How to Make Money as Field Surveyor?

February 12, 2021

Market research allows a company to discover the target market and get feedback from consumers about their interest in the product or service. Some are face to face interactions and may demand traveling (require car or motorbike) whilst others can be held remotely as long as you have a reliable internet connection, laptop and mobile.

Market research involves the gathering and analyzing information of consumers. This helps businesses understand what products/services people want, who will buy them, and for what price.

If you think that you’d enjoy talking to strangers, and getting their opinions about various products and services, read our simple getting on board FAQs.

WHAT DOES A FIELD SURVEYOR JOB INVOLVE?

COULD I BE A FIELD SURVEYOR?

WHERE CAN I FIND FIELD SURVEYOR JOBS?

HOW MUCH DOES FIELD SURVEYOR EARNS?

WHAT TRAINING CAN I TAKE TO BE A FIELD SURVEYOR?

GET YOURSELF A FIELD SURVEYOR JOB NOW

Market Research Activities involve numerous assignments such as mystery shopping, retail audits, field surveys, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, consumer surveys etc. Collectively, we recognize them as Field Surveys or on-ground research operations.

WHAT DOES A FIELD SURVEYOR JOB INVOLVE?

You might be approaching people in the street, door-to-door, offices, retail shops, public places or on the phone. Once employed, you’ll typically receive a few days’ training before the required activity. You may also be accompanied by an expert on your first task.

If you’re going door to door asking questions, you’ll probably be given a list of streets to visit, each with a set quota of interviews to conduct. Alternatively you may have a pre-selected list of addresses to contact. These may contain the name of a specific person you need to speak to.

Your activity might involve observing a retail outlet for product or service assessment. Observation might require you not to reveal your identity which often is the case in mystery shopping. (You will be required to visit target site and observe, as per the checklist provided but you will remain anonymous and pretend to be regular customer or services seeker.

Similarly, you might be tasked to visit public places to conduct surveys or may be retail offices to observe customer services and product.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
  • Be polite and approachable. Always explain what the research is about and what it’ll be used for.
  • Make sure to record your answers. Take down the answers as you receive them. Then once the results are collated, they’re passed back to the organization you’re working for.
  • Researches are usually paid after the completion of assignment. Some companies will also reimburse travel expenses and may offer bonuses to those who meet their targets.
  • Read more about different market research assignments and tasks

DIFFERENT TYPES OF MARKET RESEARCH

There are two different types of market research:

QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

Quantitative research is based on the quantities or numerical statistics collected by surveys and questionnaires. Mostly the questions are multiple choice.

  • Face to Face Interviews: You’ll be asked to attend a short meeting to answer a series of questions about a product or service. Surveys are normally conducted face to face.
  • Online Surveys: You’ll answer a series of questions about a product, brand or service through a website or by phone. These can be of many different variations. Some may want to put some visuals in front of you for feedback and opinions; others may want you to explore a website with a specific task in mind.  In some cases, you’ll need to fit a certain ‘demographic’ to take part in a particular test. This means that you’ll need to be a particular age, sex, or live in a certain place. All you need to do is take a few moments to fill in the qualifier test.
  • Consumer Researches and Surveys: Market researches are basically executed to analyze consumer needs and preferences. Also, needs of end user is important; this can be customer, businesses, capacity building of target audience – as it happens in assessments of surveys and long term community uplift projects. In all of this, surveyors play a role on forefront in for data collection, recording and sharing it in the required format, based on this data reports are made and ultimately decisions too. 

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Qualitative research is based on more in-depth questions, determining people’s actions and thoughts by researching their attitudes and opinions. This type of research often takes place in groups or face to face. They may discuss a certain topic or collection of topics in a session. Participant’s opinions and views will be analyzed and recorded as it is.

  • IDI (In-depth Interviews): One to One interaction will take place and questions related to product or services are asked. Also, interviews are conduced online as well. 
  • Focus group discussion: You’ll be asked to discuss your opinions about a brand, product or service in a small group of people.

COULD I BE A FIELD SURVEYOR?

This is a job that involves interacting with different people of different industries and being interested in what they have to say.

Good Field Surveyor use positive, action-focused language, they also make it easy for participants to complete their survey. You need to be able to hold their interest for the whole survey and keep the results honest. This means not influencing the answers in anyway. You’ll also need to be able to deal with rejection from some people.

Most of all, it’s important to enjoy what you do and have fun being out and about. It tends to be a popular job for younger people, those with some relevant employment experience tending to have a better chance of securing work. Otherwise, with some training and experience you can secure paid research assignment/tasks.

