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Friday, July 11, 2008

Surveys: Can you get to the point?

In today’s uncertain times, small and large corporations alike, are allocating big budgets to send (more correctly, blast) surveys to assess how their customers think, feel and behave, and what they should do about it.

And yet, so many surveys are missing their targets: the people.

From the few I have seen I can conclude that surveys should not be left in the hands of people who don’t feel compassion for other people... Surveys should be taken out of the hands of people who are data collectors, people who lack communication skills. Surveys should be left in the hands of people who know how to reach through people: not by writing questions that are 3 times longer than their answers, and not by promising that it would take 10 to 15 minutes to finish a survey, when it takes that long to figure out the first question (see below) with its 15 choices; fifteen cramped lines with no room to breath in between, from which I am instructed to choose one answer. I wonder how many people would go directly to the last line “Don’t Know”.



And it does not get better: A question (see below) is 3 times longer—33 words compared to 13 words for answers; Does anybody wants to read so much to answer so little?



Art and Science, as seen as signage on college buildings, for example, is meant to connect the two opposites ends in our culture, just as the name goes: Art and Science. In reality, Art, is a communication skill, and Science is left to the select few who are under no pressure to communicate with the outside. Did we mention that surveys are meant for people? END
















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