The New, Nontraditional Value of Questionnaires

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A vision from a man who grew up in the Internet Age, writes computer software and develops Internet systems for a living, and has visions of the future that keep him up at insane hours of the night.

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If you are not using questionnaires to generate repeat business, you are missing the boat. And this is not just for for the web and software industries!

A questionaire can't be forward looking, in other words to assist in determining what someone wants in a new website, because for the most part, people do not know. Most people I have found do not have the ability to visualize solutions or designs or processes until they are actually looking at and experiencing it. I have heard it said that when people are left to their own free will to decide on what to do, they usually copy someone else. So when you ask someone what they want in a website, if they can describe it at all, they usually say, "I want one that looks just like that one!" This happens while they are looking at their top rated competitor.

I sat in on a talk from a User Experience manager from Google at Michigan State University this past year. He spoke of how Google uses what he called "bucket testing." I have also seen it described as "A/B Split Testing." Here follows a description of it from http://www.marketingexperiments.com/improving-website-conversion/ab-split-testing.html
"Most of us are familiar with the concept of using A/B split testing to determine which elements on a page are helping the performance of a web page, and which are not.
For instance, one might typically test two different headlines on a landing page. One would then outperform the other, and you would know which is the top-performing page."

Basically it means you integrate the questionaire into the process that you are evaluating. The example that the Google fellow gave was they had a home page, and they wanted to know if blue links led to more clicks, or green links led to more clicks. So they produced two home pages, each with a single but different color of link, and randomly sent one group of web browsers to one, and another group of web browsers to the other. On each one they measured how many clicks occurred on the link. If one color of link had a statistically larger number of clicks, that was the winner. This is easier to do on the web than in other industries, but with a bit of creativity, I think it can be applied to many different situations, and when people are voting with their clicks, or their dollars, it is the real data. If people are answering a questionaire a couple of days after the experience they are questioned about, they may not remember their thoughts or feelings or evaluations from the time of the experience, and the survey is worthless.

Another issue is brought to light by a statement by Kerin, Hartley, Berkowitz & Rudelius, “although observation can reveal what people do, it cannot easily determine why they do it, such as why they are buying or not buying a product. This is the principal reason for using questionnaires” (2006).

It strikes me that a survey or questionaire has a strong psychological effect on the individual surveyed as well.If you have a good dinner at a restaurant, but do not tell anyone about it, or express it, it is just a pleasant feeling that goes away and is forgotten.However, if this good feeling is expressed verbally or through filling out a survey, it reinforces the feeling and causes a concious and reinforced recognition of the positive event that is more memorable and more likely to be acted upon at some future time, probably in an attempt to repeat it by repeating the actions leading up to it, as in going to the restaurant again.The more physical, mental and emotional activity a company can generate regarding its products and services, the more involved people will be with its products in the future. I think sports venues are fully aware of this fact, and that is part of the reason sports fans are so involved with the activities. At a sports event you eat, drink, cheer, boo, do the "wave," listen to exciting music, watch the cheerleaders, watch the mid-event activities, smell the foods, fight the lines to the bathrooms and socialize.Any other business that can do that with its products and services will be successful.

Look at the iPhone. At its release, people were sitting in lines for several hours, socializing, eating, drinking, being interviewed by news crews, fighting for their place in line after going to the bathroom. Again it was the event mentality which involves many senses and motor skills and emotions and gets the participants heavily involved in the product or service.

Filling out a survey based on a positive experience may not be as active an experience as going to a sports event, but it IS enough of an experience to reinforce and cause a repeat of a pleasant experience at your business. Take advantage of this opportunity and incorporate questionnaires into your customers pleasant experiences at your place of business. We would be glad to put one on your website for you!

References
Kerin, R. A., Hartley, S. W., Berkowitz, E. N. & Rudelius, W. (2006). Marketing, 8e. Retrieved December 15, 2007, from University of Phoenix, Resource, MBA/502 – Managing the Business Enterprise Website: https://ecampus.phoenix.edu/content/eBookLibrary/content/eReader.h