How We Do It

NCBER uses the proprietary methodologies and accompanying technologies developed in-house by ERISS Corporation. The systems have proven themselves in more than 150 market surveys, covering almost 2 million businesses in everything from small, rural areas, to large metropolitan areas to entire states. As a result, NCBER fields a world-class combination of highly experienced survey operations teams and proven technologies.

Working with top scientists in the field, ERISS pioneered a breakthrough in methodology in 1996 - large-scale, census-style representative sample surveys using a technique known as "stratified proportional quota sampling." The combination of the census approach and sampling technique solved the primary problems of the "classical" stratified random sample methodologies by providing enormous amounts of both "deep" and "broad" local representative data in a very short period of time.

To deal with massive amounts of data generated by this new approach, ERISS built a whole new suite of technologies - from sophisticated Computer Aided Telephone Interview (CATI) systems and real-time validation, to dynamic targeting systems and web delivery applications.

To cap it off, ERISS built their San Diego facilities around this new technology, resulting in a state-of-the-art call center housing the most flexible and efficient business survey system in existence and backed up by a highly experienced team of technicians, engineers and scientists.

All aspects of the survey, including question phraseology and placement in the survey instrument, skip patterns, dynamic targeting, the call phase, real-time and post survey quality assurance, data aggregations and analysis are handled in-house by a seasoned team of researchers, operations specialists and scientists.

  Learn About Our Methodology