Going Mixed-Mode

For the fourth year the provider of market research software Confirmit has conducted a survey among research companies: "The 2007 Confirmit Annual Market Research Software Survey". According to the report, two-fifths of MR companies offer mixed-mode research as part of their offering: a substantial minority. In revenue terms, this remains a very thin slice of revenues. But the survey detects an upward swing in demand for multimodal data collection capabilities by research software buyers: almost half (49%) now demand ‘parallel’ mixed-mode capabilities. However, demand has remained flat for the more complex real-time switching kinds of multimodal data collection, which is clearly still a highly specialised activity. The reasons for mixed-mode research are many, see the graph below. The top two cited are research quality and methodology reasons – response and sample coverage. Reducing fieldwork costs was third in popularity as a reason, it is in fifth place as a ‘main reason’, overtaken by requirement from the client and being able to offer a more respondent-friendly method. The key findings and report can be downloaded from their site confirmit.com or by clicking here.