WHAT OUR CLIENTS HAVE TO SAY
Kate is a consummate professional in every sense of the word. We worked together several times during my tenure with Vision Critical and Maru / Matchbox. As a partner to our qualitative research, Kate not only ensured a smooth end-to-end experience for my team, but also extended that same experience to my direct clients. She is an incredible moderator, insights guru, and is incredible at pushing the envelope to 'think bigger'. A try partner and pro!
Senior Insights Leader
Salesforce
The on-line research process lead by Kate Dennis was outstanding. Initially, we had some concerns that on-line research would not get respondents to reveal their deep emotional needs. However, the specially designed creative exercises combined with Kate’s strong moderating elicited deeper emotional responses than I’ve seen using more traditional methods, which often struggled to truly get beneath the surface. Rich insights were revealed that lead us to think differently about our customer. This played a key role in guiding strategic thinking to shape a differentiated positioning of our brand.
Our grower respondents were comfortable with the process and really spent a lot of time providing thoughtful responses to the activities and Kate’s probes. I particularly enjoyed being able to monitor responses as they came up or read through them on my own time – a much better client experience than other research methods I've used.
Overall, this was one of the best research experiences I have had.
Marketing Communications Manager
Bayer
In 2012 I had the opportunity to work with Kate at Open Door Insights on a large scale piece of foundational insight work for a leading Canadian Specialty retailer. Our deep consumer discovery work used two primary methodologies – the core was shopper insight work leveraging Kate’s online bulletin boards, supporting this we conducted in home and shop along research with consumers.
The online bulletin boards in particular had a profound impact on the development of actionable insight with the senior leadership at my client. Using this insight technique we were able to provide insight updates every few days, leveraging the consumers own words, images and other stimuli that they uploaded in response to the online questions/probes. This allowed the client to participate in the insight discovery “real time” – reading, observing their customer “virtually” and discussing the implication of the emerging insight on their business.
Prior to this work with Kate, I had worked with online boards as well as online qualitative many times. Like all methodologies the key to deep meaningful insight is not just the technique it is the moderator who shapes the technique to focus in on the business objectives. Kate is an exceptional online moderator who understands how to best leverage this research technique to dive deep into the consumer’s mind and synthesize from that insights clients can use to propel their business forward.
VP Consumer and Customer Insights
Weston Foods
Kate is outstanding in her field. She brings interesting ideas and perspective to any project. From strategic direction through creative her input is invaluable. Kate has worked with us on many research projects, she always provides options for the budget she has to work with and is great about following up after the work is done to ensure the value of research is maximized.
President, Chief Colour Officer
Haft2 Inc
I have worked with Kate on a variety of new product and brand innovation projects, both domestically and internationally. Kate brings 'disciplined creativity' to both her qualitative and quantitative research projects, a key success factor for brand innovation. Her enthusiasm for her work also makes Kate a pleasure to work with.
Principal
Growth Strategy/Innovation
Kate is a valuable asset to any team bringing a wealth of consumer research knowledge to any project. She's organized, personable and delivers great results. I hired Kate to act as our researcher of record where she provided direction on both quantitative and qualitative research, helped us identify key research providers and always provided well articulated, understandable and executable result reports that truly drove the business. An absolute joy to work with.
Brand Strategist
Camille Krupa Consulting
Kate makes it a point to take the necessary time to understand the issues and offer guidance based on her experience as a researcher and a moderator. This has proven to be an invaluable skill set to me and my clients. Her ability to think on-the-fly has often been uncanny as she has on occasion steered the focus group conversation in the proper direction before the client has a chance to submit a directive. Some of my clients are so impressed with her skills that they request her by name for their next job. She has my complete recommendation.
Senior Vice President
MSW.ARS Research
Kate has been working with me providing innovative solutions to my client's research needs for several years. I have found that Kate is strategic and very thorough - which allows for insights and understanding that has assisted greatly to growing their business.
Consultant
Lynn Plunkett & Associates