I recently took a survey sponsored by the Hertz Corporation, intended to assess the appeal of several new approaches to services. This post discusses some of the problems I found, and why you should avoid creating your surveys like this one. [Read More]
Surveys
IT terminology applied to surveys
James Murray is principal of Seattle IT Edge, a strategic consultancy that melds the technology of IT with the business issues that drive IT solutions. When James gave me a list of things that are central for IT professionals, I thought it might be fun (and hopefully useful) to connect these terms with online surveys [Read More]
Top holiday business activities
We asked entrepreneurs, consultants and small business owners how they were spending their time over the holiday period. The question asked about the TOP activity, so people needed to prioritize. The most popular answers were “planning next year“, and “delivering to customers“, recognizing both looking forward and (presumably) the need to complete tasks. It would [Read More]
Impact of cell phones on 2010 Midterms and beyond politics
Whether you are a political junkie or not, recent articles and analysis about mobile phones as part of data collection should be of interest to those who design or commission survey research. Cost, bias, and predictability are key issues. In years gone by, cell phone users were rarely included in surveys. There was uncertainty about [Read More]
SurveyTip: Randomizing question answers is generally a good idea
Showing question answers in a random order reduces the risk of bias from the position. To understand this, think of what happens when you are asked to choose a question by a telephone interviewer. When the list of choices are presented for a single choice question, you might be think of the first option as [Read More]
LinkedIn B2B sample looks promising
One of the interesting presentations at yesterday’s Puget Sound Research Forum conference was from LinkedIn, covering their recently introduced sample services. Key advantages for sample from LinkedIn as I see it: Profiling information is entered by the LinkedIn user for reasons unconnected with survey taking. Regardless of of how much of a problem you think [Read More]
Profiting from customer satisfaction and loyalty research
Business people generally know that satisfying customers is a good thing, but they don’t necessarily understand the link between satisfaction and profits. This is partly because much of the original work was done so long ago that contradictory cases and nuances have allowed confusion to build up. Additionally, some companies have appeared successful for a [Read More]
When Validation Backfires
I just came across an interesting issue with validation in an online survey using a Van Westendorp pricing model. Van Westendorp is one of the common ways to test pricing by directly questioning prospective purchasers. This post isn’t about Van Westendorp, also known as the Price Sensitivity Meter (you can find plenty of references online, [Read More]
Why Market Researchers should care about bandwidth
The Pew Research Center has tracked broadband adoption for several years; the most recent study shows that the adoption rate has dropped. As of April 2008, 55% of the adults in the U.S. have access to broadband at home, with just 10% using dial-up connections. As you might imagine, broadband usage is unevenly distributed. People [Read More]
Why don’t surveys support Firefox?
Some surveyors don’t support Firefox in their online surveys. Why is this a mistake? [Read More]