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Surveys are a widely used tool in companies, especially to measure how satisfied customers are. However, they work less and less well over time. Why?
  • Customers are tired of answering so many surveys.
  • Many surveys are poorly designed and do not obtain useful information.
  • Companies do not know how to use the results well to make important decisions.
These problems mean that companies need to find new ways to listen to what their customers think and feel.

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Survey Fatigue

People are tired of answering surveys. This shows up in several aspects:
  1. Fewer people respond:
    • In phone surveys, only 30% of people respond on average.
    • It can vary between 4% and 70% (Holbrook et al., 2008).
  2. Long surveys are more tiring:
    • If they last less than 10 minutes, 68.2% finish them.
    • If they last 30 minutes, only 46.8% finish them (Galesic & Bosnjak, 2009).
  3. Response quality drops over time:
    • At the start, people take about 120 seconds per question.
    • By the end, they take only 105 seconds (Galesic & Bosnjak, 2009).
    • Answers to open-ended questions become shorter and less varied.
  4. People try to finish quickly:
    • When questions are difficult or the survey is long, people tend to give “good enough” answers instead of thinking hard.
    • Sometimes they always choose the same option to finish faster (Krosnick, 1991).
These problems make surveys less useful for companies, because they do not obtain quality information.

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Survey Design

Creating an effective survey is a complex process that goes far beyond formulating questions. Poor wording can not only confuse, but also generate useless data that leads to wrong decisions.

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The process of creating an effective survey

According to Hinkin (1998), creating an effective survey involves several critical steps:
  1. Developing a solid theoretical foundation:
    • It requires a deep understanding of the topic being investigated.
    • It involves a thorough review of the existing literature.
  2. Item generation:
    • Careful creation of questions that reflect the constructs to be measured.
    • It can involve deductive techniques (based on definitions) or inductive techniques (based on participants’ responses).
  3. Content validity assessment:
    • Expert review to ensure that the questions measure what they should measure.
    • It can require multiple rounds of review and adjustment.
  4. Questionnaire administration:
    • Careful selection of the sample.
    • Implementation of the questionnaire, which can require significant resources.
  5. Assessment of psychometric properties:
    • Factor analysis to identify the underlying structure of the items.
    • Assessment of internal reliability.
  6. Refinement and validation:
    • Possible removal or modification of items based on the analyses.
    • Repetition of the process with new samples to confirm the structure.

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Reflection: Why is this a problem?

Now that we understand what it takes to create an effective survey, we can see why this represents a significant challenge for companies:
  1. Demand for expertise: The process requires specialized knowledge in statistics, psychometrics, and research design that many companies do not possess internally.
  2. Time investment: Each step of the process can take weeks or even months, which may not be compatible with the need to make fast decisions in today’s business environment.
  3. High costs: Whether done internally or by hiring external experts, the process involves a significant investment of financial resources.
  4. Inflexibility: Once designed, modifying a survey to adapt to new needs or market changes involves repeating much of the process.
  5. Risk of unreliable data: If some steps are skipped or rushed to save time or money, there is a risk of obtaining unreliable or invalid data.
  6. Gap between theory and practice: While the academic process emphasizes rigor, companies often need more agile and practical solutions.
These realities raise important questions:
  • Can companies, especially smaller ones, afford this level of investment in survey design?
  • Is it sustainable to rely on a method that requires so much time and so many resources in a business environment that demands agility?
  • Are there more efficient alternatives for obtaining valuable information from customers and the market?
The complexity and cost of effective survey design suggest that, although surveys can be valuable, companies need to explore complementary or alternative methods to gather information in a more agile and economical way, without compromising the quality of the data obtained.

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Decision Making

A study by McKinsey & Company, in collaboration with AlphaSights and Gerson Lehrman Group, revealed that although 93% of the more than 260 CX leaders use surveys as their main tool, only 15% are satisfied with them and barely 6% believe they are useful for strategic decisions (Diebner et al., 2021).

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What is going wrong with surveys?

The McKinsey report highlights four key problems:
  • Limited: They capture only a fraction of the customer experience.
  • Reactive: They respond to problems when it is already too late.
  • Ambiguous: They do not explain the root causes of problems.
  • Unfocused: They are not connected to return on investment (ROI), which weakens their strategic value.
These limitations make clear the need for new ways to capture the voice of the customer and obtain actionable data that truly guides business decisions.

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Looking to the future

As traditional surveys lose relevance in measuring customer experience, a unique opportunity arises to innovate in the way companies capture and analyze the voice of their customers. The need for solutions that address the problems of participation, accuracy, and action is more urgent than ever. The future belongs to those tools that can overcome current limitations, allowing companies to make decisions based on more authentic, immediate, and meaningful data. The evolution toward more agile, accurate methods connected to strategic results will open an encouraging landscape in customer experience management. The tools of the future will not only measure better, but will transform the way companies understand and respond to their customers’ expectations.

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References‍

  • Diebner,R., Malfara, D., Neher, K., Thompson, M., & Vancauwenberghe, M. (2021). Prediction: The future of CX. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/prediction-the-future-of-cx/es-CL#/
  • Galesic,M., & Bosnjak, M. (2009). Effects of questionnaire length onparticipation and indicators of response quality in a websurvey. Publicopinion quarterly, 73(2),349-360.
  • Hinkin,T. R. (1998). A brief tutorial on the development of measures for usein survey questionnaires. Organizationalresearch methods, 1(1),104-121.
  • Holbrook,A. L., Krosnick, J. A., & Pfent, A. (2008).The causes and consequences of response rates in surveys by the newsmedia and government contractor survey research firms. Advancesin telephone survey methodology,499-528.
  • Krosnick,J. A. (1991). Response strategies for coping with the cognitivedemands of attitude measures in surveys. Appliedcognitive psychology, 5(3),213-236.