Field services
The Field Department at Survey & Marketing Services works in close collaboration with both the Quantitative and Qualitative Research Teams to provide a comprehensive and flexible fieldwork service, although can also be offered as a standalone service. With access to over 1000 interviewers across the country, controlled by 18 regional supervisors, we have the reach and capacity to meet your interviewing requirements. Outside the UK, we have links with fieldwork suppliers in Europe.
SMS is committed to providing the highest standards of fieldwork, with full training and instruction provided to our interviewers. Our interviewers are conscientous, discreet, approachable, and capable of carrying out a wide variety of fieldwork types.
Survey & Marketing Services Ltd. can offer and advise on many different fieldwork techniques, ensuring that the most appropriate method is used to meet your research objectives.
Central location tests
For this type of quantitative survey, interviewers work in a group under the direct control of a supervisor, in premises selected for an optimum location next to a busy thoroughfare.
Interviewers recruit people from the street and invite them to come into the premises to take part in a survey, which usually involves looking at or testing a product, watching a video, or reading a concept/description of a product or service.
Product placement
Much of the quantitative work carried out by Survey & Marketing Services Ltd. involves the testing of a product with members of the public before market launch, with interviewers leaving a number of product samples with a respondent until the test period is over.
At the end of the test period, interviewers may re-visit the respondent to collect the questionnaire and/or product. Alternatively, responses can be returned by post, or via an online survey.
Street interviewing |
Door-to-door surveys |
| Ideal for brief and straightforward quantitative surveys, our interviewers work in a busy town centre, street, or shopping mall to capture a representative sample according to the target demographics of the survey. |
Interviewers attain a random sample of respondents by covering properties in a specific area according to the requirements of the quantitative survey. |
Group discussion
Also referred to as focus groups, this qualitative research technique involves recruiting small groups of people to attend an informal discussion on a set topic, either at one of our Seen & Sound market research facilities, or in a hotel or conference suite.
A trained moderator conducts the discussion, which is attended by individuals who satisfy often very specific recruitment criteria.
Discussions can be recorded, and supplemented with notes and a full report from the moderator.
At Seen & Sound, private viewing facilities are available for the client to witness the discussion first-hand.
In-depth interviews |
In-home interviewing |
| An unstructured, qualitative interview which is often recorded. The respondent's answers and reactions are recorded verbatim, allowing for great insight at an individual level. | Similar to a group discussion and an in-depth interview, our interviewers can recruit respondents and then visit them in their home for an unstructured, usually recorded interview. |
Telephone interviewing
Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) offers the advantage of lower cost, higher volume fieldwork for quantitative studies. Survey & Marketing Services Ltd. works closely with selected fieldwork suppliers to provide full capacity in telephone interviewing. CATI also offers the benefit of being more suited to business-to-business research, being able to reach employees and executives directly in a way that traditional interviewing cannot.
