I was checking out of a hotel last week when I noticed a stack of customer survey cards on the front desk. Someone–one of the clerks or perhaps even the hotel manager–had highlighted the positive end of the scale of the grid questions about service, room cleanliness, etc. The message was clearly, “Rate us as…
I was at one of those massive conferences recently and happened sit down at lunch in the trade show next to a fellow researcher. I didn’t know her so we traded topline credentials and demographic information–location, typical clients, specialties–by way of introduction. Then, as often happens these days, our conversation turned to the economy. So…
For the most part I’m not a proponent of making New Year’s resolutions. Resolutions suggest that you will suddenly wake up tomorrow and magically start doing X or stop doing Y. You stay on the wagon or you fall off. You win or you lose. Frankly, most of us aren’t designed for the pressures of making resolutions.…
A non-profit pro bono client recently handled sending out their own survey invitations. Out of about 1,700 emails they sent, they got a whopping five survey responses. FIVE. Fortunately, the reasons for the dismal response rate were fairly easy to correct. They didn’t follow the two overarching rules for creating successful email survey invitations: 1) Make…
This seems to be the season for conducting in-depth telephone interviews, probably because so many people are trying to figure out what the heck is going to happen now that businesses are struggling back to their knees following the knock-down economic punch of 2009. So I’ve been talking with business owners and consultants quite a…
I recently had the opportunity to observe a fairly new focus group moderator. The group participants were everyday consumers talking about a financial product that they had purchased. As the group progressed, it was painfully clear that many of the people were having difficulty expressing their ideas and making themselves understood. The moderator attempted to…
A while back I happened to be making dinner when the phone rang. It was a perfectly polite young woman conducting a research project for Amtrak. After confirming that I was, indeed, the same Robin Wedewer who regularly travels to New York City via the Northeast Regional train on Amtrak, she asked for a few…
Whenever I work with membership organizations on surveys, they invariably ask the question, “What kind of response rate should we expect?” Although it’s not very satisfying, my response is always, “It depends.” Here are 10 ways you can increase the response rate to your next online survey. 1 – Make a habit of diligently scrubbing…