What's Happening at Business Advantage?
The Telephone Research Fieldwork Team
It might seem mundane to talk about our telephone field work but actually it is at the very core of what we do at Business Advantage. Our clients expect quality results they can rely on; it is the telephone fieldwork department that deliver that. Of course, the analysts, research executives, statisticians, project managers, report writers and research directors play important roles too, but the quality output of the fieldwork department is at the very heart of Business Advantage's operation.
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Business Advantage is very fortunate because it has its own specialist market research telephone field force. These are teams of wonderful people, many with multi-language capabilities and all experienced in one or more of the market sectors we specialise in — the global IT, telecommunications, digital print and design technology markets. Most of them have been with Business Advantage for many years, which means that they have built up considerable knowledge and understanding of both the sometimes quite technical markets they are working in and also the key business issues, vital to our clients and the respondents they are interviewing. |
Under the direction of Fieldwork Manager, Allyson Henry, both qualitative and quantitative international B2B research studies are undertaken from our London-based operations centre, including:
- competitor analysis
- customer satisfaction
- image and awareness
- market sizing and trends
- new market opportunities
- new product development
- usage and attitude
Additionally, business development projects are also undertaken, which include things like channel partner profiling and recruitment, corporate profiling, business opportunity identification, event attendance and target name research.
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Our telephone fieldwork teams have at their disposal the latest call-centre technology including CATI – computer-aided telephone interviewing systems and digital telephone systems that enable Allyson and her team of supervisors to monitor calls, listen in to interviews and ensure all work is completed to the highest quality standards. The telephone system also enables the research interviewers to record interviews with respondents; this facility is used both for training purposes and also to provide our clients, when required, with the ability to hear what individual respondents actually said. |
We undertake projects in more than 100 countries across five continents. In house, our multi language capability includes German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hungarian and Polish with access to a wide network of other language specialists.
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Let us give you an idea of the calibre of the excellent fieldwork staff we are fortunate to have in Business Advantage by introducing you to a few of them:
Carol Broom Carol has been with Business Advantage for over 10 years and is one of our most consistently effective interviewers. Prior to joining Business Advantage Carol worked in the financial services sector for many years primarily with Barclays Bank and is very experienced in engaging with senior personnel not only in the financial services sector but across all vertical sectors. |
Helena Lawrence
Helena has a degree in modern languages is bi-lingual English and Italian and has lived and worked in France and Germany and is fluent in these two languages as well. Helena has worked with Business Advantage for over 10 years on a project basis and has a vast wealth of experience gained from interviewing many thousands of both users and managers of high technology tools and solutions.
Julie Hatchard
Julie is an example of a highly experienced interviewer. She has carried out high level telephone discussions for many leading IT companies at director level during her nine years with Business Advantage. Her experience within the IT and telecommunication industry enables her to provide high quality results and she is excellent at dealing with switchboards and gatekeepers.
Michel Leite
Michel is French and has worked as a senior telephone operative for over 8 years. He has worked on mainly high level IT and medical projects. Additionally, Michel is an experienced supervisor of projects as well as being a project co-ordinator. He has often been responsible for ensuring interviewer quality standards are maintained across various international projects.
Xiang Liu
Xiang has an undergraduate degree in Marketing from Shanghai University and an MBA from the Thesus-Edhec Management School in France. Xiang has sales and marketing experience in both China and Europe and some years of experience in international market research and is fluent in Chinese, French and English. Xiang is one of the lead interviewers and analysts in the Chinese team.
In Summary
The excellent associates that make up our fieldwork department in their various language teams are the cornerstone of the Business Advantage operation. It is because of their unrelenting attention to detail, their ability to get through to the right senior level of decision maker, strike the right rapport and then obtain the real and relevant insight that results in success story after success story at Business Advantage. We are justifiably very proud of them.
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