Introduction
There have been great advances in survey techniques; availability of a multitude of technologies, systematic sampling methods, improved survey designs, and computerized data analysis makes the surveys less cumbersome. The survey research has become more scientific also. Many organizations, commercial, service, governmental and even political entities, use surveys to achieve their goals.
Online surveys have numerous strengths. One of it is the global reach. The respondents living in different countries or regions can respond to the survey at lesser cost and simply. Second, online surveys can be utilized in situation where B to B or B to C interactions is occurring. Flexibility is the third and the most convenient advantage. Now, the surveys can be conducted in several formats: e-mail attachments, e-mail with a link, invitation to visit the site, surveys can either be in plain text or Html and lastly the surveys can be tailored to customer demographics, language, purchase experience, etc. and exposing to each respondent only the pertinent items. A fourth advantage of the online survey is it can be administered in a time-efficient manner, reducing the time needed to deploy the survey, data collection and even the data analysis. Because of the technological advances the survey administration cost are very much lowered. Survey costs are divided into two categories: preparation and administration costs. Preparation costs are related to construction of the survey. Administration costs comprises of implementation of survey, placing the responses into the database, tabulation and computerized data analysis.
In spite of the advances and acknowledgements of survey research, major challenges still remain. These impediments are, falling response rates, incomplete online / offline databases, mistrust among common people about surveys, inappropriate length of the length, right to privacy and security risks, perception of internet surveys as spam, and many times excessive interviewing. The construction and content also are a major challenge that directly affects the effectiveness of survey.
Survey Question Analysis
Being a student of research, I’m curious how companies write their surveys. In the past week, I’ve taken two online surveys from the net and analyzed them for this assignment. The surveys are presented in the Appendix 1. Before I begin, I want to make clear that my intention is to analyze the survey not the organizations. I am analyzing only content of the survey and its probable effect on the survey respondents.
Let me begin with the survey of ABC Corporation. The first item in the survey is about the location of the store. The company has many outlets, and the outlets are listed in the dropdown box for the respondent to choose. The item in the very beginning of the survey is an apt one. Rather than a generalized response to all the stores, the company can know which store the customer is referring to. The second item is a set of nine statements regarding the characteristics of the store. This item uses five points Likert scale, ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. All the statements are positively worded; no double barrel or loaded items are there. The statements are very simple, direct and clear for understanding. The survey has other three items related to overall store experience, price and quality position. The three items again used five points Likert scale. Finally, it has one open ended question to capture something that is not included in the earlier items. The diversity of questions is three; multiple choice question, Likert scale and an open ended question. Overall this survey gives a picture that we are serious about the customer satisfaction, and the respondent is most likely to do this survey smoothly.
In my second example, my friend was taking a short survey for Best Buy about how he used their credit card. When he opened the web page of the survey, he was greeted with the following: After the first question it says, “If you answered No to Question 1, you are done! Click Submit below to exit the survey.” Sure, the survey provided clear directions on what to do, but some respondents may miss this instruction and carry on with the survey to answer the other questions. As a solution to this, each question to be presented on a separate web page with ‘done’ button. Thus, if a respondent answers ‘no’ at question 1, it will be automatically taken to the end of the survey. Same solution can be applied even for question number two.
In the third item of the Best Buy customer survey for card usage, there are eight statements that indicate the situations of the customer. The statements are both negatively and positively worded, and none of the statements are double barreled or loaded. The diversity of the survey is two; there are two yes/no items and one checklist. The eight statements in the third item of the survey are straight forward, but the chances are that the customer might feel disheartened at the statements. Many of the statements are related to the personal aspects of the customer; hence requesting to respond to certain items may affect the quality of the response. For example, ‘I don’t have enough credit available on store credit card’ may not elicit true response from the customer, making the survey weaker.
Conclusion
Surveys are critical for creating better service for customers and also for enhanced customer experience. A real great survey asks all the relevant questions needed to meet the objective of the survey. It was seen that either too frugal questions or too many question are asked in the survey. The key is to ask the right questions, covering all aspects of the objective and in a simple manner. While constructing the survey, it would be beneficial to interact with the stakeholders of the survey. The survey is not an event, but a process in serving the customer. While doing a survey the customer must get that message. We must all remember that customer surveys are not just about collecting data. They’re about creating a relationship and a memorable experience.
REFERENCES
Evans, Joel R. and Mathur, Anil. (2005). The value of online surveys, Internet Resarch, Vol. 15 No. 2, 195-219.
