In light of the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, the purpose of this message is to inform you that RED C has business continuity plans in place that will ensure projects continue to run smoothly where possible and to help our clients and employees through this time of turbulence.

You can count on RED C’s teams to maintain the quality and timing of our work. The team at RED C have followed government advice, and in most cases staff are working remotely with no impact on their work.  A skeleton team remain office based for the moment.  We are also able to handle meetings and presentations remotely where required.

In terms of our online research work and panel participation, we are closely monitoring the situation and can report that the Coronavirus has thus far had no impact on production. As these are completed remotely by people at home, there is no reason for this work to be affected.  In fact, there is some early evidence that higher participation rates are possible. RED C’s high quality online panel remain a strong solution to conduct research for both quantitative surveys and qualitative online focus groups and communities.

For qualitative research such as focus groups we will continue to monitor the situation, and if necessary where required and appropriate we will move face to face focus groups to an online environment.

Our face to face fieldwork is of course impacted to some extent.  At present, we are observing all necessary guidance from the government at this time in order to protect both staff and the respondents we are interviewing.  Staff are asked to contact us immediately if they believe to have been in contact with someone with the virus, and not to work if they feel in any way unwell.  Currently the government has asked us to continue working where possible.  However, there may arise an occasion where we may need to postpone fieldwork for several weeks or alternatively move fieldwork to a different method such as an online or phone approach.  On tracking studies any gap in sample will be made up when we are able to start fieldwork again, if a different approach is not a preferred option for our clients

Our outbound telephone call centre is also following government advice, currently we continue to work from the centre, using best practice to ensure staff wellbeing.  However, we are also actioning remote access for as many interviewers as possible to access the system and call from their home remotely.

Of course, it is important to understand that the outbreak will by its nature impact on consumer perceptions and behaviour.  It is important to stress that during these times, research won’t be “biased”– it will be reporting the truth. Some industries or categories will see differences in their consumers or users’ behaviours, and it is important as ever to understand and measure them, as well as to know ‘when the tide turns’ and things come back to ‘normal’.

If you have any questions please contact us.