About Emicity

Emicity is a US-based research consultancy, serving a broad range of North American clients across various sectors, including goods, services, non-profits, B2B, and more. Their expertise is primarily focused on informing brand positioning decisions and providing insights-driven product development recommendations.

Formerly known as “Consumer Insights, Inc.,” Emicity was founded in 1995 as a pioneer in the market research space. Under that name, they built a strong roster of clients, almost entirely through referrals from satisfied customers.

With a focus on delivering actionable insights, Emicity has consistently evolved its approach by leveraging advanced tools and technologies. Their longstanding partnership with Voxco and, more recently, the adoption of Ascribe’s AI-driven solutions reflect their commitment to staying at the forefront of market research innovation.

Challenges

As a full-service research consultancy, Emicity faced several obstacles that hindered their ability to deliver high-quality insights efficiently:

1. Survey Software Limitations
   Having been a customer of at least four separate survey software solutions, Emicity’s team was frustrated by inconsistencies in product offerings and frequent errors in logic programming. While the look and feel of the software are important to their work, the true essence of their research methodologies relies on sophisticated logic jumps.

"When you're changing your questionnaire to match the technology, you're failing as a market researcher. The software should never limit the type of question I want to ask or how I want it structured."  

- Karl Schmidt, President, Emicity

2. Pricing Inconsistencies:

Another issue Emicity faced with other solutions was their pricing, which often increased with little notice. This threatened their ability to offer cost-effective, full-service solutions to clients.

3. Inefficient Coding of Open-Ends
   Handling open-ended responses posed another significant challenge. Their existing tools required extensive manual effort, lacked transparency, and struggled with nuances like brand name variations. The inefficiencies in these processes not only consumed valuable time but also created inconsistencies in coding quality.

“I’ve been searching for a good coding tool for 29 years. We would eventually abandon every tool because it would take longer to train it than to just code the answers manually. It often felt like their software was developed by software developers—not by anyone who’s ever coded an open end.

Some tools feel like a black box, where you can’t access or control the data. It’s frustrating when you're trying to clean and train the system, and it doesn’t even recognize simple, verbatim responses. It felt like I was training an incompetent tool. “  

- Karl Schmidt

For a company like Emicity, where accuracy and adaptability matter most, these challenges show the need for reliable, researcher-focused technology that helps improve productivity without sacrificing quality.

The Voxco Solution

To overcome the limitations of previous survey platforms, Emicity adopted Voxco Online, a solution designed with research professionals in mind. This decision addressed their survey challenges effectively, allowing their team to focus on delivering high-quality insights.

How Emicity Leverages Voxco for Enhanced Results

1. Advanced Logic and Programming Capabilities to Fit Any Need

The platform provided the robust logic and programming flexibility needed to execute Emicity’s complex methodologies. Whether creating intricate segmentation or advanced survey routing, the software supported their innovative approach without forcing compromises or requiring informal workarounds. This allowed Emicity to focus on designing their surveys as they needed, rather than adapting to the limitations of the software.

“In fact, we’ve found that we have even been able to save time overall, because Voxco Online is really built for what we need it to do!

In essence, we write the survey and then make the software do what we need it to do. Voxco’s competitive pricing has allowed us to offer our clients full-service project solutions for the same cost they were paying to other survey software companies just for the software–for surveys they then had to write, program, field and analyze themselves.

Those kinds of shifts have been a win-win.

They reinforce our value as a partner to our clients and free up those client-side researchers to spend more time as a strategic consultant to their own internal teams and less time stuck at their desk executing actual surveys.”  

Karl Schmidt, President
Emicity

2. Pricing Model that Enables Growth

Voxco’s fair and flexible pricing model allowed Emicity to maintain their full-service offerings at competitive rates. This helped them deliver comprehensive solutions that added value for their clients without straining budgets.

3. Responsive Customer Support

Voxco’s dedicated customer support team offered Emicity the guidance they needed whenever issues arose during a complex project.  The responsiveness and expertise of the the support team ensured Emicity could maintain seamless operations, even when tackling challenging research scenarios.

"You guys have been fantastic partners for us through thick and thin. When we're urgent about something, you're urgent about it."

- Karl Schmidt

By choosing Voxco 8 years ago, Emicity has been able to elevate the quality and efficiency of their research business while reinforcing their value as a trusted partner to clients.

“Voxco’s support has been great. The team is responsive, involves us in beta tests, and listens to our feedback about new features and question types — we always feel heard.”  

