Five Research Lessons from the Pandemic Years
Here is a brief summary of the Versta Research Spring 2023 Newsletter, which outlines five research lessons that have transformed marketing research during the pandemic years.
The Problem with “Check All That Apply” Survey Questions
We sometimes advise against multiple-select questions, believing that respondents give less attention to each item in the list. New eye tracking research suggests we might be wrong.
A Better Way to Ask Race and Ethnicity (and Proof That It Works)
Versta Research has a new way of asking about race and ethnicity on surveys, and it is reducing respondent confusion and complaints by 80%.
How to Fix a McKinsey Survey: 10 Best Practices They Should Have Followed
Last week we showed you a survey that might convince you to think twice about hiring a super high-end consulting firm for your survey research and insights. Fancy business consultants may know a lot about business, but they know little about gathering good data to answer their business questions. So this week, instead of focusing…
This is What a McKinsey Survey Looks Like
Ever wonder what you get if you hire a fancy schmancy consulting firm for your survey research and marketing insights, instead of Versta Research? Every once in a while we have a potential client who insists: “Give us IBM! Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.” I got a view into what those surveys look…
Research Lessons from a Puppy: Why You Need Balanced Scales
Believe it or not, some people do not find puppies irresistibly adorable, as our newest honorary member of the Versta Research team (pictured here) can tell you. Elio arrived a couple of weeks ago. He is 13 weeks old and truly over-the-top adorable. He mostly sleeps in a crate next to me as I work…
How Our Brains Untangle Bad Survey Questions
What if a survey asks you a question that implies a yes-no answer (“Have you ever …”) but then offers you answer options that are different from what it implied (“often, sometimes, rarely, never”)? New research tells us that it depends on how the survey is administered. If the survey is online or on paper,…
Don’t Color-Code Your NPS Net Promoter Scale
The online customer satisfaction survey I received today had me noticing an unfortunate side-effect of the NPS (Net Promoter Score) schema and visual imagery. For those of you unfamiliar with NPS as a way to measure and track customer satisfaction, here is how it goes. In your survey ask: “How likely are to recommend Acme…
Decrease Survey Error with Eye-Tracking Diagnostics
If you make your survey questions hard, it turns out that people will make a good faith effort to answer them. But they will make mistakes, and you will end up with bad data that lacks reliability and validity. What I find so interesting is that most people will actually try to answer your hard…
Don’t Fall for the Neutrality Trap
I once heard from an overzealous boss with a Ph.D. in political science that measurement scales should always have an odd number of scale points – the reason being that measurement scales should always have a neutral middle. We sometimes hear this from clients reviewing survey drafts as well: “Shouldn’t every question have a neither,…