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SPAM SURVEYS ARE EVERYWHERE It’s become impossible to avoid surveys. They’re everywhere: in spam emails and texts, in pop-up windows and in nagging robocalls received the moment you sit down to dinner. The cheapest and easiest method, the e-survey, has spread like an epidemic: the e-survey company Mindshare Technologies sends out more than 60 million e-surveys a year 1 . In 2014, the survey service SurveyMonkey collected more than two million responses every day 2 —that’s billions a year. In a study of customer satisfaction surveying methods, the research company B2B International found that the shift to e-surveys has advantages (low cost for the surveying company and convenience for people taking the surveys), but many more disadvantages 3 . Spam e-surveys get low-quality responses, and survey responders often can’t ask for clarification on confusing questions. As far back as 2005, there were warning signs that the reign of surveys was coming to an end. The topic that dominated that year’s panel conference of the European 72% say surveys interfere with the experience of a website 80% abandon a survey halfway through 52% say they won’t spend more than three minutes filling out a survey (SOURCE: OPINIONLAB) Society for Opinion and Market Research: survey fatigue 4 . A year later, the National Science Foundation, a United States government agency, issued a special report on the future of surveys, which it described as threatened 5 . It noted that e-surveys had shown significant non-response problems and sample bias, and that many members of the public were suspicious of surveys, which they assume are sales pitches in disguise. The American Association for Public Opinion Research, which oversees polling companies, was so alarmed by the growing public distrust of surveys that it created stricter policies to distinguish the work of its membership from unregulated, low-credibility online survey companies 6 . RESPONSE RATES ARE PLUMMETING The constant bombardment of the public with spam surveys has had an unintended consequence: a decline in response rates. Undeterred, online survey companies have responded by sending out even more e-surveys to achieve a critical mass of responses. This only serves to annoy more visioncritical.com 4 of 12
A public backlash has prompted governments to introduce legislation that makes it more difficult for marketers and market researchers to distribute spam surveys customers—no wonder the survey has developed a bad reputation. Surveys work best when they have a high response rate. In the past decade, however, response rates experienced an unprecedented slide. The analyst service Econsultancy estimates that response rates to e-surveys are as low as 10 percent 7 . The Pew Research Center witnessed the drop first-hand. In 1997, the Center could count on a response rate to its surveys of about 36 percent. In 2003, that number was 25 percent. By 2014, Pew received a response rate of just nine percent 8 . Jonathan Levitt, the CMO of Opinion- Lab, watched response rates drop from approximately 20 to two percent over the last 20 years 9 . “You are annoying your customers and not getting the answers you want,” he says. “It’s a lose-lose.” Survey Sampling International observed the same phenomenon in France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The Netherlands experienced the most dramatic change, from a 59 percent response rate in 2004 to a 13 percent response rate in 2009 10 . Another surprising finding of the SSI study: most researchers would assume that the length of a survey would impact response rate, yet the study Anyone who can craft a customer survey and throw it on the Internet is doing it. —Jonathan Barsky, Market Metrix found that both long and short surveys saw precipitous drops. The lesson to be taken from dropping response rates and public irritation is clear: people no longer tolerate surveys. SPAM SURVEYS ANNOY CUSTOMERS The e-survey is cold and impersonal and tedious. Who wants to answer the same set of identifying questions about gender and age and income over and over again? In some traditional surveys, profiling questions make up half of the survey. Such surveys are disconnected from customers’ experiences, asking questions that don’t respond to their specific interests and desires. Customers are more likely to participate in a survey if they feel like their voices are being heard. In a study of survey-takers, Vision Critical found that 86 percent participated because they wanted to visioncritical.com 5 of 12
Page 1 and 2: Why empowered customers aren’t an
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