As the world struggles to adjust to the new circumstances brought by the global pandemic, market researchers are reconsidering their current methods of conducting customer research. While it proves to be a challenging situation, you might still need to do your work. The only way to do this is by conducting customer research remotely.

What are the benefits of remote research?

• Insights are more authentic
• You have the opportunity to diversify your pool of participants
• It’s cost-effective
• Feedback is instantaneous
• It helps you be more efficient
• You and your respondents can do it in the comforts of your home

Once you’ve shifted to a remote setup and have a market research service to help you, you can now focus on gathering insights from consumers.

Here are several tips and tricks in conducting your remote customer research:

Make use of mobile

Going mobile is a must these days and it’s one of the best practices in research that you should not ignore. According to statistics, the number of smartphone users in the United States is estimated to reach 275.66 million this year. This means that for you to have smooth remote customer research, you must first make sure your research is accessible. Make sure apps and tools are mobile-friendly, as well as surveys, questionnaires, or other data gathering devices.

Use innovative tools to share insights

Working on remote customer research will present new kinds of challenges, including being able to communicate or collaborate with co-researchers or clients as much as you need. You need innovative tools that can help you share insights and findings. An audio and video curation tool such as Glide Central can help market researchers store, organize, and manage multimedia content for remote research. With this kind of solution, you will be able to collaborate effectively with team members.

Make surveys shorter and more user-friendly

Shorter and more user-friendly surveys will ensure that participants can easily understand and respond to your questions and requests. This is also a must since a person’s average attention span is only eight (8) seconds. It’s imperative that you make sure that you are asking the right questions and your respondents can focus on your surveys in a shorter amount of time, fully comprehend them, and provide rich feedback.

Have a specific question when recruiting participants

When recruiting for your remote research, it’s best if you focus on a specific question or detail about your prospective participant and start there. This targeted or specific approach will let them know that you’re serious about reaching out to them. Other practices you should apply when recruiting participants are:

• Make it known that your prospect has something unique to offer to the research
• Ask an open-ended question to know how comprehensive they are
• Write effective participant invites
• Use marketing strategies if possible

Feel free to use various mediums and approaches

The sky's the limit when it comes to remote customer research. You only need to be creative. Use various mediums and methods to help you in your remote customer research. This can be effective within a big pool of participants and can help you figure out which is the best way to acquire the most authentic insights from them. You can utilize one-on-one interviews, different kinds of surveys, a diary study, and more. You can also use a mobile ethnography app and other mobile market research applications to help you.

Be prepared to adapt to a new normal and embrace remote customer research. These tips and tricks should be enough to help you start when you conduct your own.