On-Line Survey | Telephone and Online Research

On-Line Survey

Telephone and Online Research

Uncovering information that has the power
.....to connect corporations with their customers.

WHAT TYPE OF SURVEY METHOD IS BEST?

What Type of Survey Method Best Measures Customer Satisfaction?

There are many different ways to conduct a survey. The most common methods are telephone surveys, one-on-one interviews, written surveys sent by mail, or email surveys. Each method can be effective if administered in the right situation. However, each method also has its own pros and cons and can be ineffective if used under the wrong circumstances. Selecting the right method is critical to the success of a survey project.

Telephone Surveys

Phone surveys proactively reach out to your customer or prospect group, achieving a much greater control over the sample base. This provides an assurance of randomness in the data gathering process. Randomness is particularly important in cases where results must be projected to a greater population and accuracy is needed to evaluate results in a fair and consistent manner. A random sample telephone survey is utilized to achieve a sample database that will match client population by virtue of statistical probability. The resulting phone survey data can then be relied upon to effectively plan a company’s budget, marketing strategies and incentive programs.

Efficiency is yet another attraction of phone surveys. Telephone surveys provide a rapid and timely reading on the marketplace or customer base, and can be deployed quickly compared to mail or personal one-on-one interviews. While it may take weeks or months to wait for mail or e-mail survey responses, the results of a phone survey are more immediate, and can often be accomplished within a matter of days. If strategic decisions lie in wait of survey results, phone surveys can shorten the waiting game. Thus, if results are needed quickly, a telephone survey may be the only option. This is a cost effective method when compared to most other methods for data acquisition. In addition, Direct Opinions can forward survey information the following business day and customer issues or concerns can be acted on immediately if necessary.

Telephone surveys also afford more discreet anonymity for the respondent and therefore are proven to provide more honest replies when the interviewer and interviewee are fundamentally unknown to one another.

Overall, telephone surveys allow for the possibility of obtaining more complete and accurate results. A well trained interviewer can probe for further details if comments are not complete or are unclear thus ensuring that you will receive meaningful information.

Sometimes the appropriate survey method may be determined by the type of people who are being surveyed. For example, Direct Opinions may decide to combine an online survey with a phone survey methodology to complete a project. This is typically done when the group we are surveying is quite large. This allows us to gather data from a larger or tougher group to reach but still utilize the telephone surveys to proactively reach out to customers to gather statistically valid and more in depth information.

In summary, telephone interviews are more effective for gathering qualitative data and in-depth insights. They are also more flexible by allowing interaction and exchange between interviewer and respondents, and are more effective for controlling timeframe and sample quotas on a randomized basis.

Online Surveys

Internet based surveys are highly cost-effective for gathering data from a very large sample base. Utilizing email surveys, Direct Opinions makes it easy for our clients to get information quickly and affordably for large target market groups of customers or business prospects.

Please keep in mind, however, that this self-administered survey process relies on the respondent to complete and return the survey information. You basically have no control as to when or if this will happen which can affect your overall response rate and deadlines.

You also may be naturally eliminating people from the survey process as online surveys lend themselves more to people that are high-tech professionals causing you to leave out seniors or the elderly. It is also difficult to ensure who is actually completing the survey.

When surveying populations that have similar demographics of online users, online research can be a good means of data collection. With other populations, however, online research can be effective as a supplement to more traditional survey approaches or as a quick impression of your customer base.

Mail Surveys

Mail surveys are a common survey methodology that can be filled out in the privacy of a respondents' home or office never meeting the researcher. Mail surveys do offer a high degree of "anonymity" so surveys that ask about more sensitive information will get a greater response rate if conducted through mail.

But more often than not, mail surveys fall to the bottom of the priority list. Respondents that are contacted through mail will complete questionnaires at their convenience which could greatly impact your deadline. The few people who do take time for them are typically extremely satisfied or extremely dissatisfied with a product or service, and are eager for their voice to be heard. This leaves the vast majority of people with more neutral feelings that are unheard and unaccounted for in mail survey results. Subsequently, survey results are based on strong and extreme opinions -- a phenomenon known as “response bias.” Because of response bias, a company may be lead to believe that their product or service is far superior or far worse than it actually is.

Another form of response bias for mail surveys is actually non-response where respondents can look over the survey before deciding whether or not to participate. This greatly increases the chance that respondents and non-respondents differ on important variables related to the survey topic. In addition, in a mail survey, you cannot control who is filling out the survey and if the responses will be complete and clear.

The desire to eliminate response bias is one of several reasons why many companies ultimately turn away from mail surveys and look to phone surveying as a means of achieving more accurate results.

One-on-One Interviews

One-on-one interviews require an extensive amount of labor due to the travel and face time required to complete these surveys. These interviews will also take a significant amount of time to arrange and complete clearly affecting the overall timeframe to get results back. This methodology may be effective for more in-depth surveys however it can limit your ability to reach a large group or population. As a result, you may need to combine this approach with another methodology to get a better indication for a larger group.

Contact The Customer Relationship Survey Experts

At Direct Opinions, we tailor each customer satisfaction survey to your information objectives. We do not use a canned presentation but develop an appropriate mix of custom telephone, online and one-one-one interviews based upon what you want to know and how this information will be used within your company. Some projects naturally lend themselves to telephone based surveys while others are best completed using a more hybrid methodology. Regardless of which method is used, the results accurately capture the voice of your customer, providing actionable data that will help your business grow. Ready to get started? Contact Direct Opinions today for a quote on a customer relationship survey today!