  • Flexible Hours

There is no upper age limit to be a Field Surveyor. However it can be a flexible option for those with other commitments. Also, in most of the market research assignments you are not bound to commit yourself 9-5 but you can perform your task as per your convenience. When you get the required training, time duration for the task will be communicated and then you can manage the task as per your convenience.

WHERE CAN I FIND FIELD SURVEYOR JOBS?

The Ace Research is the professional and experienced employer for the Market Research sector and you’ll find the whole activity managed with utmost flexibility and convenience of researcher/surveyor in mind.

The Ace Research also publishes its blog for detailed insights on our research activities and also we post our vacancies across social media and informal job portals.

HOW MUCH DOES FIELD SURVEYOR EARNS?

Market Research

In all of the varying market research activities mentioned above, on average a field surveyor earns PKR 20 – 50k a month. With experience and dedication earning five digits a month from survey activities is doable. There can be 3 categories of field surveyor;

1. Telephonic Interviews and Online Assessment

The joy of having a telephone/online-centric job is that you can be based anywhere. So jobs are available at home or at a call center.

2. Door-to-Door Surveys

Doing field research is certainly more profitable, particularly in big towns. Outside main towns, the rate is different. Your travel cost is sponsored in most of our research activities, in some cases; an expense allowance for each assignment is also awarded.

3. Retail Assessments/ Branch Visits

Such activities involve sometimes a field surveyor to have distinct characteristics such as; to be well groomed, command over certain language, to belong to a specific location/region and often some prior experience (can be acquired with training and pilot visits). Often it is required to have motorbike or car for carrying out an assessment.

WHAT TRAINING CAN I TAKE TO BE A FIELD SURVEYOR?

If you want to improve your earnings as a Field Surveyor, think about taking some training, which may also open the way to more interesting roles.

  • Studying towards qualification

Various institutes offer various online and on campus certification in market research, which gives a comprehensive grounding in the basic principles and practices of effective market and social research. From there you can work towards Advanced Certificates, Diplomas and even Masters Degrees which will obviously put you in a completely different league and earnings bracket.

Besides having desirable certification or diploma – market research companies also offer short trainings free of cost to interested individuals.

GET YOURSELF A FIELD SURVEYOR JOB NOW

Register yourself with Ace Research if you believe you are consistent, hardworking, a good listener and also dedicated to meeting activity timelines. Ace Research provides complete training to all the shortlisted candidates who will pass our short interview and you could get a market research job down your street (literally) right now.

 

 

Digital Research ‘Lifeline for The Survival of Industries”

April 22, 2020

Effect of coronavirus on Businesses

The novel coronavirus has disrupted nearly all operations across the globe. Industries in general and business, in particular, are the victim of this virus. This virus which affects the respiratory system of the victim has to date killed many innocents globally, with highest deaths recorded in Italy i.e. around 10k.

Traveling has been put to halt and as a matter of fact all human to human interaction has been minimized as this virus is contagious. Social distancing is the only approach effective so far to mitigate the far-reaching effects of coronavirus.

Impact on businesses

As per Moody’s assessment industries that will bear the biggest brunt of this pandemic are; Textile, automotive, consumer durables, gaming, lodging/leisure and tourism, airlines, retail (non-food) and shipping. Those getting moderately affected include, beverages, chemicals, manufacturing, media, metal and mining, oil and gas, property developers, agriculture, services, steel and technology hardware. Industries that will bear the lowest impact are construction, defenses, equipment and transportation, rental, packaging, pharmaceutical, food, telecom and waste management.

Potential positive impact will be upon, internet services companies, retail online and gold mining.

Why conventional research is not an option now?

Conventional research involves field surveys and human interaction is involved but given the circumstance this cannot take place now but instead online means can be adopted effectively to conduct research. In recent stats it is being revealed that internet usage has increase significantly and people are spending more time online.

Digital research has seen a shift from conventional paper and pencil research in recent times and with ever increasing use of online platforms companies are using digital means to assess needs and preferences of their customers. It has been observed that FMCGs and Telecom are affected with less by coronavirus and this is good time or such industries to analyze the shift in demand of their customers and be prepared to meet the with maximum productivity.

How to conduct Digital Research

Online Market Research is a research method in which the data collection process is carried out over the Internet.

Online Market Research can be either Qualitative or Quantitative.  Qualitative Online Tools include Video Ethnography and Market Research Online Communities (MROCs).  Quantitative Online Methods include mobile and app surveys.

