Are you comfortable with doing surveys in which up to half of the responses you’re receiving are fraudulent? Or in which you’re getting a heavily biased group of respondents?
The only thing worse than no research is bad research…and there are many different ways you can unintentionally be receiving misleading data from your surveys.
We’ve had research field managers and online panel vendors confide that under 10% of their clients are taking steps to avoid some of these common problems – problems which, uncorrected, can give you data which is disastrously misleading. That’s particularly disturbing given how many of their clients are supposed to be seasoned research professionals.
In recent tests, we discovered just how serious and widespread these problems are:
- 13% of respondents gave false information in order to try to qualify for a study.
- The donors who responded to one charitable organization’s recent survey had a lifetime value nearly double that of their typical donor, and were six times more likely to be volunteers.
- Up to half of survey respondents didn’t actually read messaging statements that were being tested, but still answered all the questions about those messages.
We’re not talking minor problems here. But the good news is that these problems can be avoided or corrected.
In 6 Ways Your Survey Research May Be Misleading You, you will learn about common research problems that most people – even the experts – aren’t addressing sufficiently.
But you hired a professional research firm, so these problems aren’t impacting your research…right? Again, those who deal with these projects every day tell us not even one out of ten researchers they deal with are doing what’s necessary to avoid or fix the problems. That means there’s about a 90% chance your studies are being affected. Read our latest report to find out how.
Please e-mail ron@greymatterresearch.com for a free copy of 6 Ways Your Survey Research May Be Misleading You.