A2P SMS RESEARCH: GETTING CLEAN DATA

A note from Jason Bryan CEO ROCCO

The point of our Vendor Performance research is to understand in a industry where grey routes are still a major issue, who are the vendors whom we can recommend to MNOs and Enterprises. There are many great Vendors and our job is to expose them for their great work in the industry.

I wanted to write to say that this years A2P SMS Vendor Performance Research is going very well. Having received over 100 responses from MNOs we have just cleaned the data we have received to ensure we can rely upon their opinions and views.

Last year we had to remove over 200 responses made by companies who are not MNOs, so we thought that since we still have a month remaining of research before we conclude our results, it’s worth mentioning very clearly how our research works.

Only MNOs can participate in this research

  • In our 4th year of this research we are confident that we know most MNOs around the world who contribute, but we are still learning about new people within the MNO community
  • If an MNO is using gmail or something apart from their companies brand we verify this
  • We know the office location of the MNO and we verify with each MNO where there response shows a different location to their normal office location
  • Naturally where the email address of the MNO could not be validated we remove this.
  • We write to any MNO where their response has Extreme Response Bias* verifying they are happy with their answer

This helps us to get really clean data and reliable and interesting results.

Vendors wanting to encourage MNOs

Vendors who want to encourage their MNO clients to respond, you might share this link with them, but its not necessary to do this because we have written to MNOs already: https://roccoresearch.com/2018/04/17/roccos-a2p-sms-vendor-performance-research-2018-has-started/

We are running this research completely independently and that is the reason why we want to help all vendors to make the most of the opportunity for their clients to give their view and have them recognised.

I hope this helps. But in case of any doubt please drop us an email to HQ.

More About Extreme Response bias

There is no denying the value of survey research, especially online survey research. It is the only way to gather information from a wider population in a way that is analyzable and less prone to bias, so that you can make decisions that are in the best interests of your company.

But of course, “less prone” does not mean “immune to.” There are still some biases that can be introduced to surveys. One of these biases is known as “extreme response bias.”

What is Extreme Response Bias?

Extreme response bias is the tendency of a respondent to answer in the extreme, even if they do not have an extreme view. For example:

“How much do you like the New Pepsi?”

Where the respondent answers with a 5 out of 5 even if they really only liked it a 3 or a 4. Some respondents have a tendency to pick the extreme response rather than the middle. They either “love” or “hate” everything, choosing the least or highest response even if that is not their true stance.

In ROCCO we verify these kind of responses because this survey has anonymity, no one is going to judge an MNO for their view, because no MNO is mentioned in our report and all the responses are aggregated. If an MNO rates a vendor 5 out of 5, this can also be a sign that they are doing amazing work.

Many thanks for participating in this research.