This research can evaluate the performance of a product or service and may allow companies to glean insight into consumer purchasing behavior. With the rising use of the Internet, digital research has become a popular tool among market research firms.

Digital research can provide additional information about a buyer, such as her prior purchasing history. Digital research projects can be carried out by a company itself or by a hired research firm. There are several ways that may be effective for carrying out digital research. Quantitative research can be carried out via online questionnaires and web-based experiments.  Qualitative research can be carried out via online in-depth interviews, online focus groups and participant observation, in which a researcher acts as a part of a community to observe behaviors.

Online questionnaires and online polls are some of the most popular digital research tools. Online questionnaires may need to be carefully designed in terms of format and length. Some of the key digital research models Ace Research offers include;

1. Brand Heath tracking

Brand Analysis: Brand research has similar profiling features (“Who uses this brand?”) and also aims at identifying the reasons for brand loyalty or fickleness.

Scanner Research: Scanner research uses checkout counter scans of transactions to develop patterns for all manner of end uses, including stocking, of course. From a marketing point of view, scans can also help users track the success of coupons and to establish linkages between products.

2. Consumer research

Audience Research: Audience research is aimed at discovering who is listening, watching, or reading radio, TV, and print media respectively. Such studies in part profile the audience and in part determine the popularity of the medium or portions of it.

Product Research: Product tests, of course, directly relate to use of the product. Good examples taste tests used to pick the most popular flavors-; and consumer tests of vehicle or device prototypes to uncover problematical features or designs.

Psychological Profiling: Psychological profiling aims at construction profiles of customers by temperament, lifestyle, income, and other factors and tying such types to consumption patterns and media patronage.

Database Research: Also known as database “mining,” this form of research attempts to exploit all kinds of data on hand on customers-; which frequently have other revealing aspects. Purchase records, for example, can reveal the buying habits of different income groups-;the income classification of accounts taking place by census tract matching. Data on average income by census tract can be obtained from the Bureau of the Census.

3. Pre/post campaign evaluation

Post-sale or Consumer Satisfaction Research: Post-consumer surveys are familiar to many consumers from telephone calls that follow having a car serviced or calling help-lines for computer- or Internet-related problems. In part such surveys are intended to determine if the customer was satisfied. In part this additional attention is intended also to build good will and word-of-mouth advertising for the service provider.

4. Monitoring and evaluation

M&E can be conducted using a wide array of tools, methods and approaches. These include, for example: performance monitoring indicators; the logical framework; theory-based evaluation; formal surveys such as service delivery surveys, citizen report cards, living standards measurement surveys (LSMS) and core welfare indicators questionnaires (CWIQ); rapid appraisal methods such as key informant interviews, focus group discussions and facilitated brainstorming by staff and officials; participatory methods such as participatory M&E; public expenditure tracking surveys; rigorous impact evaluation; and cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis. With the aid of digital research all these facets of M&E can be conducted online.

5. Online Discussions (Focus Group and In-depth)

Another common practice for online surveys is the use of online panels. An online panel is a group of selected individuals that have agreed to participate in digital research projects for a particular company at specific intervals over a period of time. These participants are selected through a screening process according to their demographics, lifestyles and habits, and are usually rewarded for their efforts by the research company regularly. Online panels may allow companies to glean insight into creating long-term relationships with their customers.  These panels may also allow customers to give direct feedback about products and services without the potential reluctance that may occur in face-to-face interactions.  Online panels may also mitigate bias caused by peer pressure to agree on a certain viewpoint, a phenomena that may occur in face-to-face panels.

Benefits of Digital Research

Amid the outbreak of this virus, businesses are widely affected and we all hope for better results with least damage in coming days to people and businesses alike. Nonetheless, once things get settle down the businesses have already borne the wrath of this virus and revenues are dwindling. So in these circumstances it is crucial for companies to closely monitor their clients and consumers so after this virus settles down, a strategy based on factual research can be devised immediately to recover the losses effectively.

To sum up, we have following advantages of conducting digital research.

  • Cost advantages
  • Speed advantages
  • Data collection in real-time
  • Advanced analytics
  • Efficient global and multi-country survey management

Conducting digital research can be a complex procedure and may require considerable expertise on the part of researchers in obtaining accurate data.  It may be challenging to recruit participants in digital research for several reasons.  Recipients may be reluctant to participate in digital research because they may be afraid that the privacy and confidentiality of their personal information may be violated.  Since the identity of the researcher cannot be verified completely, people may find it difficult to trust such research methods.  Researchers often present participants with some monetary or non-monetary rewards for their participation