Q: Why GuestInsight? 
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A: It's what we do, how we do it, how long we've done it, and who we've done it for...

Our deep experience in collecting, analyzing, and reporting opinion data via the Internet over the past 20+ years sets us apart from our competitors.​
GuestInsight is a service of Database Sciences, a pioneering online quantitative market research firm that began helping clients in the consumer products, hospitality, financial services, automotive, and pharma industries maximize the opinion research environment of the Internet...in 1999.
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Some of the world’s most respected companies and institutions have trusted us to survey their customers...
Our unique combination of deep experience in market research and IT, with a specific research focus, sets us apart from others in the field. Every day, we help our clients definitively obtain their research objectives by knowing how to ask questions, who to ask them of, and how to interpret the answers.
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A Web Service Company Run By People
Technology is a fantastic research enabler; it has allowed us to gather and analyze the opinions of millions of people in the 20+ years we've been doing this- a feat that would have been impossible without a small army just a few years before we opened our doors. That said, we believe that while technology drives our services, it is our people that drive our business.

From your first inquiry, you will be in touch with one of our professionals, not a call center - to guide you through sign-up, get GuestInsight working for you, and be available by email or phone whenever you have questions.

Our Team

We are a small team of very experienced professionals led by a core group that has remained intact and hands-on since our inception in 1999. Meet them below...
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Jeff Robbins, Founder|Managing Director

Jeff has been in the marketing research and data analysis fields for more than 3 decades. He was a founding partner of Plaza Research, a qualitative marketing research field service. In 1999, he founded Database Sciences, to develop Web based customer satisfaction measurement and marketing research solutions. The GuestInsight SaaS product was introduced in 2005.

Jeff holds a B.S. in Economics with concentrations in Decision Sciences and Marketing from The Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania. He received his Masters from Columbia University. His first involvement with marketing research goes back to his days at Penn when he wrote the specification for one of the first panel management and quality control applications for the focus group industry as a Computer Science thesis. 

An avid long distance runner and sports fan, Jeff lives in New York with his wife. He is a past board member of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation, served on its  National Strategic Planning Committee, as well as President of the New Jersey Chapter for 6 years.
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Rich Raffel, Director of Business Development

A seasoned sales executive, Rich has been with GuestInsight/Database Sciences since its inception. Rich has extensive experience in the hospitality industry, dating back even before his 20+ years with us. A native New Yorker, Rich currently lives in New Jersey with his wife. He is an avid golfer and lifelong NY Yankee fan.

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Ted David, Tech Team Lead

Ted also has been with us since the beginning. Coding languages and tools have changed quite a bit since 1999 (as has the Web!) and TD has had to continue to level-up his knowledge throughout his tenure. He leads the team that implements new features, maintains both hardware and software, and just about everything else that you might expect from someone with the title of Tech Team Lead. TD is a native and current New Jerseyan. When not sitting in front of a computer, TD seeks hiking adventures.
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Alice Gibson, Business Manager

Also part or our "core four". Alice joined straignt out of college as an administrative assistant. Over the years, she has worn many hats and changed titles, but we finally settled on the all-encompassing, "Business Manager". Alice lives in New Jersey with her husband and son.

History of the GuestInsight Service

The GuestInsight service grew out of a custom application we built for a B2B client to monitor customer satisfaction 18+ years ago. The next step came a few months later; a modification of the application for a regional bank to monitor customer satisfaction in its branches. Finally, one of our advisory board members (with a background in the hospitality business) spearheaded the idea to morph the application into the GuestInsight service.​

Core Values Drive Our Organization & Services

The philosophy that has always driven the services we provide for clients to collect the opinions of their guests can be summed up this way:

"Value your guests' opinions.
Respect their email inboxes."

With our roots in the marketing research industry, we feel really strongly about this. If you do everything possible to demonstrate respect to your potential survey respondents, your results will be better. And, when you're conducting customer (or guest) satisfaction research, the way you in which you ask for opinions is vitally important in how your customers perceive your organization. In fact, how you choose to ask your guests for their feedback may be a component of your guests’ overall satisfaction with your organization.

Some other folks in the business of providing customer satisfaction survey services don't see it this way. Maybe it's because they don't have the experience we have in asking people for feedback, or because they just see surveying as another arrow in the email marketing quiver. Frankly, we believe they are wrong.

We our happy to offer more lengthy explanations why we believe our way is the best way. We prefer, however, to let you talk to our clients and let them tell you about how our services work for them. Whether you operate a small inn or cafe, a full-service resort or restaurant, or a chain of full service hotels or restaurants, we've got somebody for you to talk to.​