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I
love my job...As a Clientside Researcher
No, you are not reading the wrong article. And yes, I do love my job – because none of the above applies. After 10 years on the client side (and several years before that on the agency side), I have finally found my dream client. I joined to cater for just one client team. A year later with a staff of five, I run a central research function for the whole organisation, and report directly to the CEO. Our recipe for success? A combination of very hard work, skilled researchers, enthusiasm for research across the company, and a bunch of genuinely nice people who recognise what a meaningful difference we make. But most of all, our team takes great care not to be seen as ‘just’ project managers or backroom number crunchers. Client focus is core. Too often research is only reactive. Our team structure ensures that while each research manager has a distinct client group and area of specialisation, s/he is not cut off from the rest of the business. As a team we keep each other informed about project findings, discuss methodological challenges and exchange skills. We have built a strong team identity and work hard at adhering to clearly defined Best Practice Standards. Clients find this reassuring, and regularly sit with us to bounce off ideas. At the same time, we have set some ground rules of how clients need to work with us to get the best out of their research. Done right, this enhances professional respect for our team. The benefit of planning ahead and getting research input at the right time of the decision-making process has been recognised. Methodological awareness has come on in leaps and bounds. More often than not, we are asked to comment on Margin of Error or Statistical Significance! As someone once said to me, “If you give me 150% you can be sure to get 100% from me.” Well, we certainly do more than go that extra mile, and we certainly get back more than 100%, which is a great incentive and motivator. “What about the perks?” I hear you shout. I have not taken a decent break in 15 months, work most weekends and my other half threatens to go on permanent strike. Would I do it again? You bet!
I
hate(d) my
job...by an ex - clientside researcher On paper, working as a client should provide the pleasures of research without the headaches. After 2 years spent clientside, I have to say that the headaches outweigh the good parts. The biggest difficulty is that the research manager is really a glorified go-between. You’re not responsible for the marketing or communication side, and you don’t have the fun of doing the research. Although you do contribute a lot to project design, the role can easily turn into admin and progress chasing. Allied to this is the lack of control. While I have had some great experiences dealing with res-earch agencies, you are at their mercy. The things that agency people do – both good and bad – reflect on you. Final presentations, when the hapless agency has to present to your internal hard men, are nerve-racking. Actually, every agency senior ought to be put through the experience of watching the agency’s quivering team junior stand up, drop their acetates, and finally put up a slide labelled Research Objectives, Page 1 of 200. Working in an agency, I tended to think that companies were swimming in money. This isn’t the case – companies that don’t have a big advertising spend find market research extremely expensive. Far from wading through cash, I had to fight for every project. At the same time, people who balk at 4 groups will spend ages dithering before putting things out to tender. This accounts for all those strangely worded briefs – it’s already been through 5 versions before it got to you. Customer lists, confidently mentioned in the first meeting, take minutes to produce but weeks to arrive. The famed slowness of market research is as nothing compared to the time taken to extract a list from the bored IT executive who looks after the customer database. The final reason to move out is the uncertainty. Whenever two or three clientside researchers are gathered together, one is talking about whether they’ll still have a job in 6 months’ time. For a lot of companies, research is something they can cut back on. The company I joined had been bought and sold 3 times in 2 years. With that experience, you don’t make long term plans. I enjoyed a lot of my time, and working clientside was a valuable experience. But I’m returning to life as an external researcher with a sense of relief. And I’m writing shorter presentations these days. |
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