What to ask before fieldwork leaves the building

A field partner is useful when the audience is hard to reach or the market is not yours. The risk is treating the file that comes back as finished because someone else collected it.

Ask three things before the first interview. Who is allowed into the sample, and who is a near-miss. Which completes will be removed, and who decides. Who answers the phone if the quotas start to drift.

A partner who cannot show those rules in writing is selling interviews, not a study. Price is the last question, not the first.