- Kristopher Gauthier
Senior Project Director at Emicity

The Ascribe Factor

Building on their success with Voxco, Emicity was introduced to Ascribe’s AI-driven text analytics after Voxco's recent acquisition, discovering it to be a game-changer in managing open-ended responses.  The tool’s researcher-focused design and advanced capabilities enabled Emicity to elevate their data analysis processes.

“What we like about Ascribe is the ability to collapse categories, let AI build segments, and define rules in plain English. I can tell it to categorize responses with specific keywords into a designated category, which is exactly what we need. It also allows manual coding, which is important when AI doesn’t fit.

The system can quickly identify and correct typos in brand lists and handle large amounts of data efficiently. For instance, when combining misspelled retailer names, Ascribe automatically suggested the correct matches. This saved us time and allowed us to categorize thousands of responses in less than an hour. The ability to work with large data chunks was a huge plus, and after trying it out, we knew it was worth investing in.”

-Karl Schmidt

Why Emicity Chose Ascribe’s Coder

1. Intuitive Interface for Researchers: Designed by researchers for researchers, Ascribe’s interface aligned perfectly with Emicity’s workflow. The platform’s intuitive design reduced the time spent navigating tools and allowed the team to focus on analyzing results.

2. Accurate AI-Powered Coding: Ascribe Coder’s AI consistently delivered coding accuracy on par with human inter-rater reliability. This ensured high-quality insights without the time-intensive manual effort previously required for coding open-ends.

3. Enhanced Handling of Text Variations: Ascribe’s advanced algorithms seamlessly managed nuances like brand name variations, ensuring consistency and precision across datasets. This feature saved valuable time and eliminated frustration in the coding process.

From their very first use of the tool, it was clear to Emicity that integrating Ascribe into their workflow would allow them to generate richer insights with enhanced efficiency.  

“Ascribe feels like it was written by someone who has actually coded open-ends before. The interface matches how we work, and the AI performs as well as human inter-rater reliability.”

– Kristopher Gauthier, Emicity

Voxco + Ascribe: The Right Formula for Growth

Emicity’s adoption of Voxco, complemented by the addition of Ascribe’s tools, has driven significant improvements across various aspects of their operations, enabling them to achieve cost-efficiency and business growth.

“One of the things that initially appealed to me about Voxco was your roots in CATI. When we saw it, we knew that this is a company that has understood routing and logic for many, many years. That’s why I think your logic is so solid.

When we chose you—and abandoned other options—it was because we always prioritize logic. Time and again, we’d evaluate other platforms and realize, no, they can’t do what we need. They couldn’t handle routing people through surveys or piping answers so that respondents only see relevant content.

When we looked at Ascribe, the presentation had that same feeling of wow — this software was written by someone who’s coded open-ends before. It was the first one we used a coding tool and thought, this feels like our code sheets—this is how it’s supposed to work.”

-Karl Schmidt

Streamlined Operations

By expanding their use of Voxco to include Ascribe’s AI-driven tools, Emicity was able to streamline survey creation and execution, and reduce the time spent coding open-ended responses while maintaining accuracy and quality. This combination of tools allowed Emicity to handle larger volumes of research, achieve faster turnaround times for brand tracking and segmentation studies, and optimize their workflow for complex survey programming.

Flexible Pricing  

Voxco’s tools are designed by and for research professionals, offering features that empower research firms to succeed and conduct intricate studies that yield rich data. Transparent and flexible pricing gave Emicity the confidence to plan and execute projects without financial surprises, supporting their long-term growth and stability.

Business Growth

By leveraging Ascribe, through Voxco, Emicity increased its capacity to take on complex strategic projects while offering full-service research at the same cost competitors charge for software alone. Ascribe’s open-end coding capabilities improved the value proposition for client-side researchers, enabling Emicity to focus more on strategic consultation rather than manual tasks. This flexibility strengthened their ability to scale operations during peak periods, ensuring they can continue to deliver to their loyal list of repeat clients.

“Voxco survey software is one of our favorite tech tools for community-based participatory research. It is one of the absolute BEST tech tools we have found for data collection in the field. Voxco has made data collection easy and secure, no matter the project.”

– Melissa Welch-Lazoritz, Project Director

Conclusion

The partnership between Emicity and Voxco demonstrates how the right technology, service, and relationships can help market researchers thrive in this ever-evolving industry. By staying a loyal Voxco customer and using its new AI-driven text analytics offering, Emicity is on a success path for growth while delivering faster time-to-value to their clients.

“I’ve noticed some other survey software companies are so fluffy. I don't care about all the hype, and I don't need the big names at their annual conference. We’re about rolling up our sleeves and getting the work done, and Voxco is roll up your sleeves and get the work done, and that’s the culture that works with ours.”

-Karl Schmidt