Research You Can Do During The Covid-19 Crisis

Online qual

To support consumer insight teams and the research community during this period of uncertainty, we've reached out to our global recruitment partners to get regular updates on the potential to continue to recruit for, and conduct, online qualitative research - mobile, communities, OLFGs etc - in their territory.

We want to help you continue to plan for research now and in the coming months, and ease concerns around the disruption that might be caused by COVID-19. Research results that Further's research team are seeing remain in line with what we saw pre-crisis, and we are continuing to get great insight at the time of writing, as testified to by feedback we received from our client at Colgate Palmolive.

The engagement with the community has been phenomenal. Even during the tough Coronavirus period, our online activities and a product trial have been executed flawlessly

We are going to make every effort to update the table below regularly, so please bookmark this page and revisit it when you need to reach a decision on whether to press ahead with your research, or not.

If you are a recruiter or fieldwork company and have updates you want to share with the community via this post, then please send them over using the link below and we will include them in our updates.

We are also offered advice towards the end of this article, on the types of research that we believe should (and shouldn't) be conducted during these times of crisis.

COUNTRY	STATUS	CAPACITY
UK	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video. Amendments to screeners with Covid-19 related questions in place. Extra reminders sent to participants.	Capacity for all recruitment methods including traditional, behavioural (although likely to be affected moving forwards) and panel.
US	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video.	Capacity for all recruitment methods including traditional, behavioural (although likely to be affected moving forwards) and panel. We partner with platform-agnostic recruiters that predominantly operate in the qualitative space
Canada	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video.	Capacity for all recruitment methods including traditional, behavioural (although likely to be affected moving forwards) and panel.
Italy	Recruitment timings to be extended by +1 week. However recruitment and digital qual research methodologies are still very much achievable.	Country currently on lockdown, but recruiters do have capacity to recruit and support online qual research methods. Behaviours likely to be affected.
France	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video.	Capacity for traditional recruitment methods conducted virtually.
Germany	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video.	Capacity for traditional recruitment methods conducted virtually.
Spain	Recruitment timings to be extended by +1 week. However recruitment and digital qual research methodologies are still very much achievable.	Country currently on lockdown but our partners do have capacity to recruit and conduct digital qual research. Behaviours likely to be affected.
Netherlands	Recruitment currently unaffected. All recruitment will be conducted via email, phone and video.	Capacity for traditional recruitment methods conducted virtually.
Japan	Recruitment currently unaffected. Stringent policies have been put into effect, including: exclusion of the older generation from research, letting respondents know what tasks are expected of them at recruitment stage and switching all projects to online, etc. Have seen no change in participation rates.	Capacity for traditional recruitment methods conducted virtually.
China	Recruitment currently unaffected. Stringent policies have been put into effect, including: regular contact with remote team members and partners, ensuring all projects have a contingency plan to mitigate disruption and risk, continuous updates to clients and higher over-recruitment than normal. Have seen no change in participation rates.	Capacity for traditional recruitment methods conducted virtually.

Research feasibility:

The list below sets out the research objectives that we believe you can still effectively be answered using online methods during this time of crisis:

Diary studies
Mobile ethnography
In-home Product Testing
Innovation / NPD
Concept Evaluation
Brand Perceptions
Communications Testing
User Experience
Category Insights
Online Shopper Journeys
Consumer Co-creation

We would strongly advise that the following types of research SHOULD NOT be considered due to the fact that the behaviours you witness may not be truly representative of the 'old normal' or the 'new normal, or because they typically require participants to leave their homes.

Shopalongs
End-to-end customer journey mapping
Path-to-purchase
Physical ethnography
Focus Groups

If you'd like to get advice on what research is and isn't feasible right now then we are here to help.

For more information and advice at this time then here's our thoughts on concept testing during the crisis, and the leading ways to use online qual for insight.

How to conduct customer segmentation market research?

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Conducting research with diverse and multi-cultural consumers

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Research You Can Do During The Covid-19 Crisis

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Platform-only

Services & Support

Expertise

We were amazed at the level of insight we achieved in just a week. Further opened our eyes to new ways of researching and understanding our staff

Further really understood the brief and were extremely proactive. We are now very confident that we’re taking the right products and proposition to market.

Further's expert team pushed us to clarify our assumptions and to think harder about how to communicate the value of our products and services

Working with Further was a refreshing and eye-opening experience…...the qualityof their output which was excellent.

Strategically, Further’s insights provided clear and directional answers that will guide us through our next phase of growth

We helped Chilly’s leadership team consider new ways to understand and co-create with their customers’

We were amazed at the level of insight we achieved in just a week. Further opened our eyes to new ways of researching and understanding our staff

Further really understood the brief and were extremely proactive. We are now very confident that we’re taking the right products and proposition to market.

Further's expert team pushed us to clarify our assumptions and to think harder about how to communicate the value of our products and services

Working with Further was a refreshing and eye-opening experience…...the qualityof their output which was excellent.

Strategically, Further’s insights provided clear and directional answers that will guide us through our next phase of growth

We helped Chilly’s leadership team consider new ways to understand and co-create with their customers’

What next?

Follow us

How to conduct customer segmentation market research?

Brand research: what, why and how

Featured Stories

Free Templates

Conducting research with diverse and multi-cultural consumers

Featured Content

Research You Can Do During The Covid-19 Crisis

Discover our platform and services

Platform-only

Services & Support

Expertise

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We were amazed at the level of insight we achieved in just a week. Further opened our eyes to new ways of researching and understanding our staff

Further really understood the brief and were extremely proactive. We are now very confident that we’re taking the right products and proposition to market.

Further's expert team pushed us to clarify our assumptions and to think harder about how to communicate the value of our products and services

Working with Further was a refreshing and eye-opening experience…...the qualityof their output which was excellent.

Strategically, Further’s insights provided clear and directional answers that will guide us through our next phase of growth

We helped Chilly’s leadership team consider new ways to understand and co-create with their customers’

We were amazed at the level of insight we achieved in just a week. Further opened our eyes to new ways of researching and understanding our staff

Further really understood the brief and were extremely proactive. We are now very confident that we’re taking the right products and proposition to market.

Further's expert team pushed us to clarify our assumptions and to think harder about how to communicate the value of our products and services

Working with Further was a refreshing and eye-opening experience…...the qualityof their output which was excellent.

Strategically, Further’s insights provided clear and directional answers that will guide us through our next phase of growth

We helped Chilly’s leadership team consider new ways to understand and co-create with their customers’

What next?

Follow us