Why does the length of my survey matter ?
The
total time required to complete an online questionnaire is a
critical factor in the success of a survey, here are some of the main
reasons for this:
First reason: participation rate
Today,
the number of requests to participate in online surveys increasing.
Many companies are using this form of research to measure
customer satisfaction and loyalty. As a result, fewer people
are willing to take time to participate in a survey, especially if it
is long. A survey with an
advertised length of 5 minutes is therefore more likely to have a
higher participation rate than a survey with an advertised length of
20 minutes.
Second reason: drop-off rate
The
longer a questionnaire is, the higher the rate of respondents who will
stop before answering the last question in the survey.
Unfortunately, it is often impossible to know if respondents who reach
the last question are different from those who stop during the
questionnaire. Therefore, a high drop-out rate can seriously challenge
the representativeness of the results obtained and therefore of the
entire study.
Third reason: data quality
The
longer
a questionnaire is, the poorer the quality of the data collected,
especially for the questions at the
end of
the questionnaire. The reason is simple, when a questionnaire starts to
bore them, respondents typically speed up: they answer more and more
quickly and take less time to think about the best answer.
Fourth
reason: costs
The longer a survey is, the
higher its cost because the time required to prepare the questionnaire
and analyse the questions is obviously proportional to the number of
questions asked. In addition, if respondents receive a financial
compensation, this one is
generally based on the average or median length of the survey. |