Posts Tagged ‘survey’

Click Here for Actionable Insights!

Friday, May 28th, 2010

We saw an ad today for a downloadable survey app similar to Survey Monkey or Zoomerang that was pitched as a tool for actionable insights.  Wow!  Download, install, run . . . click again,  and there they are, sitting on your desktop or smart phone: actionable insights. (more…)

How Long Should a Survey Be?

Friday, April 23rd, 2010

Asking people to fill out long, tiresome, and boring surveys is a scourge of the research, polling, and survey industry.  (Another is asking them to fill out a survey every time they interact with you — see There Are Too Many Surveys.)  Asking people to fill out long surveys teaches them to avoid surveys in the future, and indeed we see survey participation rates continuing to decline.  But more importantly if you are the one who needs to rely on survey data, long surveys result in measurably lower data quality. (more…)

Conflicting Surveys Give You Insight

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

When multiple surveys about the same topic give different results, consider yourself lucky.  It provides an opportunity to dissect and understand the question you are trying to answer in a way you might not get otherwise.  A recent New York Times article provides a nice example when it comes to polls about health care. (more…)

Keep Your Surveys Honest

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

One problem with new survey technologies that make it easy (and inexpensive) to design and field surveys is that we now have an explosion of poorly done and ill-intentioned surveys.  Have you ever suspected that a survey isn’t quite legit?

Dilbert.com

Keeping your survey efforts honest is critical.  Sincere efforts to document issues through rigorous surveys succeed, and when done correctly, people are influenced by numbers.  But trying to shock or manipulate with sensationalist, biased, and phony data gets you only so far.  For a great survey, keep it honest, rigorous, and valid, and carefully control for bias.  We, at Versta, can help you succeed with this.

-Joe Hopper, Ph.D.

Recent Findings on Phone vs. Online Surveys

Friday, February 5th, 2010

A research article the Winter 2009 issue of Public Opinion Quarterly provided some useful comparisons of data quality between phone surveys and various types of online surveys.  The findings are based on an experiment that fielded identical questionnaires via three survey modes, and, not surprisingly, there are strengths and weaknesses to each type of survey.

Recent-Findings-on-Phone-vs-Online-Surveys

Phone vs. Online Surveys: Strengths & Weaknesses

As reflected in the table above, the article is rather technical.  But there are two key summary points worth learning from the study: (more…)

What Is An Omnibus Survey?

Saturday, January 16th, 2010

An omnibus survey is a shared-cost survey that can be a good way for you to save money on surveys.  It works by combining survey questions from multiple clients and then collecting responses to all questions from the same group of respondents.  After that, each client is given the data (the survey responses) to their specific questions.  Omnibus surveys are usually fun and engaging for respondents because instead of a 15-minute survey about just one topic, the survey will cover four or five different topics, which adds interest and variety. (more…)

Top Trends of the Decade: Looking Back

Thursday, December 31st, 2009

As an industry driven by data and information, market research and public opinion polling has seen dramatic changes in the last ten years and will no doubt change quickly and in big ways during the next ten.

Looking back, here are what we consider to be the five biggest changes that shaped current challenges faced by market research and opinion polling: (more…)

Execs Highlight Need for Research and Stories

Friday, November 20th, 2009

Five of Chicago’s PR leaders gathered at a PRSA forum this week to discuss current trends and the future of public relations.  The discussion was striking in how fully it echoed the trends and challenges facing the polling and research industry, and what we need to do to keep our eye on the ball.  Here are a few take-away ideas from that forum that apply to both PR professionals and their research partners: (more…)

There Are Too Many Surveys

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

You might think that a research firm specializing in surveys would be glad to see a world in which customer feedback surveys are everywhere.  Not so.  I take part in a lot of webinars, and unfortunately I am asked to complete a survey (at least one) every time I attend.  Some websites ask me to evaluate my experience every time I go there.  Some companies ask me to evaluate my customer service call every time I call with a question or complaint.  The companies asking me to complete these surveys are convinced by pitches like this:  “The real power of [our survey tool] can only be unlocked through a commitment to continuous listening.  Listening to your visitors is truly a process, not an event. Continuous surveying can help you to establish benchmarks and trend your performance on key metrics.” (more…)

Two Ways to Find Data for a PR Story

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

In a recent blog post entitled Data-Driven Journalism, Walker Sands, a Chicago PR agency, outlined two ways to get media placement for your company or your client with research.  The premise is that journalists and readers are hungry for interesting stories, and in today’s data-driven world some of the most interesting stories come from – of all places – statistics.  Ken Gaebler, founder of the agency, notes that there are two effective approaches.  In his words, “You can mine data or you can make data.” (more…)