Coding

Open questions are an important factor within our studies as the respondants have the opportunity to report on their opinions and suggestions. Additionally, as these open questions encourage a dialogue with the respondant, the interview gets more interesting.

Open questions have to be coded for analysis and interpretation. Sematic understanding, structured thinking and persistence are essential characteristics for all employees of our coding team, and, as they work as a team, the coding has to be strictly standardised.

The members of our coding team are therefore employed full-time– with long-term experience. Each employee has been trained extensively. Generally, only employees who meet the clearly defined quality standard work for our coding team. Additionally, the team has to be well concerted – the basis for a consistent performance.

Our coding software is specifically developed to support our coding team in multiple ways. Among other features, we use a knowledge database that even in complex coding systems with various different categories identical answers are coded equally. The software offers a multi-step escalation process to ensure that even doubtful cases are coded efficiently and reliably.

An integrated quality monitoring system is another important feature that provides information about the quality standard of the entire interviewing process.

In addition to internal tasks, our coding team offers its service externally.