Jeffrey Henning in his article Do phone surveys have a future? argues that while phone surveys have suffered at the hands of online surveys there is still a place for the telephone in the market research process. A point which I completely agree with.

While online surveys are essentially our bread and butter we have recently completed a number of recent projects where telephone interviews have been used successfully to capture the type of data that an online survey could never get.

Online surveys are great at quantitative data collection and are pretty good at qualitative surveying but they don’t allow for the type of probing questions which are quite often essential in qualitative research. (e.g. I see you rated the service as poor, why is that?, what would you do if you were in charge?)

The added bonus of telephone interviews is that respondents are generally far more candid with their responses compared to self completed surveys. Why? – I figure it has something to do with the fact that people are generally reluctant to commit their more sensitive views in written form.  Additionally, writing down your responses takes far more effort that just telling someone what you think.

To sum up, more than often we use telephone surveys to collect qualitative data so we are able to establish the lay of the land. The findings from the telephone interviews can then be used to implement an on-going monitoring which can be done effectively  by online surveys.

The ISO has released its international quality standards for access panels for online market and social research.

The standards seek to place some quality standards on online panels and communities which is the  fastest moving space in market research at this time. The ISO standards are not the first attempt to provide some quality control in this area.

The Australian market research body AMSRO released its best practice guidelines for online research back in August 2008. 

All these moves are great news for consumers of market research who can feel confident that the market research industry is keeping up to date with new research developments.

Duncan Nulty has written an interesting paper titled ‘The adequacy of response rates to online and paper surveys: what can be done?’.

In this paper Nulty explores some of the issues involved in deploying surveys and improving response rates. While the surveys that Nulty refers to are being deployed in an academic setting there are some useful tips for survey deployment in all situations. Read the rest of this entry »

I saw this on that Facebook have moved to restrict the distribution of the ‘New Layout Vote.

It seems that a lot of Facebook users are not happy with the new look which has helped spawn one of the fastest growing Facebook apps yet.

I can’t help think that bashing website changes is becoming quite a trend. As soon as a popular site makes some changes to their website a large number of vocal dissenters seems ready to mobilise and criticise any changes. Maybe the changes are not that good or maybe people are just resistant to change and the nature of the Internet means that an angry posse is easy to mobilise.

In Five Reasons Americans Can Be Happy published in the Huffington Post, online surveys are cited as one of the contributing factors to why Americans can feel happy.

And no it is not because they are free. The article says that community has been reinvented by the Internet. Businesses are able to use online surveys in order to get feedback from consumers. By giving consumers an opportunity to provide feedback business can ensure they are still meeting the needs of their customers.

Those businesses that do not take this opportunity to listen to their customers risk standing on the tracks and being run over by the on coming train.

Online Tech Tips has an article titled How to create an online survey for free using Google Docs 

While I applaud the resourcefulness of this approach I can’t help thinking that it may be a little under powered for this kind of purpose.

In a nut shell the “Google Survey’ is using the Google Docs Spreadsheet function. It appears that there is some function that allows an online form to collect data in your spreadsheet. This came as a surpirise to me as I have used Google Spreadsheets for collorobnration before and had no idea that you could create a form for this purpose.

If you are looking for a free survey tool there are more suitable options that will offer greater functionality, Survey Gizmo is one that springs. For most small basic online surveys this should suit most needs.

One of the benefits of online surveys is that you can make them as long as you like without exhausting Amazon quantities of paper. As you can imagine this benefit can quickly become a curse. I completed a survey recently which took over 25 minutes to complete asking my opinion about a range of software options.

In my mind long surveys show an inherent misunderstanding and disrespect to respondents and should be avoided at all costs. In all likelihood by the time the respondent is halfway through the survey they are likely to either give up or quickly whiz through the survey in order to claim whatever incentive is available.

You can imagine the effect of the long survey on your data quality. In most cases you might as well disregard the questions towards the end as the impact of survey fatigue takes its hold on the respondents judgement and overall attitude towards your survey. In addition your survey abandonment rate will increase dramatically.

So, the questions is raised – How long is too long for your online survey (and any other survey for that matter).  Mark Kupferman has come up with four key factors which I think are worth considering for anyone developing a survey.

1. What does the respondent get for taking the survey?
2. How interesting is the survey topic to the respondent?
3. How much fun is it to complete the survey?
4. What impact will completing the survey have on the respondent?

I have added one more of my own.

1. What happens to the survey results?

I have expanded on Mark’s factors below as well as my own. Read the rest of this entry »

Business networking site LinkedIn has launched LinkedIn Surveys. This gives an excellent opportunity to tap into the 30 odd million professionals that belong to the site. It is reported that a number of surveys have already been undertaken.

LinkedIn offers the opportunity to survey the type of people that are normally pretty hard to get hold of. The sampling capabilities are quite varied as well. There is the ability to search for business professionals by a wide range of combinations including;

• Company. Search for current or former employees. Optionally exclude employees from publicly traded companies or from companies that may present a potential conflict of interest.

• Industry. Find professionals in one or more of nearly 150 industries.

• Title. Search for professionals by their current or past business title.

• Expertise. Look for those professionals with specific expertise in the product or market that you are researching.

• Keywords. Use keywords to find professionals by skills, experience, seniority, education, companies, and more.

With the depth of information that LinkedIn has about some very influential people the potential seems enormous. They will need to be careful to manage this service carefully as it could easily irritate and allentate LinkedIn members if used too aggressively.

Earlier I wrote about Green Market Research with Online Surveys which highlights efforts the market research industry can to to green up their business. Some of these were as lame  as turning off the light when you leave the room or using only one towel when staying in a hotel on business trips.

One real thing worth considering is using online surveys. I see that Gartner have taken this tack with their customer surveys. In their email invitation they write;

We appreciate your feedback.

Please take the time to provide valuable feedback for Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit 2008. By using the online version of our surveys, you’re helping our Green efforts to reduce paper consumption and waste.

I like it.

Saw this cycling survey on Vorb.

It has been put together by a Massey University student to survey cyclists. As a keen Hutt Valley cyclist (and ex Massey student) I am more than happy to promote this survey.

If you are over 16 and live in the Hutt Valley click here to complete the survey. And no Rock Research had nothing to do with it.