Terms and Conditions (last updated: Oct 27, 2020)
By signing our work order for your project you implicitly agree to the following terms and conditions.
Section 1: Deviations From Proposal
We based our pricing and feasibility upon the specifications you explained in your rfp. If we find out that key factors change between the proposal and the actual survey, we reserve the right to alter our feasibility/pricing/timing to better suit the actual difficulty. Here are some of the more common deviations.
1a. Increase in LOI: If the length of interview as measured by the median of the completed interviews is more than 10% longer than specified in the proposal, this will be considered to be a deviation.
1b. Decrease in incidence rate: if the effective incidence rate decreases more than a relative (not absolute) 20% when compared to the proposal, this will be considered to be a deviation. Incidence is calculated as follows:
# of completes / (# completes + # screenouts + # quotafulls)
1c. Addition of quotas: any addition of new quota groups (either soft or hard in nature) or changes in existing quota groups will be considered a deviation.
1d. Decrease in field time: any delay in launch should be compensated with an extension of fieldwork, if not, this will be considered a deviation, as would a simple reduction of days in field (without delays).
1e. Abnormal dropout rate: If the dropout rate for a survey is in excess of 15% this will be considered a deviation.
1f. Omni-device enabled: If your survey programming does not work on all popular web enabled devices (pc, mac, tablet, smartphone, etc...) this will be considered a deviation.
A deviation could be identified at anytime, up to and including upon completion of fieldwork. We will make you aware of any deviation as soon as possible so that you can either make an adjustment to revert to the proposed and agreed upon spec or accept the difference in cost per interview.
Section 2: Project Cancellation and Early Stoppage
We understand that on occasion that projects will get delayed or cancelled for various reasons and we try to be accommodating. However, due to panel reserving, custom recruitment and resource scheduling, costs will be incurred for your project. Below are a few scenarios which illustrate our costing policies toward delays and cancellation:
Project delayed less than two weeks: no penalty
Project delayed 15-45 days: 25% of the project total
Project delayed more than 45 days is considered a cancellation.
Project cancellation pre commencement of fieldwork: 50%
Project cancellation / stoppage post start of fieldwork: 50% + (CPI * # of completes)
Section 3: Non Solicitation
You will make no attempt to collect any personally identifiable information, including but not limited to, respondent contact details. Unless otherwise specified in the proposal and work order, no respondent may be contacted to participate in future studies or recruited to another panel / database.
Section 4: No Sales/Marketing
To protect the integrity of market research, we will not tolerate any overt or covert attempts to market or sell your/your client's product or service. If in our view, your research appears to violate this condition, we will request that the violation be corrected. If this can not / will not be changed we reserve the right to cancel the project which would be subject to payments according to Section 2 above.
These terms and conditions may change at our sole discretion at any point.
Section 5: Standard Payment Terms
Standard payment terms: unless specified otherwise on work order / invoice, default payment terms are 50% payable upon project commissioning (due upon receipt of invoice), and 50% payable upon project completion (on a Net 30 basis).
Late payments on invoices issued upon project completion: payments more than 5 days overdue will be assessed a flat fee penalty of 2% of the invoice value, and overdue balances will incur interest charges at a rate of 1% per month. These terms supersede any other separately agreed terms regarding interest and penalty assessments.