In 1997, the average response rate to surveys was around 36%. By 2003, it was 25%. By 2014, it was 9%. Now, in 2020, despite decades of vast technological advancements, the completion rate for a given survey has fallen below 2% on average. This has led to the death of traditional surveys, which are built on fundamental failures of researchers to adapt to changing consumers and technology.
Ultimately, this remarkable demise of engagement boils down to three key aspects of traditional surveys – length, design and purpose.
Research has shown that abandonment during a survey increases with two to four percentage points for every additional minute of survey length. In addition, 52% of customers don’t want to spend more than three minutes filling out a survey. The simple fact of the matter is, no real consumers are willing to spend 20 minutes doing a survey, and anyone who is, usually does not represent your customers or the population as a whole.
In every other industry, companies have been forced to embrace technology, improve personalisation, tailor their product to specific consumer cohorts, and demand a culture of continuous innovation to remain relevant. Unfortunately, traditional researchers have not kept up, and this is supported by 39% of researchers who expect the quality of feedback to worsen over the next three years.
As mentioned in previous blogs, the inability of traditional researchers and surveys to prioritise the end-user experience has a direct correlation to declining response rates. Alongside poor survey design and old-fashioned methodologies that have not adapted to changing respondent behaviours, there is one simple area of survey design that is failing researchers – repetitive profiling questions at the beginning of each survey.
Unfortunately, a fragmented supply chain means researchers must use an array of softwares for panel management, survey scripting and panel recruitment. Traditional surveys are plagued by repetitive profiling questions and technologies to stop fraudulent bots, repeat respondents and other quality issues. This has led to the monotonous, engagement-stifling process of screening and profiling questions which usually take up the first half of any online survey. The result? frustration, boredom and the omission of real consumers from ever engaging in online surveys. In addition, the incentive to to give fraudulent responses in order to fit the screening questions you believe will allow you to continue in the survey, and thus, get your reward!
The future of online surveys lies with pre-targeting of users, personalised engagement and an ability to protect quality while maintaining the overall experience of each respondent.
The final piece to this puzzle revolves around a deeper issue within traditional surveys. The purpose of each survey lacks authenticity, and respondents are disengaged from the beginning thanks to a few critical errors in research delivery. As response rates decline, online surveys have resorted to sending out even more surveys and emails to achieve their critical mass. This creates a vicious cycle where as potential respondents get annoyed with surveys, they are spammed even more surveys as a result.
In today’s world, consumers are no longer content to be treated like faceless data points. There is a necessity to have deep, personalised connections with consumers, and traditional surveys are innately opposite to this demand. Random topics not tailored to each respondent’s interests, a disconnection from previous responses given, and the growing belief that responses enter a black hole of results dilutes the value of each consumer’s attempt to give feedback.
In reality, traditional surveys feel like an interrogation rather than a genuine request for feedback, blanket bombed to the masses in a feeble attempt to hit their minimum number of responses to deliver sufficient results.
Research is a fundamental aspect of any business, empowering both consumers and companies to create their future together. Yet, research is in need of revolutionising itself, leveraging new technology and a deeper appreciation of consumers to reimagine itself in years to come. This begins with accepting the death of traditional surveys, and opening the door to new opportunities within research.
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement | 1 year | Records user consent for cookies in the advertisement category |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics | 11 months | Records user consent for cookies in the analytics category |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional | 11 months | Records user consent for cookies in the functional category |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary | 11 months | Records user consent for cookies in the necessary category |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others | 11 months | Records user consent for cookies in the other/unclassified category |
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance | 11 months | Records user consent for cookies in the performance category |
CookieLawInfoConsent | 1 year | Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. |
elementor | never | This cookie is used by the website's WordPress theme. It allows the website owner to implement or change the website's content in real-time. |
viewed_cookie_policy | 11 months | The cookie is set by the CookieYes plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data. |
_GRECAPTCHA | 5 months 27 days | Provides spam protection and distinguishes between humans and bots. |
__hssrc | session | This cookie is set by Hubspot whenever it changes the session cookie. The __hssrc cookie set to 1 indicates that the user has restarted the browser, and if the cookie does not exist, it is assumed to be a new session. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
bcookie | 2 years | LinkedIn sets this cookie from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser ID. |
lang | session | This cookie is used to store the language preferences of a user to serve up content in that stored language the next time user visit the website. |
lidc | 1 day | LinkedIn sets the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection. |
__cf_bm | 30 minutes | This cookie, set by Cloudflare, is used to support Cloudflare Bot Management. |
__hssc | 30 minutes | HubSpot sets this cookie to keep track of sessions and to determine if HubSpot should increment the session number and timestamps in the __hstc cookie. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
AnalyticsSyncHistory | 1 month | Used to store information about the time a sync with the lms_analytics cookie took place for users |
hubspotutk | 1 year 24 days | This cookie is used by HubSpot to keep track of the visitors to the website. This cookie is passed to Hubspot on form submission and used when deduplicating contacts. |
_ga | 2 years | Calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. |
_gat_gtag_UA_138017392_1 | 1 minute | Google uses this cookie to distinguish users. |
_gat_UA-138017392-1 | 1 minute | A variation of the _gat cookie set by Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to allow website owners to track visitor behaviour and measure site performance. The pattern element in the name contains the unique identity number of the account or website it relates to. |
_ga_RFDCRNP6J3 | 2 years | This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. |
_gcl_au | 3 months | Provided by Google Tag Manager to experiment advertisement efficiency of websites using their services. |
_gid | 1 day | Installed by Google Analytics, _gid cookie stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. |
__gads | 1 year 24 days | The __gads cookie, set by Google, is stored under DoubleClick domain and tracks the number of times users see an advert, measures the success of the campaign and calculates its revenue. This cookie can only be read from the domain they are set on and will not track any data while browsing through other sites. |
__hstc | 1 year 24 days | This is the main cookie set by Hubspot, for tracking visitors. It contains the domain, initial timestamp (first visit), last timestamp (last visit), current timestamp (this visit), and session number (increments for each subsequent session). |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
bscookie | 2 years | This cookie is a browser ID cookie set by Linked share Buttons and ad tags. |
fr | 3 months | Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin. |
GoogleAdServingTest | session | This cookie is used to determine what ads have been shown to the website visitor. |
IDE | 1 year 24 days | Google DoubleClick IDE cookies are used to store information about how the user uses the website to present them with relevant ads and according to the user profile. |
test_cookie | 15 minutes | Used to check if the user's browser supports cookies. |
UserMatchHistory | 1 month | To provide ad delivery or retargeting |
_fbp | 3 months | This cookie is set by Facebook to display advertisements when either on Facebook or on a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising, after visiting the website. |
Cookie | Duration | Description |
---|---|---|
intercom-id-gz33jl8i | 8 months 26 days 1 hour | No description |
intercom-session-gz33jl8i | 7 days | No description |
li_gc | 2 years | Used to store consent of guests regarding the use of cookies for non-essential purposes |
__gpi | 1 year 24 days | No description |