements including DIY surveys, data privacy and the displacement of fixed-line telephony during that time.

These are some of the key findings of the Confirmit 2013 Market Research Technology and Innovation Survey, produced by meaning ltd.

The survey, which analyses the technologies and developments that shape the MR industry, also reveals that there has been a significant shift towards working with businesses on their Voice of the Customer (VoC) and Customer Experience Management (CEM) programmes by research companies.

The study reveals 70% of research firms are now undertaking some VoC or CEM work and a majority are using NPS in some way. However, ‘traditional’ customer satisfaction studies are by far the most prevalent way of exploring the Voice of the Customer.

Tim Macer, managing director at meaning said: “The research industry clearly is adapting to the new data-rich, ‘always on’ landscape that we find ourselves in today. VoC is a natural place for research companies to be, but it will not be credible or sustainable if the industry does not embrace innovative methods to deliver a more holistic and integrated product.  There are noticeable gaps in provision when it comes to integrating research with non-MR sources of data, and in dealing with the explosion of comment and other unstructured data.”

Meanwhile, the mobile channel remains a key area of development potential for research firms, according to the survey.

Ole Andresen, director of product management at Confirmit said: “The last ten years have been dubbed the ‘decade of the mobile device’ and mobile has certainly been a key technology for MR organisations. The growth in this area shows no sign of slowing down, with 42% of MR organisations now able to deliver surveys via mobile app, and 70% able to run them via mobile browser.

“The survey findings reflect our own experiences at Confirmit, with many customers now seeking to embrace the mobile channel, using either mobile app, browser or even SMS, across the different programmes they run.”

Other key findings of the survey include:

Data privacy issues are a major disrupter for organisations collecting large amounts of data
The use of the web as a data collection tool remains strong, but CATI is decreasing
There is a measurable move towards integrated MR software platforms, and away from separate tools
PowerPoint remains the most popular method of delivering research results, although the use of dashboards is expected to grow
10% of firms use word clouds as the main tool for presenting text analytics results – but their usefulness as a standalone tool is questioned.
This year sees the 10th anniversary of the survey. The findings are based on the responses of 240 MR firms globally. Click here to access the full 2013 Market Research Technology Report: http://bit.ly/1pkkyBE