With the amount of flak that market research group recruiters take, why is it that fieldwork agencies seem to escape unscathed and unchallenged?
Earlier this year I was recruiting a list project and it was proving very problematic; mainly because the list (financial) didn’t match the parameters expected by the end client. To find some more respondents for the groups, my client asked me to use a telephone recruitment unit of a fieldwork agency, specifying the one he wished me to use. As I knew how tricky it was I briefed them very carefully, both verbally and in writing but they produced respondents who didn’t match the quota at all – ones I had already rejected as inappropriate. When I challenged them they said they would try again and then produced nobody. In the end I managed to convert 2 of their recruits to depths who vaguely matched requirements, the client changed the spec to accommodate the others and then none of them turned up. It cost my client a fortune; I wanted him not to pay but he did. I later learned that the company charge a set up cost and then around £70 - £80 per head for recruitment (so more than double the average fee paid to group recruiters).
I was reminded of this when told that the same agency recently (for a different client), clearly asked to provide the usual 8 people who didn’t know each other, produced 4 couples!! The commissioning agency was, needless to say, furious.
My question is this: had any recruiter behaved in such a fashion they’d be hauled over the coals, not be paid for the work and probably lose that client; how does such an agency get away with it? And why are they allowed to?
