How Blinkist streamlines & scales research with Great Question

Blinkist transforms the key insights of 5000+ bestselling fiction and nonfiction books into powerful explainers you can read or listen to in 15 minutes. The Berlin-based company helps over 23 million people around the world read more books in less time.

Elpida Fragkou is the Senior Research Operations Manager at Blinkist. In July 2022, Fragkou left their customer care role at a game software company to transition into research operations at Blinkist.

They started as the Research Operations Coordinator, and eight months later, were promoted. Working alongside two UX researchers, two market researchers, and the Director of Research & Insights, Fragkou serves as an operational liaison between people who do research and those who need it across the company.

When Fragkou joined Blinkist, their new team had recently switched from a different tool to Great Question, a platform they had heard about and were eager to try. Little did they know, it would play a key role in their early impact – from research training and accessibility to revenue growth.

Why Blinkist started using Great Question

Before Fragkou arrived at Blinkist, the Research & Insights team used other tools. They struggled with efficiency.

In search of a centralized solution, the team switched to Great Question – a decision their future ReOps leader would approve of. Preparing to switch fields, Fragkou discovered Great Question while exploring various tools they could soon be using. They liked what they saw, and their positive first impression was validated when they attended the 2022 ReOps Conference, where Great Question was a sponsor and Co-Founder and CEO Ned Dwyer was presenting.

“It was a stamp of credibility because the ReOps Community was where I wanted to be,” they said. “I found it a great signal that this product is trustworthy.”

Upon joining Blinkist, Fragkou was thrilled to hear their new team was using Great Question. Fragkou learned they left their previous tools because they couldn’t successfully scale research across the organization without a centralized platform.

Scaling research at Blinkist with Great Question

Currently, Blinkist has six active Great Question users, with another 15 cross-functional stakeholders who have access as observers. 

“We are mostly using Great Question for user interviews because this is our main focus when it comes to UX research,” said Fragkou. “Since we are already using too many tools for surveys, we are also examining if we could cut some costs by using Great Question for surveys as well.”

While Fragkou has still only been at Blinkist for a short time, their impact has been felt. A key part of driving research participation has been email automation for recruitment and incentives – and the high response rates that follow.

“You build habits with customers who participate in interviews because they automatically receive their reward, which encourages them to be more responsive and participate in future studies.”

Fragkou loves that Great Question makes it easy to monitor engagement. Knowing how many studies each customer has participated in helps them draw from a diverse perspective of customers instead of over-contacting the same people. It also helps them optimize performance.

“We are testing a lot of new copy and creatives to see how we can increase our click-through rate and open rate,” they said. “Now we are starting to document metrics we have from surveys, interviews, and creatives to see how they're performing and better inform our decisions.”

What’s next at Blinkist

Fragkou is excited to add one of Great Question’s newer features – Observer Rooms – to their research capabilities. Observers Rooms make it easy to invite your team to join research interviews so they can hear the voice of the customer firsthand, without overwhelming or distracting participants.

“We were using another tool for this observer functionality, but the extra step of downloading the app for participants has been one of our biggest friction points with recruiting,” they said. “The more you put in the way for the participant to come to the interview, the more likely it is they're not going to show up. I think Great Question Observer Rooms will be a perfect solution, and I really want to try it now in our next round of interviews.”

Fragkou also see Observer Rooms as a great way for the researchers to train cross-functional stakeholders on best practices for conducting interviews. It’s yet another sign pointing toward the likelihood of getting rid of other tools to further centralize in Great Question.

“I see ways where we could cut costs in the future by utilizing Great Question to its fullest,” said Fragkou. “The more stakeholders we have who buy into research, the stronger the case becomes to centralize every part of our research practice in Great Question. I would like to think that we could potentially cut costs.”

Fragkou is clear about the positive impact Great Question has had – both in the development of their role and the broadening impact of research at Blinkist. Their advice for others who might be considering Great Question reflects that.