ISO 20252:2012 Market, Opinion and Social Research — Vocabulary and Service Requirements

An ISO standard designated ISO 20252:2012 has been released for Market, Opinion and Social Research.

As stated in the introduction of the standard “The standard was issued to promote the principles of international quality standards to market, opinion and social research and to harmonize other national standards already available.”

By implementing this standard an organization can show clients that their research will be carried out under controlled conditions thereby providing a high level of confidence that they can rely on the results. Reporting guidelines in the standard apply to both Quantitative and Qualitative research.

We will help you understand the requirements, how to interpret the requirements and provide you with consulting support to develop and implement the system within your organization.

The ISO 20252:2012 System implementation process would consist of the development of the required ISO 20252:2012 System documentation. The applicability of any current site documentation would be reviewed and updated during this process.

A kickoff meeting would be held with the ISO 20252:2012 System implementation management team before the process begins. At this meeting, each clause of the standard will be reviewed and the team selects employees who will be the process owners. The process owner is responsible for soliciting employees who are internal customers and suppliers for that process to help develop the related procedure. These employees will then attend the procedure development meetings. Once the documents are developed, this team is responsible for training the employees.

Internal System Auditors will be trained in the requirements of the ISO 20252:2012 System standard and system auditing techniques. Once the training is completed, they will perform audits of the system to determine compliance and effectiveness of the implementation of the system.

All employees would attend an ISO 20252:2012 System awareness session to become knowledgeable of the standard requirements, their responsibilities and what to expect when the registrar conducts the registration / certification audit.

We are involved from initial inquiry stage to becoming registered / certified to the standard. This includes but is not limited to;

  • Facilitating each procedure / process draft development session.
  • Facilitating each procedure / process final review session.
  • Coordinating the selection and development of work instructions as necessary.
  • Providing training assistance to employees who will conduct the training of their procedures / processes.
  • Conducting Internal System Auditor ISO 20252:2012 System Training.
  • Participating in the initial Internal System Audit.
  • Providing employee Awareness Training Sessions.
  • Providing input to assure compliance with the ISO 20252:2012 System standard and,
  • Assisting in the selection of the registration / Certification body.

If you are not sure how your current formal or informal system complies with the standard, we can provide you with a gap analysis audit. This audit can be used as a planning guide to implementing the necessary improvements required to be in conformance to this standard.