How clients and vendors can build trust and get to work

Needs vs. wants

Knowing so many clients outsource research due to a lack of staff reveals an interesting point of tension. Clients may need to outsource but do they want to? Bringing in a partner can be efficient, save time and allow clients to delegate but it can also be annoying, frustrating and a large burden on already full plates. Based on feedback we heard in the Q Report, the key to a productive outsource experience starts even before back-and-forth communication – it starts with listening.

“Listen, and know us before you call.”1

“Stop trying to sell and listen!!!”

“I’d like more face time and I’d like them to really listen. Be willing to evolve and push for better insights reporting.”

Listening must be where clients and vendors begin when establishing a partnership. Clients must demand it and vendors must do it actively and with interest. This is the only way a vendor can ultimately deliver insights a client trusts enough to share. Good listening sets the tone for productive two-way communication and the combination of listening and communication is what creates understanding. It is not enough for clients to feel heard and to feel that communication is positive. The need to engage a vendor creates a gamble – one every client hopes produces genuine understanding of their business and insights they can share with confidence.

“There is a real gap between what our vendors can understand about our business and business challenges and what my internal clients need. That gap creates a challenge when translating our business objectives to a research objective and vendors simply are not good at making that connection. I wish they could understand our needs and drivers better so that they could offer better recommendations from the research. Now, all vendors like to make recommendations but they are either super-obvious and just a regurgitation of the data or simply not useful and thus end up being totally ignored.”

Of course there is no quick and easy solution for bridging the understanding gap; a client will always know their business best. But here are some suggestions for how to start building a collaborative relationship for clearer – and less complicated – insights development:

For new relationships

Learning plan. With the luxury of time, the client and vendor can create a learning plan together. The client gets to share and showcase their ideas and hypotheses – even if raw or in early stages of development – and the vendor gets to research the topic, gain exposure to the business and help refine, discuss and dispute the client’s hunches.

Request for proposal. The client adds a section asking the vendor to summarize what they already know about the client’s business, offering a chance to see how the researcher conducts research well before the first respondent is recruited. Clients should also be clear about how firmly they’d like vendors to stick to the RFP’s parameters – should they be followed to the letter or would the client appreciate suggestions, questions and fresh ideas?

Three quick questions. Rather than sacrificing diligence when short on time, the client asks the vendor three clear questions: What is your unique value proposition? What is our unique value proposition? How would you address our research question? As a bonus, eventually the client can build a library of the responses that work best with the company/department’s culture and needs.

For established relationships

Face time. Vendors should make in-person client meetings a priority. So much is enhanced, cultivated and diffused in the moments between meetings that can solidify – or sever – a working relationship.

Fresh knowledge. The vendors and client set time at regular intervals to discuss the client’s business, not just individual research projects. What has changed? Who has changed? What remains consistent?

Use case. Are client and vendor on the same page about why, when and how often the client needs help? If not, this can lead to confusion on the part of the vendor about how they add value. Is the vendor for special projects only? Have results fallen short of expectations? Discuss how the vendor can add the most value by understanding the purpose they serve. How can the client help the vendor understand the reach of their solutions within the organization?

Posterity. The client and vendor should consider together what knowledge the vendor is able to hold and transfer as new stakeholders join or leave the client team. Are past insights organized and easily accessed or are new client stakeholders doomed to conduct the same research over and over because they can’t see or understand what was done in the past?

“I would love vendors to understand our business better. Every vendor meeting starts with, ‘So, tell me what you do currently.’ It would be revolutionary for a vendor to come in and say, ‘Here is what I understand about your business and here are some ideas for how our tools can help you.’ To date, all discussions have been me telling them how they can help us (or not).”

If clients and vendors are clear and honest about why they’ve connected – especially when the client lacks the staff to get the job done internally – both can reach a state of mutual understanding faster and with fewer complications. When everyone knows how to add value and makes the effort to understand the business, clients can engage vendors as true extensions of their team. The result? Productive insights that are easy to trust, share and put into action.

How to trust an “expert”

When clients count on vendors to provide expertise they don’t have in house, the stakes are even higher than when outsourcing due to lack of staff. There is a big difference between needing an extra set of hands and needing a distinct set of skills outside the client’s main comfort zone. This is a leap that certainly starts with a need for listening and mutual understanding but one that also requires the complex experience of developing trust. It’s one thing to know a business, a method or an approach and to then bring someone in from the outside to support it. It’s something else entirely to decide to trust an external partner to add expertise that is totally different from a client’s skill set. This type of trust, once earned and established, can result in productive long-term relationships that include collaborative strategic planning, multi-year forecasting and other macro initiatives that can be tackled together. But giving this trust opens a partnership up to risk and client/vendor relationships are not often easily up-leveled from basic client services or project management to a relationship that generates great insights.

“They’re often great project managers but not creative or insightful. I’d like more help uncovering insights and opportunities but very few vendors do this well.”

“Planning. Would like to bring them into the annual planning process earlier before we finalize the research agenda.”

“I need them to think outside of the near-term project and partner in a more meaningful and collaborative way.”

“...basically, become even more of a trusted partner and an extension of our research department.”

The Q Report provides dynamic feedback and insight around this topic. It also begs the question – beyond this survey, are clients really asking for these types of relationships with their vendors? Are vendors regularly asking clients if they can partner in this way? On many levels, these needs are not being met by client or vendor and so the dialog must shift beyond looking at what support the research project needs to what support the client, the business and the vendor relationship needs for it to be considered successful and healthy. Only then can we shed the baggage tied up in the formation of the client/vendor relationship and get to a productive place of insights that make a difference inside an organization.

Share the insights love

How can a client’s need to outsource ensure great insights are created and activated inside an organization? We believe these elements of listening, communication, understanding and trust form the basic foundation for everything (including insights) that come from a client’s external relationships. When the terms of the engagement are clear, honest and laid out plainly from the start, great things happen. When stakeholders review a report that really “gets it,” what they’re really holding in their hands is the result of a solid relationship formed through high-quality communication. Whether through the process of collaborating on a learning plan or the vendor-as-hired-expert asking how the research will be used to make decisions inside the organization, the act of listening, communicating, understanding and trusting are vital to successful commissioned research.

The Q Report gives us a broad and current view of how things are going in the world of corporate market research. This data and the feedback gathered provides a raw and honest look at what is working, what is changing and what desperately needs improvement. This report is an incredible jumping off point for clients and vendors to start listening with intention, communicating more clearly and adjusting the ways we collaborate on corporate market research. Here at 20|20, we’re listening and doing our best to uncomplicate research. Because the only thing worse than not having data from the Q Report would be failing to act on the insights it contains.

Footnote

1 All verbatim responses are excerpted from Q65 of the 2018 Q Report “In what area or areas would you most like to be able to improve your ability to communicate with your research vendors?”