Field/ CAPI

We've been managing face-to-face fieldwork since the early 90s. Using a network of hundreds of interviewers across the UK and partnerships around the world, we can handle any size of project — from a few dozen in-street interviews to thousands of interviews across multiple venues and countries.

If it involves asking people questions face to face, we've almost certainly done it — and we've probably done it at scale.

How we work

Our CAPI fieldwork is carried out on tablets and smartphones, giving us centralised control of the data from day one. That means we can identify anomalies as they happen, discuss issues with interviewers in real time, and rebrief quickly if question wording needs clarifying. Interviewers are only human — the vast majority of quality issues come down to misunderstandings rather than anything else — and catching problems early is far better than finding them in the data afterwards.

We can also make script amendments remotely during fieldwork: adding pre-codes for common responses picked up under 'other', or adding a follow-up question to react to something unexpected in the results. 

What we do

· Face-to-face intercept surveys — retail, events, transport hubs, in-street

· Event and venue research, including large-scale international projects

· Post-visit and post-transaction customer research

· In-home interviews, including with hard-to-reach communities

· Brand protection research

· Public sector and community research

· Qualitative recruitment — focus groups, depth interviews, friendship pairs

· International fieldwork co-ordination

Some of our work

2025 Champions League Finals

Our interviewing teams worked at the Women's UCL Final in Portugal and the Men's Final in Germany, conducting surveys with spectators in the fan zones. Hundreds of interviews took place across two days of each event's festival, with data fed back to the client throughout — we had centralised control of data, translations, and quality at all times. We have also co-ordinated face-to-face customer and event research in France, China, and the USA over the last couple of years, and more than 50 countries around the world over the last 25 years. 

Retail and in-street

We've conducted post-visit and post-transaction customer research for a wide range of retailers — supermarkets, fuel suppliers, banks, and even a major online retailer who wanted logo awareness tested face to face rather than via panels. If there's a customer to intercept, we'll find a way to reach them.

Brand protection

We've run multiple face-to-face (and online) projects using show materials in brand copyright research, with the findings used as evidence in court cases. Accuracy and record keeping matter enormously in this work, and we take both seriously.

London 2012 Olympics

In the summer of 2012 we conducted face-to-face venue research at the London Olympics, in partnership with Nielsen — the official research provider. They managed the online work; we sent interviewers with iPads to each venue on the first day of events at every location.

This was a high-pressure project by any measure: 120 iPads purchased, 150 interviewers accredited, 85 working across 20 venues on the opening day alone. Interviewers worked tight, prescribed shifts — sometimes just an hour or two — with no room for second chances. Live data was available through a bespoke portal we built for the project, and venues received overnight reports before each day's events began. In total, we conducted over 7,000 interviews across the Olympics and Paralympics.

Mergers and acquisitions

We managed a 45,000-interview project in the lead-up to the Co-op's purchase of Somerfield, with the results used in the OFT submission. More recently we've worked regularly for major supermarkets, mobile phone retailers, and a range of other high street clients.

Public sector

Major projects include a 10,000-interview survey for the Glasgow Community Planning Partnership and a 3,000-interview in-home study in deprived areas of the UK. Both required sampling processes well beyond standard door-knocking, ensuring that respondents genuinely reflected their neighbourhoods across a full range of demographics.

Who we work with

We work primarily with insight agencies and research consultancies who need a reliable fieldwork partner they can trust to represent them well. We're used to tight timelines, demanding clients, and high standards — and we know that fieldwork problems become your problems, so we don't let them happen.

Get in touch

Tell us about your project and we'll come back to you quickly with a quote.

📧 rfq@opinion42.com | 📞 +44 (0)20 3603 1203 | 📱 +44 (0)7792 085815