Participant FAQs

Perspective Research Services undertakes the collection of data for market research projects either in person, via telephone, over the internet or through the post on behalf of our clients.

Perspective Research Services does not sell or market any products to respondents – the purpose of our contact is always for genuine market research, the answers to which are completely confidential and only ever passed on to clients in an anonymised form.

If you need to contact anyone at Perspective as a result of being contacted by Perspective Research Services, please email info@perspectivemr.com.

Why is market research important?

Market Research is your opportunity to give your opinion on things that may affect you and your family. Manufacturers, retailers, service companies, political parties and the Government can only succeed if they please you, the customer, so they need to find out what you need and what you want. Your opinion can influence a wide range of products from pension plans to washing powder  and also have a bearing on issues that affect the quality of your life. It is the job of market researchers to ask questions – to find out what you think.

Contacted by telephone

Our telephone interviewers are trained to be professional at all times and are given a range of information to help them deal with any queries that may arise during the course of a call.  However, questions may arise after the call has ended, or you may want to comment or make a complaint.

Where did you get my telephone number from?

There are two main ways in which we may have obtained your telephone number:

1. We are often commissioned by companies to conduct surveys on their behalf with their customers: this ensures an independent, unbiased approach to collecting opinions and helps companies get an accurate picture of their customers’ views. In such cases we would have been passed customer details by the company commissioning the research;
2. Some clients want their surveys to be nationally or regionally representative of the population. In such cases we will have randomly generated your phone number through a widely used Market Research method called Random Digit Dialling. Because these numbers are generated randomly we hold no personal information related to them: indeed, until we call these numbers we do not know if they exist as live telephone numbers.

Why do you call me when I am registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS)?

Perspective does not sell or market any products to respondents – the purpose of our calls is always for genuine market research, the answers to which are completely confidential and only ever passed on to clients in an anonymised form.

As a market research agency conducting surveys, Perspective is exempt from The Telephone Preference Service (TPS). TPS was set up to allow registration by those who do not wish to receive sales and marketing calls. This is stated in the letter TPS send out to all those who register with them: “Your TPS registration will not stop calls from companies involved in market research…”. The TPS website also states this in its FAQ section 17.

Do not call list

If you do not want us to call you again please email donotcall@perspectivemr.com with your telephone number and ideally the date/time we called you. We will add your number to our Do Not Call list to ensure you are not called again by us. In all cases, we will try to respond to your request as quickly as possible.

Please be assured we are registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 as a Data Controller and any numbers you supply to us will be stored only so that we do not call these numbers in future. We will never pass your number to anyone else.

Contacted in the street / in the home (face to face)

Thank You Leaflet

The interviewer should have left you with a thank you leaflet which explains more about our company, the purpose of market research, and why you were chosen to participate.

Why were you chosen?

For most research projects it is necessary to talk to a cross­ section of the public – people from all walks of life and of all ages. You have been asked to give your opinion as a representative of the population.

Why is it necessary to ask personal questions?

To make sure that we do achieve a cross-section of the population we do need to ask personal questions which may include details on occupation, income and age. This information is given in total confidence and is only asked to ensure that we have a representative sample of the population.

The replies are confidential so why do we ask for your name and address?

This is a safety mechanism mainly for your benefit. To check that this interview has been carried out fairly, and that the cross-section has been contacted, a Supervisor may contact you to confirm the accuracy of the interview. Nobody outside the company will gain access to your name and address.

Interviewer Identity Card

Carried by up to 65,000 interviewers across the country, giving the interviewer’s name, photograph and the company they work for.

Market Research Mark

For questionnaires sent out in the post – this guarantees that the questionnaire is for research purposes only and that your name is not being added to a mailing list.

Contacted online

Perspective Research Services takes every reasonable precaution to ensure the privacy and security of your information while using the survey website.

The roles of Decipher and Perspective Research Services are outlined below:

Decipher operates the survey questionnaire software and data collection process that Perspective Research Services employ to collect your opinions online. The data from the survey will be held by Decipher in a separate database. Only Perspective Research Services will receive the data collected by online in the survey. At no time will the information you provide be used for any purpose other than research and you will in no way be adversely affected by taking part.

It is not our aim to sell or promote anything. These are marketing research surveys using scientific methods and we commit, in obtaining your co-operation, not to mislead you about the nature of the research or how the findings will be used. Your responses will be treated as confidential unless you consent to being identified. In the relatively few instances where we ask permission to pass on your data in a way which would allow you to be personally identified, we will ensure that the information is only used for the stated purposes. We will not send you unsolicited mail or pass on your email addresses to others for this purpose. If we wish to send you any future emails, we will ask your explicit permission for this.

We take every reasonable step not to interview children without gaining prior parental consent.

Use of cookies

We use cookies and other similar devices sparingly and only for quality control, validation and to prevent bothersome repeat surveying. It is possible to configure your browser to notify you when cookies are being placed on your computer, and to delete cookies by adjusting your browser settings.

We do not do any invisible processing of data from your computer. We will only collect and use personal information in accordance with this policy to the extent deemed reasonably necessary to serve our legitimate business purposes, and we will maintain appropriate safeguards to ensure the security, integrity, accuracy and privacy of the information you have provided. In addition, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that third parties to whom we transfer any personal information provide sufficient protection of that information.

Information security

Perspective Research Services and Decipher have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under their control. Only certain employees have access to the information you provide us and are only granted access for data analysis and quality control purposes. By participating in this survey, you consent to this policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not complete the survey.

We keep our policies under regular review and we will always have the most up-to-date policy on this web page. We will indicate when the policy was last updated.

You can contact Perspective Research Services by emailing juan.popelka@perspectivemr.com to discuss any problems with this survey.

Access to data

As with all forms of marketing and opinion research, your co-operation is voluntary at all times. No personal information is sought from or about you without your prior knowledge and agreement. If, for any reason, you are concerned that the personal information maintained by Perspective Research Services is incorrect please email juan.popelka@perspectivemr.com. Please also email this address if you wish to see what data is stored about you by Perspective Research Services. We will be happy to review, update or remove information as appropriate, but please be aware we may need to retain your information on our files to resolve disputes, enforce our user agreement, or for technical and legal requirements and constraints related to the security, integrity and operation of our online surveys.

Remember

Genuine market research, whether through the post, on the telephone, on the street or online is:

• always confidential
• never tries to sell you anything never requests money
• never asks you to make an appointment with a salesperson.