How Yazi's WhatsApp solution and AI Interviewer replaced Ipsos's fragmented data collection - boosting engagement and capturing richer consumer insights via voice notes.
How Ipsos streamlined fast food research with Yazi's WhatsApp solution and AI Interviewer — replacing fragmented data collection methods with a single, high-engagement platform that yielded richer consumer insights and improved participant responsiveness.
Ipsos is one of the world's largest market research firms, operating across dozens of countries. For this project, Ipsos South Africa partnered with Yazi on behalf of a major fast food chain to explore consumer preferences and behaviours in the South African fast food sector.
The study aimed to go beyond surface-level quantitative data — uncovering the qualitative stories behind consumer choices: why people pick certain brands, what drives their spending habits, and when they're most likely to buy. Yazi's AI Interviewer, deployed via WhatsApp, gave Ipsos a single, familiar platform to collect that depth of insight at scale.
Before adopting Yazi, Ipsos relied on a patchwork of data collection tools — proprietary apps, SMS, emails, and direct calls. The fragmentation created friction at every stage of the research process.
Data arrived via proprietary apps, SMS, email, and phone calls — making it difficult to centralise, compare, or act on findings in a unified way.
Response rates suffered across channels. Participants dropped off or gave thin answers, making it hard to gather consistent, detailed data across a diverse consumer base.
Traditional survey formats captured what consumers did — but rarely why. The tools in use weren't designed to probe, follow up, or invite storytelling.
Keeping participants engaged across multiple touchpoints was a challenge — especially when each channel demanded a different behaviour from the respondent.
Yazi replaced Ipsos's fragmented toolkit with a single, streamlined data collection platform built on WhatsApp — the messaging app South African consumers already use every day. The AI Interviewer dynamically adapted its questions based on each participant's responses, creating personalised, conversational interviews that felt natural rather than transactional.
Consumers were invited via WhatsApp. The AI Interviewer guided each participant through a personalised line of questioning — adapting based on their favourite brands, spending habits, and fast food consumption patterns. Participants could respond with voice notes or text, on their own schedule.
Consumers received an invitation via WhatsApp, tapped to start, and answered a dynamically personalised interview in the chat interface they already use every day — responding with voice notes or text, at their own pace.
By moving data collection to a single WhatsApp-based platform with an AI Interviewer, Ipsos collected higher-quality, more actionable data — with greater participant engagement than any of their previous channels achieved individually.
The data collected via Yazi revealed clear patterns in fast food consumer behaviour — the kind of layered insight that Ipsos's previous multi-channel approach struggled to surface.
Ipsos accessed the study through the Yazi dashboard — a live completions tracker, full interview transcripts with auto-transcribed voice notes, and the underlying response data, all in one place.
| Fragmented Multi-Channel | Yazi AI Interviewer on WhatsApp | |
|---|---|---|
| Data collection | Apps, SMS, email & phone calls | Single WhatsApp platform |
| Engagement | Low response rates, high drop-off | Higher participation via familiar interface |
| Qualitative depth | Shallow, survey-style answers | Rich voice notes & dynamic probing |
| Personalisation | Static questionnaire for all | AI adapts questions per respondent |
| Response format | Text-only, structured fields | Voice & text, auto-transcribed |
| Operational complexity | Four tools to manage and reconcile | One centralised platform |
A streamlined, efficient, and highly engaging data collection platform that replaced four fragmented channels. The AI Interviewer's ability to probe and collect layered insights transformed quantitative data points into comprehensive consumer narratives — delivering richer data with less operational overhead.
Faster, deeper consumer intelligence on the fast food market. Voice-note testimonies gave the brand team authentic, first-person evidence of what drives purchasing decisions — from taste and quality to the emotional pull of weekend family meals. Actionable insight, not just survey data.
Yazi really simplified data collection for us, increased our engagement, increased our response rate, and gave us an overall better platform to collect quality data for our clients. Through using the tool, we can see Yazi being leveraged in other research activities such as price collection through OCR, customer satisfaction, customer experience, and mystery shopping.
The Ipsos partnership demonstrated what happens when a global research firm replaces fragmented data collection with a single, AI-powered platform on the channel consumers already trust. By meeting participants on WhatsApp, dynamically tailoring questions, and capturing rich voice-note responses, Yazi gave Ipsos deeper, more actionable consumer insights — while simplifying the operational logistics of the study.
Going forward, Ipsos plans to expand the use of Yazi's technology across different research activities — from price collection through OCR, to customer satisfaction, customer experience, and mystery shopping. For research firms whose competitive advantage depends on data quality and participant engagement, the lesson is clear: the right platform can turn a fragmented process into a strategic asset.
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