IQCS AGM and Awards Results 2023

We celebrated the 37th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of IQCS this year with great enthusiasm. The event took place in the spacious meeting rooms generously provided by IPSOS, and it witnessed a remarkable turnout. The agenda for the AGM included a comprehensive Review of the Year, discussions on Inspections/IQCS Standards Revision, a Marketing Update, an update from MRBA, and the much-anticipated Quality Awards.

Penny Steele provided a detailed overview of the current council and shared insights into the 2023 activities. During her presentation, she announced two vacant council member positions, encouraging attendees to nominate candidates for these roles. The meeting also featured the introduction of updated standards, accompanied by an outline of the membership situation. Unfortunately, owing to industry mergers and related activities, we regrettably lost a couple of member companies.

Chris Smith delivered an engaging update on marketing activities, emphasizing the exceptional value that IQCS provides to its members. Ginny Monk introduced the MRBA, shedding light on the impactful assistance the association offers, not only financially but also through valuable advice and general support. Sue Curtis shared touching feedback about individuals whom MRBA has supported, highlighting the organization’s multifaceted assistance.

The highlight of the event was the IQCS Awards Ceremony, followed by a delightful session of drinks and finger food. The overall atmosphere was enjoyable and relaxed, fostering meaningful connections among attendees. As we reflect on this successful AGM, we eagerly anticipate the upcoming one in November 2024. A heartfelt thank you to all participants, making this event a resounding success!

The IQCS Awards experienced a high number of applicants this year, reflecting the growing enthusiasm within our community. Members leveraged the application guidance available on the IQCS website, resulting in a remarkable array of high-quality submissions that left us truly impressed.

Our judges, Penny Steele, Chairwoman of IQCS, and Ginny Monk from MRBA, were astounded by the compelling stories and the overall excellence showcased in the award entries. This year, the well-deserved winners were Kudos Research, B2B International, RONIN, and Perspective. Each of these organizations demonstrated exceptional merit and innovation in their respective categories.

For a more in-depth look at the entries and insights into the accomplishments of our deserving winners, please explore the details further down on this page. We extend our sincere appreciation to everyone involved in organizing the awards ceremony, and a special thank you to all members who tirelessly support the IQCS, making it their mission to provide top-tier services in the market research industry. Your dedication is truly commendable!

The awards categories for this year are as follows:

IQCS Interviewer Excellence 

This award celebrates an individual or team in data collection operations who have demonstrated that they go the extra mile in consistently delivering interviewing excellence.

What the judges were looking for:

• Dedication to quality
• Consistently high standard of interviewing
• Robust data-collection
• Going the extra mile to complete a challenging project or projects
• Delivering excellence to your internal/external client

The Winner Is: KUDOS Research-Clare Dunn

Kudos’ entry celebrates Clare Dunn, an individual recruiter in the team who has been very adaptable and creative in her thinking and in the application of this to her role and projects. From recommending enhancements to the project screening criteria which led to a more diverse audience of respondents, to offering solutions to the client to overcome the recruitment of specialist audiences in the pharma sector, Clare’s  exceptional efforts has led to the client recommending Kudos to other group companies.

As the client says, “Clare is communicative, customer service oriented and an overall pleasure to work with and goes the extra mile to gather more background information to our interview questions.” Many congratulations Clare.

IQCS Data Collection Excellence – Telephone

This award celebrates the best in Face to Face or Telephone Data Collection. We are looking for a case study of a recent project which you were particularly proud of, which demonstrates how your organisation achieved fieldwork excellence in completing a particularly challenging project.

What the judges were looking for:

• Robust data-collection
• High quality interviewing
• Going the extra mile to complete a challenging project
• Delivering excellence to your internal/external client
• Demonstration the importance of great quality assurance processes underpinning the data-collection process

The Winner Is: B2B INTERNATONAL

B2B‘s entry was a great example of how to overcome a challenging project through creativity, close team working and supervision, and frequent team communication. Their entry acknowledged how the project got off to a rocky start but through even closer attention to the interviewers including daily catch ups, data capture tips and increased quality monitoring, they surpassed all expectations yielding more robust data collection and importantly, improving performance on every quality and commercial metric.

