Six months ago I sat down with Dan Wagner, our CEO, and had a heart-to-heart on the state of survey science. We talked about the challenges of it—in exclamation points, asterisks, and other symbols. We’ve done that a lot, lately, as a company (sometimes even in words fit for print). More importantly, we got to work, and today, we’re releasing Civis Research—super-fast, hyper-accurate market research made easy in a web app.
Civis Research is the newest addition to our suite of easy-to-use Decision Applications built on the Civis Platform, which are our way of making data-driven decisions possible for all organizations. (You’ve heard this before, when we introduced Civis Explore in December.) I think of it this way: We’re democratizing the type of market research our Applied Data Science team does by putting top-notch survey science in the hands of the little (and middle, and big!) guys. Now, marketing managers, account executives, and brand managers can do it themselves, with our powerful scientific methodology at their fingertips.
With Civis Research in your browser, you can ask the right audience the right questions—and be confident in the quality of the answers you get. It’s backed by our best-practice questionnaires, sampling, and analysis, which were developed by our social science team, proven by our applied data scientists, and made accessible to you through the skillful work of product managers, engineers, and designers. Do consumers know about and like your fast-casual restaurant chain (or kitchen appliance, or budget airline) more than your competition? Ask them, and see for yourself. Start with one of our tried and true questionnaire templates—we’re starting with templates for brand health, and we’ll be adding more in the future. If you’re a retailer, or sell products, consumables, or services, we have a template for you. Set it up in an hour or less, and get results within a week.
We’ve been using Civis Research across various industries—from video streaming services and airlines to big box stores and high-performance cameras—to see how the brands stack up. Stay tuned (and subscribe to our blog!) as we’ll be sharing the insights with you soon.
Here at Civis Analytics, we have always been dedicated to making the best survey science better. We got our start in politics, and have built on those successes. (WIRED called us the “best hope” to fix polls. Blush.) What do we put in our secret sauce? It’s one part list-based sampling of web panels, and one part extrapolating results by stratifying and weighting with modeled variables. Yeah, that’s a mouthful. But think of it this way: We use individual-level data so you get really accurate results, and if you want, take it to the next level with predictive models based on that data.
Once upon a time, market research was relatively straightforward—you ordered a list of telephone numbers, sent it to a call center, and got back the answers to your questions. But now, fewer people have landlines, and the people who do are less likely to answer. The industry is moving online—but wait! We’ve said it before, and it bears repeating. Not all online market research surveys are created equal. To get reliable results on your own, you’d need to invest in data partnerships, develop weighting formulas to remove bias, and know how to write scientifically sound survey questions. For small and medium–sized organizations, those are some big asks.
So, there’s a gap, and Civis Research fills it with self-service survey software at its very best.
We’d love for you to try it and let us know what you think.
