Keep Your Respondents Interested
When people hear the phrase ‘market research’, the word ‘boring’ often comes to mind. If you’ve ever taken a long survey, you can probably relate. The problem with this, for market researchers, is that bored respondents usually equate to poor survey results. At Lab42, we recognize this issue, and have come up with a few ways to counteract survey fatigue.
1) Keep your surveys short and sweet – We typically try to write our surveys so they are less than 5 minutes in length. We’ve found that surveys longer than 5 minutes result in poor responses and respondent attrition, while shorter surveys are more engaging to your respondents.
2) Keep your questions simple – Write your survey questions so they are in their most basic form. Avoid writing compound questions (questions that ask more than one thing), which will often confuse your respondent.
3) Make your survey visual – We love testing out new design concepts, logos and videos. We’ve found that respondents engage quite well when they actually have a visual of what they are asked to provide feedback about.
4) Add a progress bar – Adding progress bars to your survey lets your respondent know exactly where they are at within the survey taking process, which leads to lower attrition. Omitting a progress bar is like sending your respondent on a race without a clearly defined finish line – if they don’t know where they need to go to complete, they are much more likely to quit without completing the survey.
These are just a few things you can add to your survey to ensure that your respondents are kept engaged the entire time. Are there any additional things you would recommend? Be sure to leave your comments below.
