Inventive Incentives...

Earlier this week, I grabbed Taco Bell for lunch.

The back of the receipt offered me a chance at $1,000 for taking a quick online survey.

I never got around to taking that survey.

A month or so back, I grabbed BK. Their receipt promised me a BK Sandwich for taking their online survey.

I never took that survey either.

I may be atypical, but I don't think so. We live busy lives. We rarely have the time to take online surveys no matter what the payoff.

My intern, Maryann, recently researched the topic for me. She found a British study that showed that 79% of UK Doctors were willing to take a survey to enter a drawing for six bottles of champagne. Offered a chance of one of six bottles of champagne, only 70% responded. Researchers took this 9% difference to mean survey takers would be more likely to take a survey for a bigger prize even with lower odds.

I looked for a parallel US study. I found one of nurses. The researchers took a different tact. Their study gave half survey recipients a $3 Starbucks gift card before taking the survey and the other half a chance at a $250 cash drawing after taking the survey. About 42% responded when given the Starbucks card (likely out of a sense of gratitude or guilt). Only 28% of nurses responded to the $250 drawing.

So, what's that mean? I have no idea. I assume that the non-cash UK prize had a higher prestige value than that of the $250 US cash prize. Or maybe doctors have more time than nurses.

So, I still lack a definitive answer. But based on the other studies I scanned, a reward of some type will almost always increase the response to an opinion survey -- without creating any bias in results.

Homework: Do you ask customers for feedback on your product or service? What incentive do you use to encourage response? Try testing different incentives and see what works best for you. And let me know!