Avoiding errors in survey design

There are two blog posts published just before everyone went back to work after New Year’s (and all that snow) which I thought are worth sharing.

The first is Panel Crazy – an observation about the number of errors present in surveys. Sheila Wilson wrote

Clients know that with the technology we now have, it is possible to script a project and complete the fieldwork online in a matter of hours. But perhaps they don’t know about the amount of thought, effort and creativity that is required for decent questionnaire design and in particular thorough quality control.

If you are planning a new customer feedback survey for the new year – give yourself plenty of time to

1. Write the first draft
2. To review and make changes when you have seen the online survey for the first time
3. Test (Q.A.) – make sure all paths through the survey have been tested!

The second blog post was Optimise rather than maximise response rates – which reminds readers that sending reminder emails and then even more reminder emails could have other effects on customers. Most interestingly Jeffrey Henning shared this nugget:

Pew Research Center found that a response rate of 25% did not materially change the quality of survey estimates when compared to the same study with a 50% response rate.

As I’ve said before you don’t need massive numbers of responses to a survey.

Dan Wardle