The Customer Service Survey
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Friday - September 02, 2005 11:38 AM in
A more intriguing sub topic on why follow up studies suffer from accuracy issues surrounds the question of why people resist survey participation. I don't know that there is a solid way to prioritize which of these reasons is the more common. (It is difficult to administer a survey of why people resist taking a survey.) Still, we do hear a few reasons again and again.
- People, Americans in particular, are impatient and see a survey as an imposition on their time. They tell us that they might be more prone to join in if they thought the company was serious about what they really think and would actually "do something" based on the study results. Rather, they believe the survey is no more than a feel good exercise to make the participant think their comments have an impact and as such is a waste of time. They also believe they have demonstrated their loyalty by doing business with the company already.
(One result of this attitude is that the test sample group is easily skewed because only those with very strong opinions have the motivation to join in.)
- Perhaps the next most heard reasons relate to the human reluctance to give honest criticism. They simply don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, or more significantly don't want to have to spend even more time defending their attitudes. We also hear a genuine fear of being tagged as a troublemaker, and so make future dealings with a company more difficult.
- A third reason, seldom voiced but commonly encountered, is that people can't remember what happened anyway and so don't believe they have any useful input to give. It is said that humans begin to forget details of what they hear within minutes, and three days later have forgotten 95% of what they heard. While we cannot comment on the precise accuracy of those figures, we can agree that the rapid loss of detailed memory is regularly encountered with two frequent consequences. The first is rather than admit they can't remember, some will just give the answer they think is expected or will give answers without a concern about truthfulness. The second point, plainly said, is that sometimes people lie and give made up answers rather than admit they can't remember. This fibbing may not be deliberate either as we are even seeing instances when a comparison of the participant's answers to actual call recordings uncover that their report on a contact never happened! The speculation on why this happens is something of a deja vu variation in that we think the person is unwittingly mixing experiences from some other time with their memory of a particular contact.
It is fair to say that at least some of these issues in various proportions and mixes happen on every study we have examined. This is why follow up studies have notoriously low participation, and one more example of why such tests have results that need to be viewed with skepticism.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 11:38 AM by | | | |