Curiouser Case Study

About Curiouser

Curiouser is a qualitative insight consultancy that focuses on the delivery of expert and affordable research to charities and cultural organisations. Led by Alice Fenyoe, the consultancy counts Friends of the Earth, The National History Museum, Save The Children and WaterAid amongst its happy clients.

The challenge

Pre-COVID, Alice made cash payments to research participants in person – going to the bank and carrying sums of money with her as she met participants.

When the pandemic struck, she went virtual, relying on recruitment agencies to handle payments. However, the time it took to liaise with the agencies, combined with the additional cost, made it an unappealing solution, and she resorted to making the payments herself at times.

Driven by a desire to create both time and cost efficiencies, Alice began looking for an alternative solution. Ayda was recommended by a member of her professional network.

How Ayda delivers value for Curiouser

Ease of use
Uploading participant lists and assigning them to projects is quick and easy, thanks to Ayda’s intuitive interface.

Compliance
‍Handling sensitive data like bank details creates requirements for GDPR compliance and data security, which is an added burden Alice is keen to avoid. “No one really wants to collect and store bank details, do they?”

Cost savings
‍Recruitment agencies typically charge around 20%, with Alice still having to action payments manually. Ayda’s low fees save her 50% of the cost.

Efficiency
‍Being able to handle the payment process in-house is quicker than liaising with an external agency. If Alice wants to check the status of incentive claims, she doesn’t need to schedule a call or send an email – she just logs in to the relevant project to see.

Incentive payments used to take Alice at least 2-3 hours per project when she processed them herself, but with Ayda she spends an average of just 10 minutes.

The results

• Time savings: 94%

• Cost savings: 50%

“When you pay people directly it’s incredibly time-consuming. Set up a new payee, check it’s correct, and confirm multiple times that it’s not a scam... It probably takes 5 minutes per person just to make the payment, let alone collect the details. Ayda handles it all for me so I can pay participants quickly and get back to delivering research to my clients.”