Every couple of days I get a request to complete a survey. I get that companies want to improve but I'm sick of being a free source of constructive feedback. I'm done with surveys at least for a while. Anyone else?
Well said. I learned that last lesson early on in life when I filled out entries for prize drawings at the Ottawa Home Show. This was closely followed by a glut of phone calls and emails. Luckily, that was so long ago that I'm quite a few email addresses and phone numbers away from that. Never again.Actually, organizations, and organizational units that specialize in surveying the same group of people, worry about "survey fatigue". Trouble is, they don't all necessarily talk to each other to know just how much surveying is going on, overall, being primarily concerned with their own surveying objectives, rather than the general public's interest in, or willingness, being surveyed.
I worked for many years in the area of employee surveys, both designing survey instruments and analyzing and communicating data patterns. Canada had surveyed its employees every 3 years to identify systemic issues, and the outcomes of any interventions intended to fix those issues identified in a previous survey ( Public Service Employee Survey - Canada.ca ). The Americans have a similar survey ( OPM.gov ), but under GWB, it was mandated to take place EVERY year, and the UK followed suit a few years back ( Launching the 10th annual Civil Service People Survey - Civil Service ) with an annual survey. In both the U.S. and U.K. survey results have gotten more sour in many areas, year by year, and I have noted to many colleagues in both circles that this is partly a result of the annual repetition. I have consistently reminded decision-makers at Treasury Board that an annual cycle is unwise, for those reasons, but because the Yanks and Brits are doing it, senior management determined that we should too.
One of the maxims of organizational surveys is that you don't ask questions about things you either have no intention to fix, or can't fix (e.g., "Do you feel you are compensated fairly, compared to people in the private sector doing similar work?"), simply because every employee survey is an implicit promise to improve anything you inquired about. And because many systemic issues can take a while to turn around, asking again, before things have turned around, will generate highly cynical responses/opinions, because you haven't fixed it yet. Not so much a consequence of survey fatigue per se, as fatigue with what seems to be hollow good intentions from management. Of course, that little bit of experienced-based insight doesn't appear to persuade senior managers who think that there is no difference between an employee survey and a quarterly financial report - you simply gather the data, right? And of course, because every organization has retirements and departures each year, in addition to fresh blood being recruited, the impact of new hires thinking everything is peachy keen, tends to buffer the jaded views of remaining longer-tenure employees, such that the overall aggregate result gets a bit worse every year, but still looks remediable.
All of this is to underscore that over-surveying has its costs. It doesn't just piss off people picking up the phone, but can also yield misleading results.
I will close by noting that retailers can dangle the possibility of large prizes and gift certificates in front of me all they want. I will not be completing their customer surveys because I am not interested in receiving the glut of e-mail offers sure to follow, or in having to unsubscribe from all the things I would need to unsubscribe from.
At the *moment* I recognize the call is a solicitation my "conversation" goes like this: "Take us off your list and don't ever call us again for any reason" <click> I think it worked after a while... for 6-8 years our neighbors would sometimes talk about all the calls they were getting (we lived in a somewhat affluent area) but we were getting virtually none.I generally don't pick up the phone unless the call display indicates its a friend or an entity with which I deal.