If you’ve never succumbed to a survey request, you are exceptional! Most people have taken dozens of them, maybe even hundreds if you count the ones you took on paper before the Internet and Survey Monkey made everyone an online survey expert. When someone asks for my opinion, I have a hard time saying no. But sometimes after a page or two of questions, something goes wrong. In fact, a lot of things can go wrong. Since this is my first blog post on the site, I’ll rant about some of my pet survey peeves.
1. The survey asks a question I can’t answer – but demands an answer before I can proceed!
I have two choices: a) quit the survey, or b) just choose randomly. Either way, it’s a loss for whoever is asking the questions. Choice a) means lost data. Choice b) means my responses are not valid, and if the survey has follow-up questions related to that random choice, I’ll be even more frustrated because I can’t answer those new questions, and at that point I will almost certainly abandon the survey.
2. The survey asks questions it should already know the answer to.
The other day I called Comcast because I was only getting one cable channel. Before I talked to anyone human, I diligently answered a series of phone tree questions by entering 1’s and 2’s on my telephone keypad. When Comcast’s phone survey program called me back, they asked me those same questions! Clearly they should have known who I was and why I called. It’s not a very elegant survey solution if they have to ask again.
3. The survey launches into an endless loop of repetitive questions.
Have you ever started a survey that asks you, say, which of the following restaurants have you heard of? Then when you choose 6 or 7 or 8 of them, it starts you down a path of questions about every one of those restaurants? And the questions are all the same. If you make it through all of them, you may want to avoid all of those restaurants for the next few weeks.
4. The opposite of #3: the survey that asks just one or two questions.
This is usually a telephone survey, and they usually just want to know if a) your problem was solved, b) would you buy from us again, and maybe c) would you recommend our product or service to a friend. Sometimes they ask for a comment. If they don’t, they may be missing out on some really informative insights. These super-short surveys are okay as part of a more comprehensive program, but on their own, they don’t tell a company much about why customers make the choices they do. And if they don’t understand the reasons, how can they fix the problems or build on their best attributes as seen by customers?
Fortunately, good design and survey technology make it possible to avoid or minimize these issues. If you ever have the opportunity to develop a survey, have pity on the people you invite to respond, and avoid these pitfalls. If you fail to avoid these gaffes, and I am on your list of survey participants, you can expect a snarky comment from me in the text box at the end. That is, if I don’t abandon your survey before I reach “Submit.”
Survey 411 