Ed Halteman: Incentives? Wrong Motivation, Wrong Outcome
Why do people do surveys?
I don’t like the use of extrinsic incentives (bribes) for doing surveys. Wrong motivation, wrong expectations, wrong outcome!
Experiment in the Woods
I recently hired a dozen workers. I divided them at random into two groups of six. I took them out to the woods and took group A to a clearing with several fallen pine trees. I gave them tools and asked them to clean, cut and stack the wood from the fallen trees. We agreed on $15 per hour and they went to work.
I took group B to another clearing and asked them to strike the fallen trees with the blunt end of an axe repeatedly. For their “work,” I agreed to pay them $15 per hour, as well.
Twenty minutes later, group A was happily working but group B had stopped. It was no longer worth $15 per hour, so I doubled their wages and they went back to work.
Twenty minutes later group A was happily working but group B had stopped.
You get the picture. There is more to motivation than extrinsic rewards!
Surveys are about communication and relationships. In most cases the respondent has a connection with the surveyor: customer-supplier, consumer-vendor, shared interest in a topic, the desire to listen and be heard. These relationships should be leveraged to provide the motivation to do a survey. Research has shown the main reason people do surveys is because they think their input is going to affect something they care about.
You can tap into this motivation by:
- carefully designing your survey with the respondent in mind
- committing yourself to USE the information provided
- offering to share the information obtained with those participating
- communicating back to your audience on how the information they provided was used
- connecting to the respondent in any way you can, including responding to comments they make
Okay, hold on . . . before you start on the long list of examples of how well incentives have worked for you, let me emphasize that I said I don’t like them, but I do admit I have used them. We are all creatures of habit. If respondents have been trained to receive something for doing a survey (as is the case with most opt-in email lists available), the incentive becomes a requirement.
Do yourself and your respondents a favor. Provide proper motivation for doing your survey!
I’ll give you five bucks to comment on this article!! ☺
