The twelve essential qualities of a good field investigator:

https://kalyan-city.blogspot.com/2014/09/essential-qualities-of-good-field.html

1. Good academic background,

2. Decent pleasing personality,
3. Sociable person,
4. Healthy and energetic,
5. Good retentive memory,
6. Technical knowledge,
7. Communication skills,
8. Job Integrity,
9. Observational skills,
10.Unbiased accurate recording,
11.Awareness of the business world, and
12.Curious mind to inquire

Now let's discuss above good field investigator's qualities.

1. Good academic background: A person interested to become a field investigator must

have completed his basic college education. In the context of marketing research, it is
better if he is a graduate either in commerce or economics. He must also have a good
command of regional languages and sound general knowledge of the areas he is
expected to work.

2. Decent pleasing personality: Personality plays a role in the success of a field

investigator. He is supposed to have an honest, pleasant and impressive charisma. He
must not have an indecent, dull and unattractive character. He must be well-groomed;
that is, nicely dressed, smell good and look tidy (neat and clean). Along with this, he
must be well skilled to exercise his etiquette like showing good manners, maintaining
calm and polite behavior, respecting others, etc. He must also carry a genuine bliss on
his face and wear a sincere smile while interacting with people. Often respondents do
cooperate if they are dealing with a pleasing person.
3. Sociable person: A field investigator has to deal regularly with lots of people having
different personalities, attitudes and outlooks towards life. He is expected to be a
sociable or friendly person. He must be an extrovert and know how to initiate a good
conversation, maintain interest, win the confidence and easily mingle with people. He
must also know, how to deal correctly with a particular age group or gender. He must
not be shy to talk with people. He should show genuine interest in solving problems of
his respondents. He must also welcome their opinions and ideas. He must be a polite
and not a hot-tempered person.

4. Healthy and energetic: The job of a field investigator demands good health, lot of
energy and hard work. In order to execute and accomplish assigned investigative
tasks, here, one has to travel from one place to another, talk with lots of people,
sometimes even work for many hours at a stretch. It is a job that needs a good amount
of both mental and physical stamina. It is not for those who can't handle the stress of
traveling to different places, meeting and talking with numerous people and working
for longer duration. Hence, one must be in the pink of health to become a field
investigator.

5. Good retentive memory: Memory is crucial if one has to remember lots of information
regarding; What to do? How to do it? Whom to contact? What to ask? What to avoid?
What to record? What not to miss? A weak memory results in reduced retention
ability, and this can overall effect once performance and efficiency at work. In order to
avoid this, a good memory seems essential for a work's success. In the case of a field
investigator, he is bombarded with information, others' opinions, questions, etc.,
which he has to handle very skillfully. He must record and organize required data, also
not miss any crucial details and quickly give correct answers to all raised doubts by
respondents. It is only possible if he has a retentive memory. A good memory boosts
his speed, accuracy, efficiency and self-confidence.

6. Technical knowledge: A field investigator must have excellent technical knowledge too
regarding how to conduct a survey. He is expected to have an understanding of
various techniques of investigation, methods used for doing research, statistics, etc.
Once the information gets collected, he must know how to organize it well so that it
 can be further processed with ease and without any difficulties. For doing this
efficiently, he must also know which tools to prefer and use for the right purpose.

7. Communication skills: An investigator's primary task is to collect information from

people. To do this, it is crucial he communicates correctly, freely and frankly with
them. He must not only be able to share and collect data from them, but also manage
to remove their doubts. He must be able to make them feel comfortable so that they
can open up, to share more useful information with him. Hence, good communication
skills are essential for the success of a field investigator.

8. Job Integrity: Integrity means not to compromise nor cheat with moral principles and
strictly remain honest and sincerely dedicated to accomplishing one's mission under
any circumstances. A field investigator must possess such an integrity. He must be
very honest, sincere, dedicated and trustworthy to investigate the matter assigned to
him by his employer. He must take a keen interest and enjoy doing his work with
optimum perfection. He must contact and interview all concerned respondents. He
must ask all questions from the questionnaire and record their respective answers
immediately. He must complete his work on time. He must not delay his work-related
activities, nor avoid asking some questions. In short, he must not cheat his research
work. If he cheats, then the quality of his investigation will become worse, and this will
be a distrust and a loss to his employer. Hence, integrity is a prime quality of an
honest and good field investigator.

9. Observational skills: A person's observation plays a vital role to understand the world
around him. Minute details are easy to identify and not missed if one's view is focused
and profound. A field investigator with good observational skills can make a great
justice to his job. He can observe the facial expressions, body language and non-verbal
responses of the respondents. With experience, he can quickly sense whether the
information being told is a truth or fabricated lie.

10.Unbiased accurate recording: As a part of his job, a field investigator must

immediately record the information received from respondents with optimum accuracy
and completeness. He has to take good care to see that no time gets wasted while
 recording, silly errors avoided, and integrity of the information preserved. In addition,
he also has to maintain an unbiased attitude while recording information. He must
not add his words, ideas or opinions. He must record the information the way received
and only in its original unadulterated form.

11.Awareness of the business world: The world of business is dynamic in nature. It

adapts to ongoing changes by gradually discarding older methods or traditional
approaches. A field investigator must be aware of these ongoing transformations. He
must acquaint himself with the necessary knowledge and various aspects of the
business world. He must also be familiar with various problems associated with
companies, competitions in the market, issues related to sales and advertising, etc.
With this overall understanding, he can quickly know the purpose of his survey,
investigation or research work.

12.Curious mind to inquire: A curious mind is naturally inclined towards and eager to
find out more about something. It always inquires and is not satisfied with the
available information at hand. It often tries to dig deeper so as to know a little extra. A
good field investigator must have such a mind. He must not get easily satisfied only
with facts else find out what more lies behind. In other words, he must try his level
best to extract maximum information from respondents to enhance the quality of his
research work.