In a recent survey by Actionable Research, only 10% of those who survey professionals (doctors, dentists, etc.) have never used a self-service tool, and 45% use them more than once a month. The use of survey fielding tools on such a frequent basis shows their utility.
Despite their utility, however, there are some glaring insufficiencies that make self-service tools less than ideal for making important business decisions. This may sound like a self-serving topic, but if you are someone who needs data to help direct your company's activities, you are probably aware of the shortcomings of self-service survey fielding tools in their ability to offer actionable insights. We will explore those issues here.
You Alone are Responsible for Crafting the Questions
In our line of work, we come across all types of clients with all types of backgrounds and abilities concerning survey writing:
Some clients have a deep understanding of product or marketing management, and they know what they want, but they do not have the experience to accurately craft survey questions. Some clients have the appropriate background or education to craft well-thought-out, valid, unbiased questions. The vast majority of our clients, however, understand what needs to be asked, but just need some refinement to their questions to make them suitable for effective market research. If you are using a self-service tool you may have access to survey templates, but how do you know if you are using the correct one? What happens if your question does not fit neatly into one template or the other?
Where Do You Get Your Respondents From?
This one is a bit tricky. Yes, there are many resources out there, including some that are built into the survey tool itself. Finding consumers is a relatively easy exercise. Even with low incidence sample criteria, you should be able to get upwards of 500 people for a relatively small amount of money. There, after all, over 240 million adults in this country. Some projects, such as satisfaction research, will call for your own list. The challenges surface when:
- You need to qualify a panel provider;
- You are sampling your own customers who may not be forthcoming when speaking directly with you;
- You are looking for professionals or B2B respondents.
If you are doing this on your own, you will need to make sure the panel provider has a good track record of panel quality and is recruiting appropriately. If you are sampling your own customers it may be difficult to get honest answers (part of a different blog post). Finally, it is much more difficult (and more expensive) to find and qualify panels who can provide B2B or professionals.
You Are Responsible For Your Own Insights
Self-service tools are typically very good at offering reporting tools with templates that you can use to create a presentation or report for internal consumption. These tools are helpful in creating visuals (charts and graphs) that show the answer to the questions. They are not, however, good at interpreting the results and discovering insights into what the data says. That is your responsibility. If you are one of the minority that is really good at this, I applaud you. It takes skill to look at potentially disparate data points and create a cohesive story. If you are like most, however, you don't have the time or experience to create these insights. Your job is to act on the insights, not create them from scratch.
The Starbucks Principle: You Are Not a Barista
If you are not into coffee, or Starbucks for that matter, let me explain. You can buy a nice coffee maker or even an expresso maker for your house or office. Read the directions, follow them, add your own flair, and you will be able to make a latte or mocha just like at Starbucks. Sort of. There is a difference between making your own espresso or cappuccino occasionally at home and having someone who makes more in one hour than you do all month hand it to you in a cup with your name spelled incorrectly. They may not look like you (tattoos and piercings abound at my local store), but they have lots more experience and consistency in making fancy coffee drinks.
Another example: Have you ever used one of those drive-through car washes? The ones where you just stay in your car and the machines do all the work? They will clean off the mud from the last rain storm or most of the bugs from your road trip, but if you want the windows to look good and the water out of your door jambs you will have to look elsewhere.
The idea is this: your home espresso brewer will make you a cup of coffee and the drive-through car wash will get off most of the grime, but neither will do the job as well as the professionals. Those may be good enough for your personal consumption, but they may fall well short of expectations when it comes to making business decisions.
Self-Service Speed With a Professional's Touch
If you are among the few who can make their own questions, find their own respondents, and create their own insights, I applaud you and wish you Godspeed. If, however, you are one of clear majority who are not as confident in one or more areas, we are here to help. In our mind, the gaps are bridged when you get self-service speed but with a professional to back you up in developing your questions, finding your respondents, and producing insights that can be presented to management.
Actionable Research has developed a new platform that accomplishes just that. To learn more, check out Insight Streamer here.
