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Why we strive for short surveys

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The mission of Spinos is to answer your business questions in the smartest possible way. Therefore we always strive for short surveys. Here are seven reasons why we always reduce the questions we ask consumers as much as possible:

  • Cost reduction

The financial argument is of course very predictable. Respondents are paid based on the length of the questionnaire, and on top of that: there’s less analysing to be done with less questions. A large budget reduction!

  •  Better data quality

Respondents fill in shorter questionnaires significantly better. Less of them only click on the middle of a scale, responses are more consistent. And about (Likert)scales: please stop using them wherever possible. And also, don’t cheat by trying to force three questions into one. Both options give you less qualitative respons.

  • Lower non-response bias

Consumers finish shorter questionnaires more often, which gives a huge reduction of non-response bias. Researches with a list of 5 questions get 5% non-completes, when you bore your respondents with 40 questionnaires, this rises to 20%. (source: Surveymonkey)

  • The respondent will feel better afterwards

After a long and tedious questionnaire, your respondent will remain with a negative feeling. As your research presumably is about your category and/or brand, this negative feeling will be associated with your products/brands. That’s really something you want to avoid.

  • More focus on what you really want to know

You know the feeling, when you finally can start your research project, the whole company wants to add more questions. But are they “need to know” or  “nice to know”? Restricting yourself to a short survey, forces you to stay critical and only add those questions that make you change your strategy.

  • Agile way of working: interpret and implement results gradually

Large surveys offer a lot of data points. Often so many, that your organisation will never be able to process them all and put them into action. In my consultancy projects I review all market reseach of the last 5-10 years for a customer, and I find answers to questions they want to re-research, or insights they “forgot” and that can be immediately incorporated again into their yearly plans. A better approach is to split your budget and rather execute four small researches in one year that lead to profitable growth, than one big research of which half of the information is not used at all.

  • Responsibility towards your co-researchers

We market researchers are extremely dependent on consumers willing to respond. Not only in panels, but also via email or websites. Sometimes I’m checking my email in a restaurant during a coffee after a nice dinner, and I am already being asked to write a review about something that has not even ended yet! Let’s take our responsibility together and make sure consumers (our valuable respondents!) do not get “research tired”!