The comprehensive changes to the processes surrounding the import and export of goods in recent times have forced both private and public organisations to quickly turn around processes, legislation updates and new products for businesses looking to move products globally.

With Brexit becoming a reality, government agencies – including our client – had to move quickly to develop new and improve existing products, in a bid to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of any services that allow organisations to move goods in and out of the UK. The government teams we have worked with since the beginning of the Brexit process informed us they needed to speak directly with businesses, freight forwarders and independent consultants to get the right feedback.

The B2B recruitment team at People for Research has sourced these business owners and professionals across a range of industries and business sizes for our client. As this is a long-term project, PFR are still delivering participants to help make Brexit services more user-friendly.

But how have we managed to deliver over 600 niche participants to take part in research? Here’s how.

Getting the right people

Getting the right participants is a challenge for any user researcher. And, with a growing need for inclusivity in research, recruitment criteria gets more complex with every new project. On top of having to source entrepreneurs, importers/exporters and niche professionals at different stages in their business processes, we are also recruiting according to ethnicity, digital capabilities and accessibility needs – just to name a few examples.

To ensure each round of research met its goals and requirements, PFR used a range of tools to reach participants and users according to each individual piece of criteria. Using a range of tried and tested free find tactics and our growing UK and overseas B2B panel, we partnered with industry-specific trade organisations and governing bodies to guarantee the right respondents were able to participate.

To reach the right individuals, PFR mirrored the language used by companies and publications in the field, as well as niche terms that the right people would recognise, to generate awareness and advertising campaigns. All of our project managers working on Brexit-related recruitment completed a training course to learn the complex processes, terminology and language used in the industry. This helped with writing screeners, external campaigns and communicating with participants.

Working with a recruitment agency

Outsourcing this part of the process to a recruitment agency takes away the burden of such a large scope of work, especially at a time when a lot of the user researchers we talk to have too much to do and short deadlines.

As well as finding participants, this particular client needed greater flexibility in other crucial areas, such as:

⚽  Scope the workload with kick-off meetings

The initial kick-off meeting should be treated as a general handover to ensure the user recruitment agency understands the pipeline of work, the requirements and criteria, and to discuss how to handle last-minute changes to briefs.

🤓  GDPR requirements

When dealing with most recruitment, we work with personal and sensitive information. This is especially true when looking at inclusivity in research and topics such as sexual orientation, ethnicity and accessibility needs. Ensure all GDPR aspects are covered and reassure participants about confidentiality and complete anonymity during the screening processes to be as transparent and trustworthy as possible.

💬  Clear communication

With any partnership, communication is key. Communication methods need to be adapted and improved for each partnership to minimise the chance of key stakeholders missing vital information and to give researchers information in real-time with easy-to-use tools for instant sign-off.

🤝  Regular catch-ups

Alongside daily email exchanges or quick phone calls, regular catch-ups help both teams to keep updated when it comes to current and future projects. This ensures the partnership runs efficiently and reduces lead times for critical projects.

💷  Invoice clarity

Invoices, sign-off, approval… These can all be blockers to the user research process, especially when projects have tight deadlines. Knowing exactly what work is included in agreements, who is responsible for what and where additional steps need to be raised will help the bureaucracy-related parts of the process go much quicker.

➕  Recruiting outside of projects

Finding the right participants is more important than finding the most available participants. With ongoing projects, the client wanted to book in participants who fit very specific profiles. We worked together to book in relevant people even when we weren’t working on live projects, with the aim of advancing research closer to completion.

A changing recruitment service

As organisations become more user-centred in their approach, their user recruitment needs also shift. The challenges our client’s user research team faced led to a change in what they needed from their recruitment partner. On our end, PFR’s services have continuously changed and evolved to keep delivering quality participants and maintaining productive relationships with client. Years of user recruitment experience and a detailed project review process helped us identify potential improvements at every stage, as well as identify methods that yield the best results for every project across industries and specialisms.

PFR’s recruitment services delivered value through accurate recruitment, but our ability to be flexible and work as a partner, not just a supplier, meant we helped to “alleviate pressures we were facing, and this resulted in multiple services being assisted to critically tight deadlines,” according to our client.

The results and a nomination

Throughout our collaboration with this client, we delivered over 600 participants – 613, to be exact – across 14 streams of remote research and testing. We keep working with this specific client, continuously delivering participants for their sessions and helping to make all Brexit-related processes better and easier to use.

We recently submitted this case study to the Market Research Society, which resulted in PFR being shortlisted for a 2021 Oppie in the category of Best Support Services, the same one we won back in 2019 thanks to our work with cxpartners and the charity FRANK.

The Market Research Society (MRS) has been running the Oppies – officially known as Operations Awards – since 2014, recognising the operations professionals who keep the market and user research industries running. The Market Research Society is the UK professional body for research, insight and analytics. The institution acts as a regulator, promoting the highest professional standards throughout the sector via its code of conduct.

Nicole Partington, Head of Projects

If you would like to find out more about our in-house participant recruitment service for user research or usability testing get in touch on 0117 921 0008 or info@peopleforresearch.co.uk.

At People for Research, we recruit participants for UX and usability testing and market research. We work with award winning UX agencies across the UK and partner up with a number of end clients who are leading the way with in-house user experience and insight.