Crashing headlong into the future/ won't even leave a dent / just walk in like you own it / remember...
Crashing headlong into the future/ won't even leave a dent / just walk in like you own it / remember, it ain't set in cement...
Member since:23.03.2001
Reviews:90
Members who trust:224
***************************************************** UPDATE: IF YOU REGISTERED AGES AGO FOR CIAO SURVEYS, TIME TO GO BACK TO YOUR PROFILE... (whew, I'll stop shouting now! I recently discovered there is now an EXTENDED profile to complete, providing Ciao with much more detailed demographic data about you, increasing your chances of being matched with a researcher's requirements and hence selected for a survey. Go and update your profile now!!!!!!!! ****************************************************** (original op) Surveys and questionnaires are things I’m pretty familiar with working in Market Research. There is a huge debate in the industry at the moment about how to deal with the increasing problem of ‘respondent fatigue’, i.e. the typical response of ‘I’m busy/not interested/no time/etc etc’ which really boils down to ‘WHY THE HELL SHOULD I BOTHER? WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?’
Good point. I work in qualitative research, where we pay people a minimum of £30 to come and participate in a
focus group. Generally they enjoy participating, as well as being pleased to get the incentive money. Yet I have worked (and thousands still do) in the thankless task of quantitative research, i.e. the questionnaire and the clipboard. Often people are expected to stand in the street (or have a researcher sitting in their home) for up to an hour, for which they are generally not rewarded at all. It’s easy to agree with the statement ‘Why the hell should I bother?’
So it’s obvious that paying people for their participation is the simplest and most effective way to ensure a wider, more willing audience is to reward people for their time.
But this has cost implications – gathering data with a clipboard is costly enough, if the interviewer is paid say £5 per questionnaire. Now the people who make their living asking the questions aren’t going to like it, but the logical evolution of the process is to eliminate their role altogether and ask the questions on-line.
When I registered with Ciao some months ago I must have ticked, or unticked the box that gave permission for Ciao to contact me about surveys. I remember getting asked something very brief about cars once, but nothing else, until the lifestyle survey this month. You can’t have missed this: if you had ticked the box you got an email, if not (and even if you had, and already completed it) you got irritating pop-ups all over the place whenever you went near the homepage.
The survey was about digestive health, and appeared to be carried out on behalf of one of the probiotic product manufacturers – you know those drinks that aim to restore your intestinal flora and balance your gut. They were examining awareness of their products’ function, as well as exploring needs/markets by surveying frequency of digestive health problems (and what triggers these and how people treat them). A lot of the problems were pretty personal, although asked in a very matter-of-fact way, and clearly gathering answers on-line in this way was highly preferable to discussing how often you suffer from wind etc with a clipboard lady!
It took me about 10 minutes to complete, although due to a relentlessly healthy gut I routed out of a lot of the questions (which I went back and explored later).
This 10 minutes earned me £3. No, it won’t change my life but that’s not exactly what Ciao is about is it? It would scarcely be worth collecting even, except for the fact it is added to an existing balance, topping it up nicely – like a little premium fund award. Lets face it this is equivalent to 150 member reads, and I defy even the demi-gods like Trampus to write an op in 10 minutes that can generate this kind of response (not even ones with sex and money and LOTS OF CAPITALS in the title!)
So do I recommend this product? Yes definitely. Ciao has solicited this op via an email thanking us for participating in the survey, so this clearly means they intend to pursue more work in this area. I think this could be a nice little earner on top of our usual Ciao rewards, and hope they are successful in attracting more in the future.
If you didn’t get the email about participating, you need to check your member profile and make sure you have given Ciao permission to contact you about surveys in future. I am sure you can always deselect it in future if they suddenly get thousands and you are sick of them! Take it from me this has definitely not been a problem up till now. It will obviously be much easier for Ciao to get more surveys if they have a wider respondent base to offer potential clients.
Incidentally I have no idea if you receive any credit for your ‘friends’ (people you have recruited/referred to Ciao) participating in surveys – perhaps anyone who knows about this could enlighten via a comment?
Whatever the answer to that particular question I still reckon it’s well worth signing up!
Jul 21st, 2001
(Aug 4th, 2002)
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