Database Sciences was founded in 1999 to push the envelope of the burgeoning online market research category. At that time, tools to conduct survey research via the Web were relatively rudimentary and our first order of business was to explore how we could advance those tools. We started from scratch, building a platform that we figured would continue to evolve over time. One of our core beliefs was that because the pace of technological advancement would be rapid for the foreseeable future, we would offer our software as a service (SaaS) from the outset.
We did this for two reasons. First, because of the anticipated evolution of technology, we felt that it would be desirable for organizations not to have to worry about the resources needed to support the traditional software purchase model (purchase, install, maintain proper prerequisite hardware, and frequently update all of that). Second, we sought to offer an online market research field service in the image of a traditional market research field service; our clients would hire us to collect consumer research data just as they would hire a focus group, telephone research, or mall intercept facility. It would be up to us to execute the field work and they could go about their businesses as before, with online research as another methodology to offer their clients. At the end of the day, by applying our technology in a SaaS model, we ensured that our clients would have access to the most up-to-date online interviewing tools without having to invest time, money, or peoplepower in hardware, software, or training.
And that's how we operated for our first 10 years, more or less. Over time, though, the converging forces of increased acceptance of online research, technological advancements, and diminishing use of offline techniques began to blur the lines of traditional research organizations. Most of this was driven by the 2 main key benefits of online research; savings of both time and money. With the proliferation of do-it-yourself Web survey tools (offered in the SaaS model), the demand for true online field services, in the old-school mold, diminished as clients (both research and end-user) started using these self service survey providers in-house.
As a result, the use of online surveys exploded and the idea of market research became accessible to virtually any size business. Now, anybody could field their own studies at lower costs (even free in some instances). Unfortunately, the downside to this was that many poorly designed surveys and research studies started being fielded by inexperienced researchers- and sadly this continues to the present day.
The danger of inexperienced researchers sending poorly designed and written surveys out into the world can be viewed through both micro and macro lenses. If a business sends badly designed/written surveys to their own customers, they risk losing customers who become frustrated with the survey experience and waste of their time. Globally, as more bad surveys get published, response rates to surveys fall and it makes the research environment more difficult for everyone.
So where did these changes to online research lead us? To a pivot in our business; these days, our services have shifted to 3 distinct areas:
Our Roots
The Database Sciences team has been at the business of opinion research for a long time. We are a team of marketing research professionals and technologists with 25+ years of experience conducting online consumer surveys. Our management team has experience in the industry that goes back to the early 1980s and pioneered some of the computer applications that are now standards in the industry.
It starts with our founder and Managing Director, Jeff Robbins, who has been in the industry for 35+ years. Actually, even before that, at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he wrote the specification for one of the first panel management database and quality control applications for the focus group industry as a Computer Science thesis. Then, after spending 15 years on the qualitative side of the marketing research industry, he founded Database Sciences in 1999 as the Internet was emerging as a viable marketing research methodology.
We did this for two reasons. First, because of the anticipated evolution of technology, we felt that it would be desirable for organizations not to have to worry about the resources needed to support the traditional software purchase model (purchase, install, maintain proper prerequisite hardware, and frequently update all of that). Second, we sought to offer an online market research field service in the image of a traditional market research field service; our clients would hire us to collect consumer research data just as they would hire a focus group, telephone research, or mall intercept facility. It would be up to us to execute the field work and they could go about their businesses as before, with online research as another methodology to offer their clients. At the end of the day, by applying our technology in a SaaS model, we ensured that our clients would have access to the most up-to-date online interviewing tools without having to invest time, money, or peoplepower in hardware, software, or training.
And that's how we operated for our first 10 years, more or less. Over time, though, the converging forces of increased acceptance of online research, technological advancements, and diminishing use of offline techniques began to blur the lines of traditional research organizations. Most of this was driven by the 2 main key benefits of online research; savings of both time and money. With the proliferation of do-it-yourself Web survey tools (offered in the SaaS model), the demand for true online field services, in the old-school mold, diminished as clients (both research and end-user) started using these self service survey providers in-house.
As a result, the use of online surveys exploded and the idea of market research became accessible to virtually any size business. Now, anybody could field their own studies at lower costs (even free in some instances). Unfortunately, the downside to this was that many poorly designed surveys and research studies started being fielded by inexperienced researchers- and sadly this continues to the present day.
The danger of inexperienced researchers sending poorly designed and written surveys out into the world can be viewed through both micro and macro lenses. If a business sends badly designed/written surveys to their own customers, they risk losing customers who become frustrated with the survey experience and waste of their time. Globally, as more bad surveys get published, response rates to surveys fall and it makes the research environment more difficult for everyone.
So where did these changes to online research lead us? To a pivot in our business; these days, our services have shifted to 3 distinct areas:
- Managing long-term research efforts, like ongoing customer experience satisfaction surveying programs. We've built and operate a complete platform to handle all aspects of that task; GuestInsight.com To learn more about how we do that, please visit the CX page of this site.
- Consulting on consumer research design. On the research side, this can include developing and refining research goals, as well as distilling those objectives into online surveys that efficiently get the job done while being respectful of respondents' time and effort. While we no longer field ad-hoc market research surveys on our own platform, we rely on trusted field partners to do this and supply the data. On the back end, we help craft data models, visualizations, portals, and presentation tools for our market research clients.
- Consulting on database and business process projects outside the realm of market research. It turns out, the skill sets we've developed over the years in capturing, managing, analyzing, and sharing that data to other business software apps for market research is translatable to just about any business data. What started with a few favors asked of us by clients to look at non-research data about 10 years ago has turned into a significant part of our business. And now, with the proliferation of low-code and no-code tools we can leverage our deep knowledge in database design to quickly and economically build robust systems for businesses of any size.
Our Roots
The Database Sciences team has been at the business of opinion research for a long time. We are a team of marketing research professionals and technologists with 25+ years of experience conducting online consumer surveys. Our management team has experience in the industry that goes back to the early 1980s and pioneered some of the computer applications that are now standards in the industry.
It starts with our founder and Managing Director, Jeff Robbins, who has been in the industry for 35+ years. Actually, even before that, at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, he wrote the specification for one of the first panel management database and quality control applications for the focus group industry as a Computer Science thesis. Then, after spending 15 years on the qualitative side of the marketing research industry, he founded Database Sciences in 1999 as the Internet was emerging as a viable marketing research methodology.
Who We Work For
Some of the world’s most respected companies and institutions have trusted us to collect and analyze their customer/guest data...
Our Technology
Learn more about our data centers, technology infrastructure, and tools here.
Learn more about our data centers, technology infrastructure, and tools here.