What response rate should I expect from my surveys?
Associations, corporations, non-profits, small business owners always ask this question. It is a loaded question, but here are a few things to consider. Response rates can vary from <10% to >80% depending on a lot of things and how you approach the study.
1) Topic is very important. How important is it to them to share their brain and heart?? Get inside their head and know their appetite for the topic you are throwing at them.
2) Positioning is important. You must sell the idea to participate. I am not saying with incentives, but tell them why it is important TO THEM.
3) Know your audience. If your members are really engaged with you, you share lessons learned from previous surveys, then you have a great foundation for high response rates.
4) If you don’t send out a survey a week to members then you have a good foundation. Surveys should have meaning and pick your battles when asking members for help.
5) Try to keep them short whenever possible and tell them that. “This is a five question survey that will only take 2 minutes”. That will get better response then “This is a 125 question survey that will take you what feels like forever”.
6) Think about each question before you send it to them. Wording, clarity of purpose, understanding what information you want back and what format should be taken into account.
These all may seem obvious, but it is amazing how many surveys I get that start asking my gender, marital status, and income when frankly there is nothing in it for me, it is wasting my time, and I wonder what they plan to do with that information to get at me! I just received a birthday card last week for a trip to the Virgin Islands. It was my birthday the week before and that scared the *&*() out of me because they don’t know me, I don’t know them, it was a scam mailer, and I wonder what else they know about me. Be relevant and respect your audience.
Tags: Association, Boatyard benchmarking, Customer Research, CustomerPulse, ISO 9000 voice of the customer, Manufacturing, Marina Benchmarking, Marine, membership satisfaction, membership satisfaction metrics, Print Buyer Opinions, Printer Loyalty Programs, Printer Referral Programs, printer research, Printing