by Kevin Rohm, Director of Sampling and Panel Services
I’m a Game of Thrones fan and if you know anything about the series or really any other saga (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Twilight), you know the power of the backstory.
Well, your client list has a backstory too, and sometimes it’s pretty important…
We recently had a 5% incidence on a client list match – that’s a tad painful! Since the incidence was so low and our deadlines were so tight, our client knew we were going to have a problem. It didn’t matter who the recruiting company was or whether they used multiple companies, 5% is 5% and that means longer time in field.
So, our client opted to ask the end client about the backstory on the list. Turns out the list was actually just a compilation of many purchased lists. The physicians on the list were not users of the product per se, and so the end client was fine with opening up the recruit to physicians who met the screener requirements. With this change, the project achieved a much higher incidence, thereby fielding faster and exceeding expectations.
Beyond the list itself, there can be a backstory to the respondent requirements. For example, we recently had an end client with specific decile requirements, but when those deciles became challenging, our agency client discovered that the deciles were actually more flexible than originally specified.
True, most client lists are not meaningless compilations(!) and most end clients do have decile requirements for specific reasons, but it pays to ask what the end client’s intentions are regarding their list. There might be backstory there that you just don’t know about.