Standards
„Market research is a field built on trust. Whether that is the trust of the respondents who tell us their views and attitudes, or the trust of those of you who rely on our analyses and on the results of our work with data. One of SIMAR’s main pillars is to define standards for working with data, and to check that they are observed, along with the ethical and legal side of the work. Formulating research standards precisely is the basic precondition for having something to anchor that mutual trust in, and for being able to deepen it further.“
In this section you will find:
SIMAR quality standards – the basic questions worth asking before a project starts, the full text of each standard, and the Book of SIMAR Standards to download.
The international ICC/ESOMAR Code – a brief summary in seven points, the full text in an authorised Czech translation, and the original English text.
The list of checks – on the quality of SIMAR member agencies’ work, the rules for the checks and the annual list of the agencies checked.
SIMAR standards
Summary
Full version in Czech only
Questions and principles every client should ask before starting a project, while briefing it and after it has been carried out:
- What am I running the mystery shopping for? To assess the quality of my distribution network in the market, the individual performance of a member of staff or of a particular branch, compliance with internal rules and standards, or a physical audit of the goods in a store, for instance.
- Is this MS Research (without identifying the person being assessed) or an MS Project (the people assessed are identified and individualised results will be produced)?
- Which personal data of the people assessed am I entitled to obtain and request from the agency under legitimate interest and under my contractual arrangements with them?
- Does my project brief meet the requirements of the applicable data protection legislation and of employment law – in particular the duty to inform my own employees?
- Will I distribute the detailed results of individual visits directly to the people assessed (where the mystery shopping is within the client’s own organisation)?
- What could give a mystery shopper away while they are working, and how can that be prevented (through the wording of the brief or of the pretext, through internal communication, or through how quickly the results are distributed)?
- How are mystery shoppers selected and trained for a particular project?
- How are the data collected checked, and what material is used in checking them?
The international ICC/ESOMAR Code
The Code in seven points
The International ICC/ESOMAR Code on Market, Opinion and Social Research and Data Analytics
1. The Code is a self-regulatory instrument, a set of rules for professionals offering data-based solutions to business and to the public sector.
2. The Code is a joint work of ESOMAR, the global association of the data, research and insights community, and the ICC, the International Chamber of Commerce. Accepting the Code is a condition of ESOMAR membership. SIMAR members have signed up to the Code, SIMAR promotes its application and is the contact point for handling complaints about breaches of it.
3. The Code rests on three basic principles:
(a) When collecting personal data from data subjects for research purposes, researchers must be transparent about what information they intend to collect, state the purpose for which it will be collected, and say with whom the information will be shared and in what form.
(b) Researchers must ensure that the personal data used in research are thoroughly protected against unauthorised access and are not published without the data subject’s consent.
(c) Researchers must always behave ethically and do nothing that could harm a data subject or damage the reputation of market, opinion and social research.
4. Researchers draw a clear line between research and non-research activity, distinguishing research from any commercial activity (promotion or selling) and making that distinction transparently clear to the people taking part.
5. Researchers must not share participants’ personal data with the client unless the data subject has given explicit consent and a specific purpose for which the data will be used has been stated.
6. Researchers are transparent towards clients: the findings they provide are evidently and adequately supported by the data, they allow the quality of data collection and data processing to be checked, and they give clients the technical information about the research that is needed to judge whether the results are valid.
7. Researchers must comply with all applicable international and national laws, local codes of conduct and professional standards or rules. Researchers must be honest, truthful and objective and must ensure that their research is carried out in accordance with the relevant scientific principles, methods and techniques of research. Researchers must always behave ethically and must do nothing that could unjustifiably damage the reputation of research or lead to a loss of public confidence in it.
The ICC/ESOMAR Code to download
The Czech and English versions of the new ICC/ESOMAR Code can be downloaded here.
The ICC/ESOMAR Code and all ESOMAR self-regulatory documents are available at www.esomar.org.
