Tech Challenged

We recently completed an online survey via intercept on our client’s website. Given the nature of the project, I suspect we reached many individuals who have never or rarely completed an online survey (fresh respondents!)

As is typical practice, we included a toll-free number that individuals could call with any questions or if they needed help. We had more calls during this survey than we have ever seen. People were confused about using the next button in the survey, they didn’t understand they can not use the letter “o” for the number zero when entering a numeric value, etc.

Research professionals frequently forget that our respondents can be tech challenged. To this end, I was excited to hear about the introduction of http://www.pc.com/. Kudos to Intel for creating this site. It is a site, minus technical lingo, to help novices and less sophisticated users. Sure it does let visitors shop for computers, all with Intel processors, but it also gives simple, sound advice.

Check it out!

What time should you deploy a survey?

When surveys were mostly completed by telephone, the majority of the calls were made on weekday evenings and weekends. The purpose was twofold – not to over-represent non-working respondents by calling during weekdays, and to introduce an acceptable level of efficiency to the calling. There were strict rules pertaining to the respondents’ time zone.

But with online surveys, how much thought is given to the timing of survey deployment? We hear estimates on the best and worse response times. And we know that the majority of respondents take the survey soon after they receive the invite, and not a few days later. But do panels time deployment to be consistent across time zones? Wouldn’t it skew results if everyone on the east coast responded in the evening, but west coast respondents responded in their afternoon? Do we really trust the opinion of someone responding at 3:00 AM? Could tracking study results be distorted from wave-to-wave if invites are deployed at different times of the day for different waves?

Just some thoughts. Your opinions?

E-words

I received a “nice to e-meet you” message last week from a potential client based in Korea. Then later in the week, a vendor had me e-sign a project related contract. This got me to wondering how many different e-words exist. Remember when the word email was new? I also wonder if people even remember what the “e” stands for. And when does the word become so common that the hyphen is dropped (technically, the hyphen stills belongs in e-mail).

The Merriam-Webster Collegiate® Dictionary recently posted their annual list of new words that will be in the 2008 edition. While words near and dear to a researcher’s heart, such as webinar, made the list (but is still not in the MS Office spell check), I didn’t see any new e-words. But I think it is just a matter of time. After all, edamame and soul patch just made this year’s list.

I would be curious to hear what e-merging e-words others use in their day-to-day vocabulary.

Endangered Species?

A fairly common study request these days seems to be an online survey among 500 U.S. males, age 21-64, with about a 20% category incidence. When we send this request to the various online panel providers, I am shocked to find many of them tell me they cannot fill the request.

I know males are more difficult to interview, but do the math. Taking a 20% incidence into account, assuming a 50% drop-out rate (which is much higher than typical, but these are stubborn American males), and a 5% click-through rate, the panel would need to send invitations to 100,000 males. Given that most companies boast panels in the millions, this doesn’t seem like that difficult of a request.

So what’s the problem? Is the active panel membership significantly smaller than what the panel books tell us? Is the click-through rate even worse than 5% (which I already consider pretty dismal)? Are male respondents in such demand that they are over-interviewed? Are incentives too low?

Someone please help me. The math just doesn’t add up.

Everything to Everyone

There’s a dentist here in San Francisco who everyone knows – but I had yet to meet someone who actually called him their dentist until today. This dentist is widely known for his terrible television and radio ads, his phony smile at the end of every commercial, and the fact that his office will “take better care of you, seven days a week.”

At the end of some of the derivatives of the ad that’s run almost as long as I’ve lived in San Francisco (20+ years!), several different members of the staff are shown on screen as they individually proclaim in many different languages that their office is multi-lingual. A few of the people seem to actually be fluent in the language in which they speak the line – but somewhat disturbingly, most of them seem as though they are speaking it for the first time. The worst offense is spoken by the dentist himself when he states “see hawbluh ess-pan yole.”

My thought when I see this obviously deliberate pandering to every possible audience is, “what would I think if my language were one of those butchered by members of the dentist’s staff?” Would I be thrilled to have finally found a dental office that spoke my language? Or would I be offended by the obvious attempt at snagging my business while butchering my native tongue at the same time? More likely is the latter. But that’s just my opinion.

Looking around, it’s clear that the good dentist isn’t alone. Many businesses attempt the same strategy: to be everything to everyone. I find it obnoxious, but it’s possible that others don’t. Of course, I’m always wondering if there was any research conducted that lead the organization to believe that sort of approach would work. Anecdotally, it would appear that smaller organizations fall victim to the shotgun approach more frequently than larger organizations – perhaps that’s because larger organizations are more likely to have research in their culture, and, in general, smaller organizations are frequently more concerned with just making payroll.

Fortunately, we’re seeing a shift, minor as it may be for now. As research becomes more affordable through web technologies and other developments, small and medium businesses have more access than ever to the opinions of their customers and prospects. Maybe research will become a bigger part of the DNA of smaller organizations in the near future? We certainly hope so – and maybe we’ll even see some changes in advertisements for dentistry.

What’s in a Name?

Most of my family and friends plan to celebrate the Fourth of July tomorrow. But some will celebrate “the Fourth” and other will celebrate Independence Day. This holiday is unique in that it is always celebrated on the fixed date of July 4, unlike most other holidays, which have been scheduled to fall on a Monday. Not all holidays were designated to be on a Monday, but Congress slowly modified them to fall on a Monday. This year the Fourth at least falls on a Friday, giving Americans their beloved three day weekend.

The researcher in me got to thinking about the name of this holiday, and how it had morphed from Independence Day to the Fourth of July. I don’t know the history behind this. I just hope it wasn’t some scheme like the invention of Valentines Day or Mothers Day by a greeting card company. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t much marketing research being done in the colonies in 1776 - door-to-door interviewing would have been a challenge. And given that we declared our independence on that day, the name Independence Day seems fitting. I don’t think it would have justified a full blown marketing research effort to come up with the name. But where has the brand manager been for this holiday? How did he/she let the name of this brand change? Did the brand adopt with the times or fall victim?

Think about it. If the popular name for this holiday had remained Independence Day, Congress would have probably passed the needed legislation to guarantee it would always fall on a Monday. We would never have to deal with a holiday falling on a Wednesday again. Or do you like holidays in the middle of the week?

Professional Research Certification

Today marks the launch of Certification 2.0 for MRA's Professional Research Certification (PRC) program. I happen to chair the PRC Board, so this is a very proud day for me.

In a short number of years, PRC has grown from an idea to a body of over 1,000 certified research professionals. Buzz about this program has been building. The number of individuals seeking and meeting the educational requirements is significant. The day is coming when just like accountants, a serious researcher must be certified.

Certification 2.0 is a simpler, more flexible and much more empowering program than the original version. Yes it takes some effort, but overall, it is relatively easy for a qualified individual to obtain and maintain certification. With the launch of Certification 2.0, there is a 6 month open enrollment period, starting today. If you ever thought about getting certified, this is the time to do it. After January 1, 2009, the only way to get certified is to complete a proctored exam.

For all the details, visit the PRC site.