As market researchers, we always want to produce high-quality survey data, and if we have terrible response rates that means we’re not getting enough people to complete the survey. A little while ago, we share a compendium of resources for email survey invitation response rates, but sometimes it’s not how we reach out to our potential participants that present an issue.
The really painful part is that sometimes we are reaching the right people but they’re choosing not to take our survey. We also spoke about Multimode Data Collection not too long ago, which can help mitigate this risk by using multiple data collection methods, thereby increasing the likelihood of participants engaging with our survey. Unfortunately, we can still run into poor response rates even when we’re reaching the right population and using multiple data collection methods.
So, how can we break out of a rut like this?
Just about a year ago, our instructors Amy Anderson, Kathryn Korostoff, and Michelle LeGros discussed this topic at length and shared some interesting findings.
For example, Instructor Michelle shared an example in which she was tasked with conducting Qualitative Research among scenic populations– a task in which Zoom IDIs just wouldn’t cut it. With a target population known to have varying levels of tech-savviness, and for the particular project topic, it would have been risky to assume that webcam research would be effective. By doing in-person clinics, Michelle ensured her project went off without a hitch.
Similarly, Instructor Amy shared her experience conducting a survey with Indigenous people in the United States. Because of the unreliable internet access on some reservations, conducting an online survey or conducting virtual data collection methods would likely result in dismal response rates. As Amy so aptly put it, “…if you need to get to those populations, there are different [cultural and technological] aspects you need to keep in mind.”
Throughout their conversation, Instructors Kathryn, Amy, and Michelle highlighted three potential remedies to data collection headaches.
- Don’t make assumptions about your target audience. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, many populations experience a technological jump due to the innovations born from remote work and isolation. Just because many people had that jump doesn’t mean that your target market also has, or that what they experienced impacted them similarly to the rest of the population.
- Optimize your survey for mobile. Most surveys nowadays are taken on laptops and mobile devices, so you want to make your survey as easy and accessible as possible for your target population.
- Review what you know and get creative. Instructor Amy shared a story in which she was conducting a B2B survey with a lengthy welcome screen and a complex open-ended question. During the survey’s soft launch, no one who received the survey completed it.After reviewing drop-off patterns, Instructor Amy determined that the lengthy block of text on the welcome screen and the first few questions following the required open-ended question were two big drop-off points.
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With this, she hypothesized that the survey felt long and seemingly required a lot of cognitive effort between the initial opening screen and the detailed open-ended response. Armed with this information, Instructor Amy revised her survey by decreasing the amount of text on the welcome screen and moving the open-ended response toward the survey’s end, and making it optional. During the survey’s next launch, survey completion rates dramatically increased.
Everyone struggles with dismal response rates from time to time, but how you address the source of your dismal response rates to later improve your survey is what really turns the average researcher into a Research Rockstar. For the full conversation, please watch Instructors Amy, Kathryn, and Michelle’s discussion here!
