The 7 Deadly Survey Sins and How to Avoid Them
If you are a fan of baseball, Kevin Costner or simply great movies, you probably have watched “Field of Dreams.” Costner’s character, farmer Ray Kinsella, hears a whispering voice while walking one evening in his corn field. “If you build it, he will come.”
Ray, with innocent enthusiasm, builds a baseball field in the middle of his cornfield and embarks on a quest to find answers. At the end of the movie, Ray’s questions are answered and they all lived happily ever after.
Do you get your survey questions answered and live happily ever after?
In my career spanning CX and market research, I have seen far too many epic survey fails. A few of my favorites include:
- Over 200 clients invited to take a CSAT survey…and only two responded.
- The “10 minute” 81-question survey completed by only 11% of those who started it.
These situations are often the result of mistakes I categorize as the 7 deadly survey sins. These include:
- Failing to Plan: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” ― Benjamin Franklin
- Colombo Syndrome: Verbose, circumstantial questioning
- Bias: Using leading or confusing questions, or judgmental phrases
- Field of Dreams Fallacy: Deploying surveys…without the happy movie ending
- Monaural Listening: Surveying only on a single channel
- Big Data Deluge: Expectation that more data will reveal “The Answer”
- Data Waste: Survey data that is used only for a single purpose
To learn more about the characteristics of 7 deadly survey sins that negatively impact most customer experience programs—and learn proven strategies to overcome these common issues—please listen to the recorded one-hour webinar hosted by Sean Mahoney, senior solutions consultant, and me in partnership with Loyalty 360.
And, read more for how to best use surveys to meet the needs of today’s busy, highly mobile customers.
The post The 7 Deadly Survey Sins and How to Avoid Them appeared first on Customer Experience Management Blog.
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