For most studies, the questions aren’t all that detailed. We’ll always ask for your contact info (name, phone and email), what city and/or zip code you live in, and some questions related to your use of whatever product we are researching. To make sure we talk to a diverse group of people, we always also ask demographic questions such as age, ethnicity, gender, household income, and education.

Sometimes, the questions do get more detailed. For instance, if we are researching a baby product we will need to ask about the ages and maybe genders of the children in the household. Or, if we are doing research for a bank or credit union about a financial product we might need to ask about your assets, income, etc.

We will NEVER ask for the most sensitive information such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, etc.

No. Consumer and opinion research is a great way to make some extra money here and there. But unfortunately, it’s not a source of income.

On that note: Be careful! Most companies that promise “work from home” opportunities are scams. To protect yourself, remember to NEVER give any company money in exchange for participating in research, any kind of panel “membership” or anything similar.

Our clients want to talk to a wide variety of people and usually don’t want to keep seeing the same people over and over again. Generally you can participate in a study every three to six months.

For most projects we do multiple sessions and they are broken out by categories of people, so the time for the group you qualify for usually depends on your answers to the questions. We can’t tell you what time your group would be because we don’t know!

Unfortunately, if we told everyone the exact profile there would be a few people who would not be honest. Someone who has, for instance, never bought a certain product might say they buy it regularly just so they can get into the study and be paid. We have to ask the questions to ensure we have honest answers, otherwise our research would be invalid.

When we get a study, our client gives us a very detailed profile of who they want to speak to. This could mean people of certain ages, people who buy certain products, people who have certain cars…even people with certain body types. Our job is to find these people, recruit them, and pay them for their participation. We only get paid for the people we recruit, so trust us, we WANT to recruit you, very much! If we could recruit everyone who applies our job would be much easier.

If you haven’t been called for a study yet, chances are that eventually you will. Thousands of people a year participate. And don’t forget that every time you respond to a questionnaire you are entered into our monthly second-chance drawing for $100. On average, about 1 in 10 people who respond to a questionnaire will end up participating.

If this is frustrating, and you’d prefer not to try to participate anymore, we understand. Just ask us to stop contacting you and we will.

No! We do not sell any information to third parties. Any information we collect is only for our research recruiting and nothing else. Selling it or using it for any sales-related purposes would be strictly against the ethics of market research. We are members in good standing of the Insights Association (formerly the Marketing Research Association) and we are also closely linked with the American Marketing Association and the Qualitative Research Consultants Association.

There is a market for individuals’ information, but there is no way a small firm like ours could compete with the information already collected and sold by companies like Google and Facebook, and the purchase information sold by credit agencies, card loyalty programs, and other big operations. Even if we wanted to sell your information there is nothing to do with the relatively small amounts of information we collect on just the people who sign up for studies.

We conduct research in both the US and Canada. Currently, we do not operate in any other countries.

Yes! While most of our projects are for people in Michigan, we regularly conduct research nationwide.

We take your privacy very seriously. Please see our Privacy Statement for detailed info.

We are always doing research, but everyone does not qualify for every project. For instance, we may not have any projects for people in your geographical location yet. Or, our current topics of study are for people with different ages, occupations, medical conditions, etc.

No! You should never, ever be asked for any money whatsoever for participating in Market Research. If you ever are, it’s a sure sign you’re dealing with an unethical company and you should report them at once to the Council for Marketing and Opinion Research and the Market Research Association.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of phony companies that have cropped up online promising “paid surveys” if you join for a fee. You can identify these scam companies in a few ways. First, they provide no contact information other than maybe an email. No address, phone number or names, so they remain anonymous. Second, they charge you money. No one that charges you money for market research is running a legitimate business. Third, they often advertise and try to sell you things. It is strictly against the ethics of market research to try and sell anything to participants.

This makes it hard for the many legitimate opinion and marketing research companies like ours. But you know we are legitimate as we are members of the Market Research Association, our contact information is publicly available, and we never ask you for anything but opinions.