Why Crushing your Timeline is not always a Good Thing

By Kevin Rohm, Director of Sampling & Panel Services

Alexa, Siri, 24-hour news feeds.  Having information on demand is a good thing, right? Eh, maybe not so much in physician market research.

You know the drill – client needs answers a.s.a.p., timelines got crunched on the front end, now we’re asking HCPs to respond to survey invites in 24 or 48 hours. We dig in and get the job done…and then we get bragging rights about how we got 100 completes in 2 days and over the weekend no less.

Could we have done better?  Maybe not better in terms of timelines, but better in terms of richer data? 

Some healthcare professionals have patient loads that are literally busting out of the waiting rooms. Those HCPs have something valuable to contribute to our research, but all too often we might be missing them, because they need to wait until the end of the day or the end of the week to respond to their survey invites. If we had just a bit more time (we’re talking days, not weeks), then those HCPs might be able to participate.  And, our insights would be even greater because of their participation.

So the next time we’re trying to crush our timelines, let’s ask ourselves if we can add a few days to the mix.  Give the HCPs whose schedule is insane a real opportunity to get into the survey and share their thoughts.  Our insights, our industry might be richer for it.