Becoming Wyzerr: Market Research Needs to Change…Badly.

By: Bethany Merillat, M.S., M.Ed.

This is the 2nd entry in a series of 8 articles centered around the research and science behind Wyzerr, an artificial intelligence company that uses playful gamified surveys to collect feedback data and generate real-time business insights and tasks for managers in retail, food, and hospitality.

In an age in which our attention is increasingly pulled in many directions, what makes something a “hit?” How did Fifty Shades of Grey transform from its humble beginnings as internet fan fiction writing, into an international best seller and blockbuster film series? What was it about George Lucas’ Star Wars that captured our attention and inspired a cult following that has spanned decades? In his book, Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in an Age of Distraction, Derek Thompson shows how the greatest successes are often the ones that build off something familiar, and then place their own innovative twist on it to make something “old” seem new.

People don’t like change. A study by Eidelman, Pattershall and Crandall (2010) confirmed previous research findings that the longer something is around, the higher we evaluate it. Traditional themes (good triumphing over evil), that old sweatshirt from high school — more than sentimentality, mere exposure, and aversion to loss, Eidelman et al.’s (2010) research showed time to be one of the greatest contributing factors to liking. Yet while humans are drawn to the familiar, they also crave something new as Thompson (2017) showed. By combining an old theme with something new such as in Star Wars, described by George Lucas as a, “Western movie set in outer space,” creative individuals can connect with and captivate their audience without inciting a fear of change.

The problem is that this aversion to change impacts our everyday lives, from our hesitance to clear out the old tee-shirt drawer, to our reluctance to try something other than our favorite dish at a restaurant. In the survey world, it means both participants and researchers are hesitant to try something new, and that reluctance has resulted in a stagnation of progress in the data collection industry, and ineffective, unreliable data collection.

Traditionally, online survey systems like Qualtrics, Mindshare, Typeform, SurveyGizmo, and Survey Monkey, and market research groups like Nielsen, TSN, Ipsos, Millward Brown, and Confirmit, have used standard research gathering forms, similar to their paper-and-pencil predecessors. While these forms have been the accepted method for data collection in both academic and market research for years, that does not mean they are highly effective. A meta-analysis of 1,607 studies published between 2000 and 2005 in 17 peer-reviewed academic journals found that the average response rate for data from individuals was only 52.7% (SD = 20.4), and only 35.7% (SD = 18.8) for data from organizations (Baruch & Holtom, 2008). The data reviewed in the study covered over 100,000 organizations and 400,000 individual respondents.

While these numbers may seem low, they come at the tail end of a long-term decline in response rates. The average response rate for surveys has been declining for years, with response rates for academic questionnaires dropping from 64.4% to 48.8% between 1975 and 1995 (Baruch, 1999). A national longitudinal study by the American Council on Educating and the Cooperative Research Program (CIRP) (Higher Education Research Institute, 1989; 1991; 1992) also confirmed this trend, and reported a significant decline in response rates since the 1960s (Dey, 1997), which continued into the early 2000s (Curtin, Presser, & Singer, 2005; de Leeuw & de Heer, 2002; Hansen, 2007).

Some posited that the rise of digital technology had the potential to abate and perhaps reverse these trends. Yet, at the advent of the digital revolution, research found that response rates to online surveys was lower than some other forms of data collection, such as postal questionnaires and face-to-face questionnaires (Couper, 2000; Dillman & Bowker, 2001; Petchenik & Watermolen, 2011). In fact, one meta-analysis suggested that responses to online surveys was, on average, 11% lower than other types of surveys (Lozar et al., 2008).

As technology has improved, newer studies have emerged, suggesting that electronic data collection (e.g., email, phone and web), could yield response rates comparable to or higher than traditional mail surveys (Baruch & Holtom, 2008; Weigold, 2013). However, general trends still support the finding that participation rates are much lower in web vs. paper and pencil surveys, with a recent 2017 study finding web based completion rates were almost four time slower (10.70%) than mail survey completion (47.09%) (Sebo, 2017).

Nevertheless, the transition to internet based surveys has occurred at a rapid rate in response to what these surveys can offer: lower costs and faster responses (Ilieva et al., 2002). Sebo (2017) went so far as to suggest that web based surveys were superior to postal surveys, simply due to their reduced response times, higher completeness of data, and large savings in cost.

So what is a researcher to do in a digital world that has transitioned to a form of data collection that appears to be no better, and potentially worse, than its predecessor (the paper and pencil method)? While many other research companies seem to have accepted that abysmal response rates, and incomplete, unreliable data is the price that must be paid for lower costs and faster responses, we decided at Wyzerr there must be an alternative option. Like George Lucas and E.L. James (the author of Fifty Shades of Grey), we decided to pair something old with something new. We have taken the traditional survey which people are familiar with and have used for decades (Robert Groves (2011) dates the advent of the first era of survey research back to the 1930s), and added game design elements to better engage consumers and, most importantly, makes them want to take surveys.

We capture attention by making surveys familiar, yet at the same time short, new, exciting and fun. A formula that according to Thompson (2017) is a recipe for success. Intrigued? Stay tuned! Next week we’ll dive into the science behind increasing completion rates, and how Wyzerr has built our success learning from key research studies highlighting failures and progress in survey methodology.

About the author: Bethany D. Merillat, M.S., M.Ed., is an experimental psychologist with a passion for changing lives through research. She specializes in survey design, online data collection, and interventions to increase health and wellness, and has published number of journal articles in these areas.