AT&T: Online Consumer Research Panel Development

Background

Every year, AT&T Consumer Services conducts a wide range of consumer market research projects, from new product concept testing to offer refinement and advertising effectiveness tracking. In recent years, AT&T has steadily increased its use of online research methodologies, benefiting from speediness of results and decreased costs. With increased competition in the telecommunications marketplace, online methodologies give it the ability to locate low-incidence customers in specific geographies.

Business Problem

To meet a plethora of research needs in specific geographies, AT&T often made use of syndicated online consumer research panels to reach research respondents. While this proved to be an effective means of performing research, purchasing the use of publicly available panels on a one-off basis was becoming prohibitively expensive. Further, these panels were not always able to provide customers with the exact characteristics AT&T was seeking. Looking to achieve greater control over the panel makeup and reduce per-research-project costs by amortizing the up-front development costs over a large number of projects, AT&T decided to develop a proprietary consumer panel and turned to Callan Consulting for help.

Solution

Callan Consulting spearheaded the process of gathering business requirements and translated them into panel design requirements, defining, for example, how many customers were needed in each of dozens of different quota groups based on factors such as:

Geography
Usage of AT&T products
Lifestyle and demographic characteristics

Callan then developed and distributed an RFP based on these requirements and managed the vendor selection process. They then project managed the process of panel development and recruitment, leading a team consisting of the selected vendor, a separate sample source vendor, and internal AT&T research personnel.

During this process, Callan was careful to ensure that the appropriate methodology was used to meet AT&T’s business requirements. For example, steps were taken to ensure that the consumer research panel development process would yield a representative sample while minimizing potential sources of bias, and that results from panel research could be projected to a nationally representative audience.

Results

Callan Consulting successfully brought the project in on time and on budget. Within two months, by the date originally agreed upon with the panel vendor, the panel was fully populated, with each of the originally defined quota groups filled. Within two weeks, AT&T began putting the panel to use, using it to successfully recruit participants for a strategic new consumer market research study.

Client Feedback

“I appreciated Callan Consulting’s can-do attitude, and specifically Ed Callan‘s combination of strategic thinking and tactical execution, and his ability to work effectively with the team. He never missed a beat.”