The client was delighted “The B2B international Team were on hand to answer all questions and went above and beyond to assist with the fantastic results we presented to the whole business.” Congratulations to B2B International

IQCS Data Collection Excellence – Face to Face

This award celebrates the best in Face to Face or Telephone Data Collection. We are looking for a case study of a recent project which you were particularly proud of, which demonstrates how your organisation achieved fieldwork excellence in completing a particularly challenging project.

What the judges were looking for:

• Robust data-collection
• High quality interviewing
• Going the extra mile to complete a challenging project
• Delivering excellence to your internal/external client
• Demonstration the importance of great quality assurance processes underpinning the data-collection process

The Winner Is: VERIAN (FORMERLY KNOWN AS KANTAR PUBLIC)

The Verian submission is truly impressive. They delivered a large- scale, face to face quantitative study on Destitution. Their interviewers were critical in the success of accessing this hard-to-reach audience amongst highly vulnerable groups. Adapting their interviewing techniques and approach to data collection, they completed almost 4000 interviews. What an achievement!

Verian findings have been used in Parliament, by the research community, community services and the UN. Huge congratulations.

Best IQCS Interviewing Training and Development

The award will go to the organisation demonstrating wholehearted commitment to interviewer-centric training and development with IQCS quality standards and the MRS Code of Conduct underpinning the whole process.

What the judges were looking for:

• Great feedback from Interviewer attendees on both the content and administration of the training (could be examples of post-training feedback forms).
• Promotion of the core IQCS values throughout the training
• Inclusion of relevant information on the MRS Code of Conduct and the GDPR
• Innovation and creativity in delivering the training – could be multi-media, PowerPoint, or through inter-activity
• Development of existing skills through targeted follow on training in response to monitoring feedback or the unique requirements of a specific type of work (e.g. probing skills, handling B2B Gatekeepers, qual interviewing)
• Strong focus on improving interviewer competence, confidence, engagement and morale, investing in the continual improvement of skills to ensure quality and aid interviewer retention

The Winner Is: PERSPECTIVE

This entry clearly demonstrated the importance and impact of a training framework underpinned by the IQCS guidelines, the MRS Code of Conduct and GDPR principles. Perspective have been creative in their training delivery using workshops, mentoring and VR, as well as using a combination of online and offline trainings. They ensure the continual development of interviewer skills through interactive online seminars and maintain regular communication through an interviewer newsletter and Supervisor conference.

As a result, their recruitment rates have improved, and interviewer retention rates have significantly increased. Well done Perspective.

IQCS Quality Ambassador

The award is going to an individual or team who consistently champion and promote quality standards for data-collection within their organisation.

What the judges were looking for:

• Details of how the particular individual or team have been pro-active quality ambassadors for their organisation
• Evidence of how they promote and encourage high quality standards across their business
• Details of how the overall quality of data-collection processes or deliverables has been positively affected by the efforts of the quality ambassador/s
• Feedback from users of the data-collection on the positive impact the quality ambassador/s has played in ensuring quality underpins all aspects of the data-collection process

The Winner Is: RONIN

This year’s award goes to Freda Chan from Ronin.

Freda is relatively new to this pressurised role in Compliance and has swiftly established herself as a trusted colleague who is involved in every stage of their projects.
She assists, advises and supports all the different Ronin audiences she deals with to ensure all data collection is transparent, ethical and fair.

Freda has been described by her colleagues as a rare find and is a very worthy winner of this year’s Quality Ambassador award – congratulations Freda.

As we celebrate the success of this year’s awards, we eagerly anticipate the next event. We encourage member companies to keep a keen eye out for potential projects or teams deserving of recognition for their outstanding work. Your contributions shape the future of excellence in the market research industry, and we look forward to highlighting these achievements at our AGM and award ceremony in November 2024.