Services

The expertise to design, implement and direct research activities to exacting specifications allows us to deliver actionable results with the highest level of data integrity.

Quantitative Research

Quantitative research is when you want to know how many people within a defined population feel favorably inclined toward a specific client, product, candidate, or idea.  When gathered in statistically valid quantities and skillfully interpreted, such quantitative information can become bedrock upon which to base sound business, marketing, and advertising decisions.

Paragon Research uses three primary methods for gathering accurate, dependable, quantitative information. 

1. Telephone Survey: The most intimate, accurate, and dependable method for gathering statistically valid information about a defined population segment -- particularly when the work is executed by a fully professional research service such as Paragon Research.
   
   

   * 95% of all residences and 100% of all business can now be reached by phone
   
   * With callbacks scheduled for times when residents are most likely to be at home, it is possible to complete as many as 80% of all contacts attempted. Even with the advent of Caller ID (which some homeowners use to filter out non-personal calls) contact completion rates of 70% are possible.
   
   * Skillful interviewers quickly establish rapport with the respondent, asking their help, promising confidentiality and guaranteeing that it is not a sales call of any kind.
   
   * Research costs are controlled because of the effective use of telephone interviewers’ time and the speed with which large quantities of data can be acquired, entered, processed, and interpreted.
   

2. In-the-mail Questionnaires: This is a self-administered study in the sense that the respondent fills in the form, following clear instructions supplied as part of the survey package, answering carefully crafted questions and supplying carefully selected personal information. Questionnaires are only sent to carefully selected representatives of the defined population segment the client wishes to study.  Questions are adroitly phrased so that first they elicit accurate and useful information and, second, so that the answers can be readily translated into statistically valid answers that accurately represent far larger segments of the population.
   
3. Questionnaires from random populations: Most frequently service establishments such as restaurants or motels conduct these surveys. Questionnaires are displayed where they can be conveniently picked up by respondents, filled out, and mailed in.  These surveys are an excellent source of random data, suggestions, and complaints with some validity in identifying trends.

Qualitative Research 

Qualitative research is when you want in-depth response from a small, but carefully selected “focus group” of people who represent a clearly defined demographic and/or psychographic segment of the population.  Such small groups are assembled inside a carefully controlled environment where their words, thoughts, attitudes, and body language can be observed as they discuss a new product, a new service, a political candidate, an institution, a new advertising campaign or marketing concept. Skilled, professionally trained discussion leaders guide the discussion, ask questions and probe comments, leading the respondents to fully reveal their reactions and responses to the topic upon which the group is focused.

Paragon Research uses facilities in which these group discussions can be observed anonymously by clients and the complete discussion can be recorded (audio or video) for subsequent study. 

Focus groups offer many advantages:

*	They can be planned and executed quickly, and the information can generally be made available to clients within a week or so.
*	They can be far more flexible than prepared quantitative studies. Client representatives may participate directly or, while observing the discussion, guide and amplify the scope and nature of the study in progress .
*	Highly sensitive material can be discussed under tighter security because of the limited number of people involved in the study