In order to help you assess their credibility, the supplier should be able to give you a list of references including names, companies and phone numbers that you can contact. Ask them about professional association memberships. Most credible research suppliers will belong to at least one marketing or marketing research related associations. Although this is listed last, this is one of the most important factors to look for when working with a research supplier. They should not intimidate you.
Clients are always interested in cutting their research costs.
In many cases, however, this is not easily done without compromising the quality of the research being conducted. Careful thought must be taken before cutting tasks or hours to meet a project's or department's budget. Open-ended questions require more interviewing, coding and data processing time than closed ended questions. Look into changing open-ended questions into closed ended questions, whenever possible. Often, geographic differences are not as significant as clients may think.