Philip Yurchuk » surveys http://philip.yurchuk.com Software Development Blog Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:32:04 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 en hourly 1 Survey Hurdles And Incentives http://philip.yurchuk.com/2009/05/15/survey-hurdles-and-incentives/ http://philip.yurchuk.com/2009/05/15/survey-hurdles-and-incentives/#comments Sat, 16 May 2009 06:20:11 +0000 Philip Yurchuk http://philip.yurchuk.com/?p=37 I just quit another survey before completing it, this one from Rhapsody. I like Rhapsody, and I don’t mind giving them my opinions to improve their service (or even to keep it the same). However, my time is valuable, and I can’t waste it on sites that don’t institute the simplest of usability measures. For example, if I leave a question blank, and there is a very reasonable conversion for blank (like zero or n/a), don’t come back to me with “answer all questions properly.” They didn’t even highlight which question they had a problem with or what, specifically, was wrong. The second time I got that message, I just closed the tab. They said the survey would take 10-15 minutes. Well guess what? If you coded it nicely, it’d only take us 5.

This is similar to telemarketers who give phone surveys and, because of some stupid rule set up by their management, must tell you what the numbers 1 through 5 represent for every single question. At that point, I’m thinking 1 for slightly annoyed, 2 for really annoyed, 3 for angry, 4 for hanging up right now…

And offering a chance of winning a single $100 Amazon gift card (which seems to be a new survey standard) is really no incentive at all. If you really want to incentivize, why not say 100 people will get a free month of Rhapsody to Go? Wouldn’t that improve your image without costing you much, since it’s your survey to begin with?

Look, for many topics, I’m a guy who actually cares. I’m happy to give you my opinions and insights. Please stop making me care less.

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