This week one of our sample suppliers said “no” when we asked if we could re-contact respondents for a purpose other than our original request. Good thing I asked, and you know what? I’m glad they said no. I want suppliers to think carefully about seemingly simple requests, and to point out ways in which…
If you are a smart person and you only occasionally try your hand at writing a survey, here is something you may find yourself doing: adding an open box at the end of every question so that respondents can “write in” their own answer if the pre-listed answers do not fit them. Our clients do…
This is still raw, so I’m working hard to be constructive and not mean. But seriously, how much more self-centered can a veterinarian company be, than to send me a survey the morning after my dog dies to ask, “How did we do?” Yes, this really happened. On Friday, Lancelot (pictured above, on the day…
If you deploy your own surveys trying to solicit feedback from your customers, you know how hard it is to get them to respond. There are many good reasons why customers ignore surveys nowadays. Here is one potential culprit: You may be asking them for information you already know. If you are, they know that…
If you grew up in the United States, you probably think big numbers are better when it comes to rating things. Higher scores on school exams are better. Higher scores in games and sports are usually better. Higher credit scores are better. Five-star restaurants are definitely better than one-star restaurants. In Germany it is often…
Of all the many components that need to come together for great research, one piece not often discussed is the art and science of getting people into your study. Recruiting respondents is part targeting, part persuasion, and part persistence. For researchers, it is probably the closest thing we do to actual marketing. In the Versta…
Research for PR is definitely not “research lite” as my former boss used to think. It is the opposite, and requires more attention to rigor than strategic research. Why? Because no other research gets such intense scrutiny from people outside our firm and from audiences beyond our clients. It can’t be “directional.” It has to…
Here are two ways you might ask a question to document multiple behaviors, purchases, interests, etc. They seem like they would be equivalent, but they are not. The first is called a multi-check format:
In the Versta Research spring newsletter, Build a Better Customer Satisfaction Survey, we mentioned—but did not speak to—the seventh question in our newly developed survey for clients. It was added at the last minute. We put it right at the top, so it is the first question you see. If you didn’t yet test drive…
We have never deployed a customer satisfaction survey for our own customers. Why? Because most CX surveys are not designed to help customers. But we’ve just taken inspiration from a unique survey from Skype for Business, in order to Build a Better Customer Satisfaction Survey. It’s our feature article in this quarter’s newsletter. It highlights…