No Surveys in Twenty Years?

Yesterday, at the MRS Conference in London, I caused a bit of a stir with my suggestion that in twenty years we won’t be conducting commercial market research surveys (see #res10). Clearly, in a question from a roving mike there is a limit to how much thinking one can get across, and anyway my thoughts were still forming. So, here is the slightly more nuanced, thought through, caveated version of the same proposition.

Firstly, I am not talking about social research. I think it is possible, perhaps likely, that core social research will need its surveys.

Secondly, I am talking about markets where market research has a developed to the point of having access panels (be they online, mobile, or some other new variety that might happen over the next twenty years).

Thirdly, when I say no surveys I mean instruments that last ten minutes or more and where the respondent can tell it is a questionnaire.

OK, so now I have got my caveats in place, what am I saying will change?

We can see a trend at the moment which will result in most, maybe almost all, commercial market research being conducted via access panels. Or, to give them their new name ‘convenience samples’ of people who are doing 100s of studies per year. Note, we have given up on random probability samples and we are giving up on the idea of interviewing people who see fewer questionnaires than we do.

Where will all this take us? IMHO, I expect to see?

1. More social media listening.
   
2. More discussions in social media (MROCs are just the start).
   
3. More new ways of researching ideas, think online gambling, think Iowa Electronic Markets, think about an eBay of idea information, think life blogging, think web analytics, think CRM, think new models such as Threadless.com.
   
4. Open-ended research. Instead of surveys we are getting to the point where we can ask and process open-ended questions. I expect this to be in place in 20 years. This will replace many surveys.
   
5. Given that most survey data come panel members, and that all their previous responses are stored in data warehouses, we only need to ask genuinely ‘new’ questions – not whole surveys. Given a survey that at the moment might last 20 minutes, we will only need to ask a panel member, say, 4 scale questions (Reichheld say just one question), plus conduct an automated, open-ended discussion.

Remember, clients do not need surveys, they need insight and guidance. Whilst surveys are the best or fastest, or cheapest solution they will persist, but they have no ‘right’ to exist. Just because we have been using them for quite a few years, does not mean we will be using them in the future.

So, Ray’s predition, tell me afterwards if I am wrong, in twenty years we will not be conducting commercial market research surveys.

Comments

[Researchrants.wordpress.com]

Broadly, I agree with this, especially your #5, which has been one of the things I've been railing about for years. 10 minutes of our time learning how to use VLOOKUP in Excel can eliminate the need for most of the screening and demographic questions we keep re-asking the same panelists in survey after survey.

Where I disagree is on the time frame: I think if it takes us twenty more years to stop asking surveys that are greater than ten minutes in length, we deserve to have our industry regulated out of existence. I can't emphasize enough the extent to which we are abusing our respondents and inviting them to give us lousy data by continually presenting them with flawed instruments. It's got to stop, and now.

[Praz]

I think data collection will always remain, but the technology used to collect and analyze it will constantly change over the next 10 years (and faster than the earlier pace!)

The 4 S's that seem to be the mantra for now are Smartphones, smarter surveys, Social Media and "Community".

Praz

[Simon Kendrick]

Hi - so your nuanced response is that you're referring to online surveys via access panels that last longer than 10 minutes?

I agree with the trends you point out - particularly the issue about asking the same questions over and over again.

But online surveys (even those above 10 minutes) will persist. Technologies might become obsolete, but methods and practices don't. All methods have their inherent pros and cons, and surveys have benefits that cannot be as easily or effectively replicated.

The key advantage of surveys is the artificial environment. It may not be real-life behaviour, but it facilitates (off the top of my head)
- Control of sample structure
- Standarised questioning for comparative norms
- Pre-testing in a closed environment for those that still favour development time over beta launch
- Forcing respondents to answer the questions you want them to, that they might not have otherwise considered or talked about
- Fast and cheao data collection and analysis

Surveys may constitute a smaller % of online research revenues in 20 years time, but they will still continue to be regularly used (as will face to face and telephone)