FEATURE7 July 2022

Going for gold: Covid-19 and in-person surveys

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

Colette Doyle

Behavioural science Features Impact Trends UK

The pandemic changed many of society’s accepted norms, including the way that market research is conducted. What exactly is the new gold standard when it comes to professional insights interviewing? Colette Doyle investigates.

Chess pieces portray the best solution

From generating national statistics to providing informative data in person, research plays an incredibly powerful role in gold standard social surveys. This type of research was heavily disrupted by Covid-19 and a return to conducting interviews in person has proved to be both complex and challenging. 

Kantar Public successfully completed a live pilot of a return to Covid-secure, in-home interviewing in August last year and since then has delivered almost 10, 000 interviews with members of the public in the UK alone so far in 2022. Ben Collins is UK head of business excellence and, along with colleague Michelle Lewis, UK head of data and operations, has co-authored a presentation on the importance of in-home surveying.

He is candid about the challenges ahead: “The issues surrounding conducting in-person, especially in-home, research will continue. For some interviewers, uncertainty about what interviewing will now be like and their personal safety made them initially reluctant to come back. We know this is a challenge across the ...