Dianne Schmalensee and Dawn Lesh raise a number of issues in their Quirk’s article titled “Show Them and Tell Them.”

They argue that their research over the years suggests that:

1. Internal clients think their research function is doing a fine job at the basics, but falling down on the strategic value add.
2. Client side MR functions need to do a better job of managing internal relationships.
3. We need to quantify and prove the value of MR. In other words, we need case studies and the occasional “victory lap” where appropriate. As an aside, it is here that I see a role for the major associations as well as individual professionals.

But, the thing that struck me most in this article was their focus on whether or not we as an industry are listening to our research buyers.

Are we?

From the article:

“Surprisingly, very few of us actually survey our own clients about the experience of working with MR. We rely on the absence of obvious complaints or the quantity of our workload to tell ourselves that we must be doing okay – which is certainly not something we would ever recommend to our clients as a best practice.”

It would be interesting to see what percentage of client side and supplier side researchers report formally surveying their buyer after every project.

The simple act of doing so would probably increase satisfaction rates.