It seems companies just can’t get enough feedback about their performance these days. The ubiquitous deployment of surveys, mostly digital in nature (although phone surveys and clipboard-toting surveyors at the mall are still in the mix) has created a plethora of opportunities to take the pulse of one’s audience. It’s becoming the expected conclusion to many business transactions.
In our social-media-driven, user-comment-fed, how-helpful-was-this-recommendation world, it seems our opinions are more valuable than ever. Marketers (like us) want to know what people think.
But the more I look at it all, the more skeptical I’m becoming about the methodology. Just this week for example:
I took my car into the shop for repairs. The repair manager took several minutes to explain to me that I’d be receiving an email form the automaker with a survey about my experience at the dealership’s shop. He then went on in great detail about how my answers would affect his standing in the company, and would I be kind enough to not just give a good rating, but a great one on every question, so he and the shop could breathe a little easier come review time.
I made the mistake of answering the phone—yes, I still have a land line—without checking the caller ID. The call-center employee asked me if I’d like to take a survey on the economy. I asked him to remove my name and number from his list. When I hung up, I thought about who in the world would actually take the time to answer such questions. Anybody and everybody I know who has an informed opinion about the economy would never waste the time to answer such a survey. They’re too busy working on the economy to be surveyed about the economy. It stands to reason that all the data this organization was gathering comes exclusively from the uninformed. Now there’s some valuable research data for you!
I got my third request from a professional organization to which I belong asking me to fill out their survey. They’re obviously tracking my movements because they know that the unique survey link number they assigned me (130462254493&i=1FB4AB1D586B509ECC0DCF00870F43FDCE805F06F5D535B739D222E9541C in case you’re curious) has not been responded to. And they had the audacity to use the phrase “FINAL NOTICE” in the subject line of their third attempt to get me to fill out the survey.
What these three examples—all occurring within a single week—reveal is that Multiple Excessive Survey Syndrome (or MESS) is a disease that has infected business and it may never go away. Like a low-grade fever that you just can’t shake.
Now this is not to say marketers shouldn’t invest in survey-based research. They should. They just need to keep in mind that context, format, audience and timing are all very important and need to be taken into consideration as correctives for weighting the data that is generated. Furthermore, survey data should always be supplemented by real-world conversations. These are a lot more expensive to deploy and require real humanoids to implement. But the depth, quality and authenticity of the data is so much better. It’s like the difference between 2D and 3D television. Partly because it’s not just data. It’s a real person’s story. And if you listen carefully enough, that story can become part of your brand.
Now I’d be grateful if you’d be willing to take a few minutes to complete a survey about this blog post…