What We Do

The Edinburgh Telephone Centre works really closely with our team in Ipsos Public Affairs. We work on some of the country’s biggest business surveys for the government. I imagine it is both very challenging but also very rewarding to be an interviewer on these projects, as you get to hear directly from UK businesses about things like: new technologies (e.g. AI, cyber security), the state of business (taking into account the impact of trade shocks like the war in Ukraine on UK businesses), and the things that start and stop businesses from growing (e.g. regulations). One part of the job I really enjoy is our interviewer briefings at the start of each survey project, where we get to convey a bit of our own (slightly geeky!) interest in all these topics, and to think of ways we can help our interviewers convince people to take part. I believe our Telephone Centre has been at the forefront of a lot of innovation in B2B telephone research since the pandemic (including things like multimode surveying and the use of incentives), so it’s also a very fresh and dynamic place to work. What we value most from the team in Edinburgh is how well they communicate with us, with weekly check-ins on projects so that they and the research team work towards the same, shared goals. Jayesh Shah, Research Director Public Affairs

Our business research team works very closely and productively with the telephone centre in Edinburgh – as a Research Director, I have been fortunate enough to visit Links Place twice to deliver interviewer briefings and thoroughly enjoyed seeing how such a positive and infectious atmosphere is created amongst the interviewing team working towards our shared goal of achieving hundreds (sometimes thousands) of interviews with businesses. The interviewer’s role speaking with business representatives is the most crucial part of the chain that links all the way to the telephone supervisor, telephone PM, Public Affairs research team, and ultimately back to the government client team and their seniors. It is interesting to speak with businesses of all types and sizes, from sole traders to the largest corporations, on a variety of topics to learn how they deal with different issues and government policies. We always encourage direct feedback from interviewers on what is working well and less well with questions and survey introductions etc.. There is genuinely friendly yet professional and constructive communication between the telephone and research teams working together to improve outcomes for our clients. Allan Simpson, Director Public Affairs