It's been almost 30 years since online data collection revolutionized our industry. Today market research is essentially high tech flooded with new digital tools and lots of money from venture capitalists. Ironically, technology has also affected the bread and butter of our livelihood—respondent participation—for the worse. While technology has made researchers' lives easier, technology has also impacted how we treat our bread and butter.
Between 2000 and 2010, critical metrics for the market research industry peaked. Survey response rates averaged over 25%. There was strong interest in joining online survey panels. There was good data quality. And that was when Internet and smartphone penetration were far lower, not to mention far fewer people on the planet. Given more Internet, more smartphones, and more people around the globe, you might expect a much bigger pool of willing and able respondents. Not so.
Response rates are at an all-time low, and people are not as interested in sharing their opinions and taking surveys as earlier. Overall feasibility, data quality, and filling certain survey quotas have become major issues. Unless we researchers identify root causes and reverse course, unless more people want to share their opinions again, data collection will only get worse.
A root cause is neglecting the Golden Rule. That is, researchers and their technology began mistreating respondents. Amid the flood of new and better digital tools, in the desire to ride the digital wave, researchers simply forgot about our bread and butter. We forgot about treating respondents as we'd like to be treated were we in their shoes. After all, why share my honest and thoughtful opinions if you're going to abuse me with long surveys, constant requests, and little, if any, compensation for my time? Goodwill only goes so far. Participation and data quality (i.e., a willingness to offer honest and thoughtful response) have also suffered as a result our negligence.
Researchers and clients demanded faster, better, and cheaper in response to business pressures. Sample companies were also squeezed by having to lower both margins and respondent compensation. The result was a domino effect. When margins decreased, there was also less money to recruit and build panels—to bake bread and make butter. And baking bread and making butter are by far a sample provider's biggest expense.
Moreover, researchers placed too much emphasis on survey design and analytics and client UX while neglecting the respondent's survey experience and satisfaction. In fact, about 60% of respondents claim to have had terrible survey experiences (https://journals.openedition.org/bms/1094). It's safe to assume that survey length and endless grid and rating scale questions are among the chief offenders.
How do we reverse course and grow our dwindling pools of respondents? How do we make samples and sampling sustainable? First, the problem won't be solved by just sample companies, sample aggregators, or researchers and their clients alone. The problem is industry-wide.
Coming up with solutions won't be solved in a few hours, a month, or a year. But here are a few ideas to start with from someone invested in sample and panels:
Our goal is to tweak processes and make improvements to stop losing respondents willing to take surveys by treating them better as an industry. As previously mentioned, we are all in this together, and it will take all of us addressing the situation to make the needed change. Without that change, the very existence of the market research industry may be at risk as bad data quality reduces the value of insights in business decision-making.
Do your part for the market research industry through sample sustainability! Contact Symmetric today https://www.symmetricsampling.com/contact-us/
The challenge is worse for specialty B2B or niche samples, so check out our tip sheet: https://www.symmetricsampling.com/infographics/four-ways-improve-b2b-samples/