An unfortunate consequence of NPS (Net Promoter Score) mania is that now zillions of surveys stalk us everywhere. Therefore, the likelihood of any particular survey being completed is extremely low. That might be okay if you are a large company with hundreds of thousands of customers to burn through with e-mail blasts. But if you…
Here is the e-mail subject line to a request I just received from a research company asking me to take a survey: Your Help Is Key to Our Success. I find it hilarious that somebody thinks this is an enticing subject line, as if I care deeply about their success. They really want me to…
Conducting surveys with your own customers is surprisingly difficult anymore. Phone options are dead, and online surveys are tough, because nobody answers or responds anymore. So what’s a researcher, strategist, or marketing professional to do? How about conducting a paper-based mail survey. It sounds crazy, but we just did it, and it succeeded beyond what…
Survey response rates, which are still a measure of data quality and survey success in our industry, continue to drop. Most online surveys of customers (one’s own customers) will garner response rates of two to three percent—and that is if you are lucky and if you do everything right. Rigorously executed phone surveys achieve miserably…
For some reason, nearly everybody in research believes that holidays are a bad time to ask people if they will participate in research. I am reminded of this because at Versta Research we have some big studies that launched just before Thanksgiving, and we have some big ones coming up just before and during the…
Extremely careful researchers work hard to make sure their surveys reach broad and representative samples of their target populations. This usually involves multiple attempts to reach out via multiple phone calls, e-mails, or letters of request. Since statistical models of inference presume 100% response rates within random samples, the goal is always to get response…
In just the last thirty-five years, response rates for telephone surveys have been plummeting. In the 1980s, response rates of 70% or higher were common for well-designed and carefully executed phone surveys. They decreased into the 60% range in the 1990s. And then by the end of the decade, response rates of 30% to 40%…
Believe it or not, there are still plenty of phone surveys being done out there, especially for local needs assessments and evaluation surveys. Often these surveys are mandated by state or local governments to ensure that the right services are reaching people who need them. But phone surveys are extremely difficult to field anymore, as…
To get a more robust and representative sample, there are lots of things you can do that will encourage people to participate. You can send them reminders. You can call them. You can invest in snazzy designs to make your survey invitations ever more appealing. But here is one of the best investments you can…
I used to think that when potential research respondents said no they’re not interested in participating in our survey, they really meant it, end of story. Then I started working more on the field side where all kinds of different data collection was happening all the time. Seeing recruitment and data collection up close amazed…