Making Surveys Human Matters Now More Than Ever

Humanising survey research is key to improving survey results & data.

by Emily James
Insights Marketer at FlexMR

Surveys have firmly embedded themselves into the core of market research. As one of the longest-running quantitative research methods, it’s no wonder why insight teams have relied time and again on the humble survey to gather vital data on consumer wants, needs, and behaviours. Even as market research has evolved over the years, survey technology has only made surveys more accessible as a research method to use both within and outside of the insights industry, with recent efforts even able to combine it with qualitative technologies to increase the number and types of data gathered.

But have surveys evolved enough to keep up with the rest of the innovative developments in market research? Recent innovations have occurred to make sure that the methodologies we use are as engaging as they can possibly be, because capturing and keeping consumer attention is more difficult now than ever.

Why should we make surveys more human?

The pivotal question that fuels the actions of all insight professionals, is why? Why should we innovate this particular part of market research? Why do consumers behave as they do? Why isn’t this data matching up to the actions of consumers? Why won’t stakeholders take insights on board as much as they can in vital decision-making processes?

This particular question – “Why should we make surveys more human?” – has emerged from the increasingly tough nature of getting consumers to participate in market research. With surveys having been on the go since the very start and evolving little in that time, it can be easy for consumers to get bored doing the same thing every time stakeholders need quantitative answers.

Further to this, consumer attention spans have been severely impacted in recent years by advancements in technology improving on service time: We now see faster loading speeds, faster responses, faster delivery times, faster and easier instant gratification, and more convenient customer experiences than ever before. As such, we have all gotten used to getting pretty much whatever we want then and there, without much need for waiting. This has had dire consequences for business decision-making and consumer engagement.

Survey research has the benefit of familiarity, but familiarity also breeds contempt. Consumers know what surveys are, what they can do, that they typically consist of question after question after question, and the effort it takes on their part to fill out these surveys does not equal what they get out of it. Without simply making surveys better, there is no incentive today that can encourage consumers to participate to the fullest extent.

So, this is what we must do, make surveys better, more engaging to capture and keep respondents’ attention, more accessible, and more human. This will drive an increase in research participation from the very start, and high-quality insights will be available for stakeholder decision-making in a faster time frame too.

How can we effectively make surveys more human?

As we’ve discussed, there is now the need to implement different tactics in order to engage and maintain consumer attention spans for any length of time. But to what tactics can we turn?

• To keep surveys from becoming repetitive, vary question types so that consumers aren’t doing the same thing over and over again. This will drastically increase the amount of the survey your respondents complete before they get bored with it.

• Keep the survey short and sweet. Ditch the long surveys that cover every topic under the sun. Make shorter surveys for each topic you want to research instead, even if that means having multiple surveys open at once. This will help consumers reach the end of the survey before their attention spans become hooked on something else. For each survey, make sure you have only relevant questions with easy answer options so that it doesn’t take much effort for respondents to answer.

• Use language your participants will understand. This might be something talked about a little too often for researchers and stakeholders (and perhaps falls more on the side of basic market research advice). Still, it does bear repeating. How can consumers expect to fill out a survey if they have no idea what the questions mean? One aspect of language in market research that doesn’t get talked about as often is how to use language to create a safe and comfortable space for consumers to relax in, and fill out everything they know to be true.

• When creating a survey, we can use particular language that makes respondents feel comfortable, safe, and in good company. Given the plethora of cultures and subcultures around the world, it can be tricky to understand which language to use from the start, but if we monitor a group’s activity on social media and their interactions with brands, we soon start to identify aspects like phrases and tonalities that can inform our efforts.

There are of course many more tactics out there to try, and try we must in order to find out the ones that work best for the strategy we’re using. In order to find more, most of these tactics come under the umbrella of ‘human experience’ or ‘customer centricity’, as both of these strategies focus on understanding the consumer providing the best experience possible based on that deeper understanding.

Measuring survey success

Now we know why it’s important to make surveys more human, and we have a couple of solid starting points from which to build, but how can stakeholders tell if their humanising attempts have worked? If done well, what impacts and results can we expect to see?