We level with you :

In the 21st century, there are many different approaches to opinion research: you can ring a respondent’s home telephone and speak questions into a respondent’s ear using live operators; you can ring a respondent’s home telephone and speak questions into a respondent’s ear using recorded voice; you can hand-dial a respondent’s cell phone and speak questions into a respondent’s ear; you can text a single question to a respondent and wait for him to text you back; you can walk through a neighborhood, ringing random doorbells; you can stand on a busy street corner and intercept random passersby; you can conduct a live, in-person focus group; you can conduct a virtual focus-group, and/or you can interview respondents leveraging the power of the internet, showing respondents questions on their desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phone, or other electronic device, and allowing respondents to respond at the time and place of their choosing.

Each of these methodologies has unique strengths.

Each of these methodologies has unique limitations.

Way too often, prospective clients come to SurveyUSA asking for a price-quote for a specific methodology. Metaphorically, it’s like being a physician and having a patient approach you and ask …

“What would you charge to attach leeches to me and have them suck my blood?”

Who would you rather have as your research partner? A junior account exec who looks at the laminated card she was handed at the last company offsite and says, “That will be $183.49 per leech” … or a principal in a research firm who says, “Forgive me, but can we talk about why you think that leeches are the right approach in today’s world?”

To extend the metaphor, SurveyUSA often hears back, “Well, we’ve always used leeches in this kind of a situation, and it’s important for us not to introduce a new variable into the equation.” SurveyUSA gets an “F” grade at holding our tongue. We lose business when we level with our prospective clients and say, “We think there may be a better approach than the one you are recommending.”

That, we feel, is our obligation: to tell prospective clients what realistically is possible given your unique circumstances, your particular budget, and the realities of conducting research in an 8-second attention-span world.

That is why SurveyUSA does not offer on our website a shopping cart where you click to order and click to pay. With opinion research, every job is custom; we choose not to pretend to warehouse our “best-sellers” in digital inventory.

Just as one would not use a soup spoon to paddle a canoe nor a butter knife to shovel snow, SurveyUSA will match you with the tool best suited to your project. Let us level with you. That’s a key part of The SurveyUSA Way.

We confess we sometimes offend a prospective client by saying,

“That won’t work.”

But we sleep better knowing we don’t just go along for the ride when the client is headed in the wrong direction.