Surveys: Do You Need an Expert?

Nearly every business at some point will make the decision to deploy a survey. It can be a survey of their employees, or their customers, either one. But many businesses will stumble into the pitfall of believing they can tackle this project by themselves. The size and weight of a survey project are often underestimated. When combined with other factors, there’s a high risk of failure by not using an outside expert. Going cheap on survey research is a surefire way to send your CFO’s lines spiraling into the red. So why should you use a qualified independent third party firm when you’re ready to conduct a survey?

The Confidentiality Factor

One of the initial appeals of a survey, from a C-Suite point of view, is the raw, candid feedback. Sure, you can ask someone what they think, but they may not tell you the whole story to your face (or over email). While an in-house produced survey may claim to be anonymous, someone is still seeing the raw data, especially when it comes to employee surveys. Your commitment to hiring the best and brightest comes into play here, they’ll figure out if their responses will be seen by someone in management.

By allowing a third party to conduct your survey, confidentiality and anonymity are immediately increased. This allows customers and employees to open up and provide that candid feedback you crave. It’s impossible to generate usable data when answers are given in half-truths, for fear of being identified.

The Benchmarking Factor

Let’s assume you’ve taken the initiative to deploy your own survey. Now you have lots of feedback about your business that you think will tell you how you stack up against your competition. But how are you possibly going to compare your data to your competitors? The odds are that your competitors will not be willing to hand you their data.

A quality research firm will provide industry benchmarks per survey question. By allowing an independent firm to handle your survey, your scores will be quantified within your industry and you’ll have a clear view of how your company ranks.

The Psychology

You can lead your business to the top of your industry. And, you’ve hired people that can do the same. However, there are aspects of your business that you aren’t prepared to handle internally, so you’ve hired outside experts in those areas. Conducting a survey should be done the same way.  There are many ways a poorly written survey questionnaire can lead to insufficient or false data. Question miswording is a common trap that those who are untrained in survey research fall into.

By placing your survey in the hands of experts, concise and actionable questions will be written to obtain the exact information you’re looking for. A professional survey research firm will help you through the design and deployment phases of your project and make sure that your survey reports contain valid data.  Valid data is required to make sound business decisions.

NBRI offers customer surveys and employee surveys, as well as many other types of research. If you’re ready to conduct a survey and want to make sure you get the most out of it, contact us today using the contact form on this page. Or, call us at 800-756-6168. Surveys can yield amazing information, get the most out of it!