TNS to Give Panels The Sixth Degree
October 31 2007
TNS has announced a global quality programme for its panels, Six Degrees of Online Quality - to begin next year.
The programme's procedures will cover all aspects of the research process used by the firm's 6thdimension access panels (www.mrweb.com/drno/news3803.htm ), including those for:
- Building a panel - adopting techniques to analyse the calibre of members
- Panel management - applying best practice through capping panel size, removing inactive members and ensuring panellists remain motivated
- Sampling techniques - delivering qualified and relevant samples
- Questionnaire design - ensuring content and strategy contribute to data quality
- Quality of data - vetting how long participates spend completing a survey and checking accuracy of response
- Panel reporting - providing key quality metrics breakdown such as response rate and number of participants rejected.
Speaking at the ESOMAR Panel Research 2007 Conference in Florida yesterday, Jon Briggs and Mark Walton - both TNS Regional Directors for 6thdimension Interactive Research - explained the firm's philosophy that effective online research can only be delivered through an integrated and rigorous quality programme.
Briggs stated TNS's belief in the equal importance of having standards for all aspects of a study, including questionnaire design and data reporting. He added: 'As the industry develops new approaches to conducting online research such as online communities and using customer and employee databases, it is just as important that this 'end-to-end' approach to quality is fully developed and implemented.'
Walton confirmed that TNS fully supports the work of ESOMAR and other organisations (such as the recently formed ARF Online Research Quality Council - chaired by Robert Tomei, EVP and Global Director of TNS 6thdimension Access Panels) in this area.
The 6thdimension access panels are co-ordinated out of three centres in Toledo, Ohio supporting North America; Amsterdam supporting Europe; and Hong Kong supporting Asia, Pacific, Latin America, Middle East & Africa (
www.mrweb.com/drno/news6638.htm ). With new panels planned for 2008, TNS says it will soon cover 30 countries and comprise around 3.6 million panellists.
Web sites:
www.tnsglobal.com, www.esomar.org and
www.thearf.org.
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
