Research on wheels – researching the automotive industry

‘Mystery shopping allocation co-ordinators: excellent career opportunities’ is what the advert said in the local press. With a degree in Social Anthropology and no clear idea of what I wanted to do for a living, this advert looked like it was for me. OK, it was paying £10,000 (rising to £10,500 after a few months) so I’d need to postpone the plans to buy a mansion and go on that luxury holiday but it sounded like a chance.

Just over seven years later and I’m still with the same company (a full service, global market research agency) though I’m now a Senior Research Executive specialising in global, customer satisfaction work in the automotive industry. With an effective 150% pay rise in that time, the house and the holidays have also appeared.

Being a researcher in London – ups and downs
My typical day starts with the alarm ringing at seven, out of the house and hour later and then the hour commute into London (if you want a house, stay out of London!). I’m at my desk by 09:30, working through any new e-mails and planning my priorities for the day. As one of those people who work best at the beginning of the day, I’ll be aiming to get as much done as possible before lunch. The end of the day is 17:30 though I’m paid to get the job done rather than work the hours. I’ve worked through to the early hours when releasing new developments before though I now have a lot more control over my work and can better manage my time to enable me to leave by 18:00 most days.

Dedicated to a single client
90% of my time will be taken-up by the continuous project I have been working on for the past two years. This involves liaising with the client, colleagues, internal and external agencies; specifying business and technical requirements; delegating sampling work and report checking to other members of staff; quality checks, logging and monitoring; data mining; cost control and budget monitoring – pretty-much everything involved on such a study. It can be busy and sometimes emotional though I love the responsibility and take great pleasure making sure that everything ticks along smoothly.

Continuous projects can become somewhat mundane, especially with customer satisfaction work where the study can last for many years. Other teams can be seen celebrating new or completed contracts and this is something I miss. On the other hand, I’ve been on my project since the beginning and there is a good level of satisfaction seeing it grow and evolve in line with my client’s business needs.

The best part of the job is finding solutions that work and make everyone’s life a lot easier. The hardest part is arguing your case to ensure internal agents prioritise your needs effectively.

The other 10% of the time will see me working on general tasks for my department. This may be a presentation for new graduates on what we do, assessing and implementing best practice around the department or helping other teams to work around issues or bring understanding to the data we report on. I’ve recently been over to our German office to help them set-up a new project – taking the knowledge accumulated from my experiences to provide direction and insight.

Growing up in research
When you first start-out in research, it can seem like everyone else knows the answers and you’re the one who is always asking the questions. With this study, it has been interesting to work with a client who is relatively new to research. They know they want research to be conducted but aren’t clear on what they want to do with the results or how it will fit-in with their business development plans. Finally, I’ve had the chance to really get to grips with a client’s needs and be the one providing the answers.

As far as personal development goes, the company I work for has probably the best internal training courses in the business. We’re all actively encouraged to attend the courses (run every quarter), which now include the MRS certificate and diploma. On top of this, the on-job training provided has given me great insight into technical issues such as servers, web site development, database design and query logic. From a more personal side, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a manager who leads by example when it comes to client management, quality and time management.

Job satisfaction
The social side here is good, too. Team lunches, dinners and drinks occur as often as everyone wants, there are departmental events and also company wide activities (sports day, bowling, quizes, etc.). Additionally, the company runs a scheme where you pay a quid a month and get large discounts on tickets for theatres, music gigs and the like.

For the future, I will be taking a break from private sector research to try-out the public sector jobs nearer to home. It’s one of those decisions where you realise that you still have another 40 years of working and, for me, the thought of spending those years commuting into and out of London to make money for other people just doesn’t sound too appealing. Therefore I’m off to try to make a more direct impact to the quality of life in the local or wider community. Market Research has been great to me, providing plenty of skills, experience and character growth that I will be taking with me for the rest of my life.