It is a key matter of concern to us to provide our clients consistent high data quality. Therefore we work in all areas according to the highest quality standards, i.e. regarding

• the management of our panels
• the execution of individual surveys and
• servicing our clients.

A high quality of the panel itself and thus of the sample for a survey is the basis for high data quality. Therefore we put particular attention to the recruitment and the maintenance of our panels as well as to the quality controls applied for individual surveys.

The recruitment of our panel members is based on the following principles:

• Only employ proactive recruitment methods
• Exclusion of self-selection and multiple registration of panel members
• No purchase of addresses
• Double opt-in process for validation of e-mail addresses
• Comprehensive profiling questionnaire for qualification of our panel members.

These principles mean that we can exclude people whose main motivation is to hunt for incentives or who are "expert respondents".
They also ensure the highest possible degree of integrity and confidentiality.

In order for our panel members not to become "expert respondents", we adhere to strict guidelines regarding the maximum frequency of individual participation in surveys (see below).

Panel Maintenance

For the maintenance of our panels we apply the following:

• Updating the profile of panel members once a year. Panel members who have not responded after the second invitation to update their profile are excluded from the panel
• Ongoing monitoring of response rates and qualities resulting in the expulsion of panel members who have demonstrated repeatedly unsatisfactory responses
• Avoidance of over testing of panel members by applying limits on frequency of participation. Each panel members is allowed to participate in:
  - maximum one survey per month in total (irrespective of the subject/product category)
  and
  - maximum one survey every 3 months on the same subject/product category
• Attractive and transparent incentive scheme where each panel members can view the up-to-date balance of his/her personal account at any time. Our incentive system comprises:
  - Crediting of bonus points (called “mypoints“) which can be redeemed into attractive
  vouchers every time a panel member participates in a survey and completes the
  questionnaire
  - Monthly drawing of mypoints for all panel members
  - Big Christmas sweepstake
  - Crediting of incentive also in case it turns out in the course of the questionnaire that a
  panel member does not belong to the target group of the survey.
• Monitoring of the satisfaction of our panellist. At the end of every third survey (which is randomly determined) we ask a few short questions for obtaining our panel members´ opinion about the survey. From this we get important insights for optimising our questionnaires with regard to length and structure which in turn results in higher satisfaction of our panel members and in higher data quality.

Our proprietary panel management software enables us to record and to track participation history and response quality of each individual panel member. Thus, a targeted sample of panel members can be made or target groups or panel members can be specifically excluded from the sample due to methodological requirements (e.g. for selecting independent samples for tracking studies) or in accordance with client ´s requirements. Also, we can identify panel members who show below average quality in completion of questionnaires and exclude them from further surveys.

Qualitylity of survey completion

To ensure the highest quality execution of each individual survey, we carry out the following checks:

• Sending a personalised link with the invitation email to each panel member in the sample to avoid multiple participation of individual panel members in the same survey
• Monitoring of response times and of quality of answers (e.g. degree of detail, effusiveness for open ended questions, answer patterns in statement lists)
• Double checking of profile data from the profiling questionnaire with answers given in the current survey
• Real time input validation (online checks)
• Avoidance of order of sequence effects due to randomisation
• Monitoring of quotas (e.g. matching of monadic cells)
• Avoidance of the possibility of down loading or printing questionnaires or other contents of studies (e.g. concept boards).

It is of utmost importance to us that our clients can rely on us at every stage of a project and in every respect. This applies to

• the quality of delivered data and results.
  To ensure a consistent high quality, we apply our quality standards on every project.
  
  
• keeping of agreed timings.
  We respond to our clients´ queries at all stages of a project immediately and keep them updated about the progress of the project.
  
  
• adhering to agreed budgets.
  As experienced practitioners, we know that it is not possible to precisely predict all circumstances and parameters before a project starts. Therefore, we try to avoid – where ever possible – re-calculation of cost, e.g. in case the incidence of the target group is slightly lower than estimated or in case the length of the questionnaire slightly exceeding the time which has been planned in the first place.
  

As a respected market research company we never pass on any private data of our panel members to any third party. The addresses of our panel members are solely and exclusively used by myonlinepanel. This means the contact to our panel members happens exclusively through us and exclusively for market research purposes.

We operate in strict compliance with the data protection requirements of each country where we conduct our surveys and we support the ESOMAR guidelines and the professional guidelines for conducting online surveys.

In times of increasing connectedness and increasing exchange of information via electronic media we have a strong interest that the activities, plans and developments of our clients and their business are kept secret and are not accessible to any third party.

Our method of recruitment, i.e. the exclusive application of proactive recruitment of panel members, is a crucial prerequisite to ensure this. By this method of recruitment we can almost completely exclude the possibility that associates of other market research agencies, of advertising agencies or of competitors of our clients are among our panel members. This risk is considerably higher in cases where self-registration of panel members is possible or where databases are bought from unknown external sources.