Social distancing and sanitization were the essential requirements for restarting all company activities. Testpoint also had to adapt its locations and procedures to eliminate the risk of Covid-19 infection and, in particular, to carry out its product test sessions in complete safety for staff and respondents. Let’s see what has been done and what has changed
Our locations: how were they adapted?
- Distancing
Testpoint has four locations, in Milan, Bologna, Rome and Naples, all large, comfortable and functional, suitable for all types of market research, from focus groups, to in-depth interviews, to taste tests.
In pre-Covid times, the rooms for product tests were equipped with up to 14 single workstations . Now, in order to guarantee social distancing and offer each respondent an area of 1 square meter, the spaces have been reorganized and, where necessary, the workstations were placed in two different rooms.
Each workstation is delimited by colored adhesive tape so that each respondent knows exactly which their area is and does not risk invading the area of others.
For the in-depth interviews, social distancing is not a problem as only the moderator and the respondent are in the same room and therefore it is easy to ensure a distance of one meter or more.
As for the focus groups, for the moment it is possible to carry out only mini focus groups with a maximum of four participants.
- Sanitization
In the case of product tests, in pre-Covid times, there was an interval of 30 minutes between one session and another: now this interval has been increased to 60 minutes in order to sanitize the rooms. Our locations are equipped with special nebulizer products that spray disinfectant solutions that then dry quickly in the air. All surfaces, tables, desks, chairs but also PCs and tablets are disinfected and sanitized. In addition, rooms are constantly aired.
All rooms are equipped with hand sanitizing gel dispensers.
- Staff
Our staff has always been used to rigorous personal hygiene care and, in the case of taste tests, in the past they were already provided with gloves, masks, aprons and caps.
Now, every day, upon arrival at the location, the staff’s temperature is measured with a specific digital thermometer and, for all the taste tests, they wear a visor in addition to the other devices.
- Respondents
Upon arrival at the location, respondents’ temperature is measured with a digital thermometer, then they are required to sanitize their hands with a special disinfectant gel and, in the case of taste tests, they reach their workstation delimited by colored adhesive tape following the path indicated by the staff. Each respondent must wear the mask during the session: they can only remove it for the time necessary for tasting.
In this way – also taking into account the fact that each session has a fairly short duration and that each respondent has no contact with any other person – the taste test can be carried out in complete safety.
