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They forgot the #1 mistake: Too Many Damn Questions. There have been plenty of times when I have willfully taken surveys to help out companies I like then imme

They forgot the #1 mistake: Too Many Damn Questions. There have been plenty of times when I have willfully taken surveys to help out companies I like then immediately gave up after being shown a survey with 20-60 questions. No. What pisses me off is that they're asking for my time and effort without giving me anything in return. Like they feel entitled to taking 15 minutes of my time. The worst is when they only display 1 question per page and there's a little progress bar at the top. And after 10 questions you only see the progress bar 7% full. At least it's not as bad as the time Starbucks/Chase Duetto Cards hired someone with a studdering speech impediment to call me for a phone survey... That lasted 30 minutes.

chiph 14y ago
If they can't refine it down to 3 questions, they haven't thought enough yet about what they really want to know. Also - it doesn't have to be the same 3 questions to each visitor. Draw them from a pool.
- Domenic_S 14y ago
  A nice platitude, but when folks from UX, marketing, sales, engineering, bizdev, and executives all want to know different things - that's how you end up with the 60-question surveys.
  - ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
    Well if I'm being paid for it, then there's really no limit as to how many you can ask.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Sane advice isn't platitude.
ckelly 14y ago
Hi Chris, Survata co-founder here. We completely agree! Our surveys are limited to 6 questions for the reasons you cite.
rogerbinns 14y ago
Somewhat related are the ones that are organized the same way the company is. I recently answered one for Safeway (supermarket chain). At the beginning they asked about overall experience (it sucked due to long checkout queues so I got the bare minimum, waited and left). They then asked me which "departments" I shopped in using their internal terminology which doesn't match what real people use (eg I think "cold goods" was one of them). Then for each department they asked me exactly the same set of questions, then they asked them again for the store as a whole. Then I got asked about 10 questions for the self checkout (which took longer than using the thing). Did I mention I had to enter a 19 digit code to start, which included 7 zeroes in a row in the middle of the sequence?

chiph 14y ago

If they can't refine it down to 3 questions, they haven't thought enough yet about what they really want to know. Also - it doesn't have to be the same 3 questions to each visitor. Draw them from a pool.

Domenic_S 14y ago
A nice platitude, but when folks from UX, marketing, sales, engineering, bizdev, and executives all want to know different things - that's how you end up with the 60-question surveys.
- ChrisNorstrom 14y ago
  Well if I'm being paid for it, then there's really no limit as to how many you can ask.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Sane advice isn't platitude.

ckelly 14y ago

Hi Chris, Survata co-founder here. We completely agree! Our surveys are limited to 6 questions for the reasons you cite.

rogerbinns 14y ago

Somewhat related are the ones that are organized the same way the company is. I recently answered one for Safeway (supermarket chain). At the beginning they asked about overall experience (it sucked due to long checkout queues so I got the bare minimum, waited and left). They then asked me which "departments" I shopped in using their internal terminology which doesn't match what real people use (eg I think "cold goods" was one of them). Then for each department they asked me exactly the same set of questions, then they asked them again for the store as a whole. Then I got asked about 10 questions for the self checkout (which took longer than using the thing). Did I mention I had to enter a 19 digit code to start, which included 7 zeroes in a row in the middle of the sequence?