Drawbacks of Online Surveys as a Market Research Method

While online surveys provide a number of benefits, they also have a number of disadvantages. Despite the fact that the advantages outnumber the negatives by a significant margin, it’s a good idea to read over the downsides to obtain a better understanding of the issues you might face when working with online surveys.

1. Inability to communicate with people residing in remote locations

One of the primary drawbacks of online surveys is their inability to reach people who live in remote, off-the-grid regions without internet access. It’s tough to engage the elderly who don’t have internet access or aren’t familiar with dealing with online platforms utilizing web-based surveys.

2. There’s a good chance you’ll be a victim of survey fraud

Survey respondents are more prone to skip questions and react mindlessly just to get the survey over with the case of long, complicated, or confusing surveys. People are frequently enticed to participate in surveys in exchange for a survey incentives. Both of the conditions may result in erroneous replies & distorted outcomes.

3. Problems with Sampling

Keep watching for sample flaws or issues that could affect overall output while conducting online surveys. A survey’s core is a representative sample, which allows you to extrapolate the results to a larger audience.

However, there are a number of sample difficulties that can make online survey market research methods less effective. A typical sample error occurs when researchers are unsure whether to study people who use the product directly or those who influence the customers.

Another example- when just those are interested participate in a survey of their own free will. The ideal scenario would be for researchers to make extra efforts to increase the number of people who participate in the survey.

4. Bias in Response

Survey response bias is another issue that might lead to inaccurate data. Survey respondents answer in a certain way most of the time for a variety of reasons, including:

• The apprehension of being judged.
• Situations concerning money.
• Personality differences, as well as a slew of others.

In some surveys, for example, respondents may sway toward options that make them appear more socially desirable and financially secure, resulting in dishonest results. Even the order in which survey questions ask might influence response outcomes.

When survey respondents are disengaged, this is another example of survey bias. They tend to choose the last choice of most questions since they are uninterested in the survey, resulting in incorrect results.

5. Survey Fatigue

According to studies, the response rate for long surveys is as low as 9%. Yes, surveys may be tedious, especially ones with open-ended questions that require careful consideration.

Long surveys frequently take longer than 10-15 minutes to complete. It causes respondents to become tired, resulting in dishonest responses or, even worse, survey dropout.

Lengthy surveys or useless survey questions are definitely a negative and a primary reason for survey respondents disliking the entire process which leads, in many cases, to the termination of the survey midway.

6. An increase in errors caused by technological flaws

Because online surveys make use of technology, there may be a lot of response inaccuracies. When internet access is poor, survey respondents may force to restart the poll several times. There could also be issues with the device being used. If the survey does not display well on mobile phones, for example, the respondent may abandon the survey or offer incorrect responses as a result of distorted display screens.

7. A large number of unanswered survey questions

In many situations, the convenience of online surveys can work against you. Participants have the convenient option of answering questions they want to answer and skipping the ones that they don’t want to answer. Normally, when participants present with difficult, long, or irrelevant survey questions, they are more likely to skip them and go on to a question they are more comfortable answering.

Participants may leave several survey questions unanswered, which may have an impact on the survey’s final results and analysis. It is advisable to create surveys with relevant and straightforward questions to avoid this.

8. It’s difficult to interpret the sentiments behind the answers

Online survey market research methods have undeniable advantages: they are simple, convenient, and adaptable. However, one area where they fall short is in reflecting on how respondents truly feel about the issues raised in the survey.

Because the meeting is entirely online, you can’t witness a respondent’s facial expressions or body language.  All you have are the survey responses to decode what customers really feel.

Thankfully, there are sentiment analysis tools that can help you arrange unstructured material. These software applications can assist you in decoding specific keywords and analyzing the results to track the mood of survey respondents.

What Are the Benefits of Online Survey?

Using online surveys as one of the many market research methods has a number of advantages.

For starters, they can send out rapidly and have a short turnaround time. You can reach out to your customers when it matters most. While they’re exploring your products, reading your content, or after they’ve made a purchase.

Online questionnaires provide participants more time to think about their responses than face-to-face or telephone techniques. Aside from these fantastic benefits, online questionnaires are inexpensive, and the actionable items generated by the data can yield a significant return on investment.

There are also additional advantages like the precoding of user responses that eliminates transcription errors. Because the data is already in an electronic format, it can analyze quickly without the trouble of digitizing it.

Finally, guidance and/or software is accessible at an inexpensive rate from third-party vendors. That includes a wide range of customization options in their arsenal to meet brand requirements.

Should I take a chance with Online Surveys?

There are several challenges that businesses can face while using online surveys, but they are still useful and meaningful.  In general, the feedback you gain from these surveys can use to provide a better overall experience for your customers and can use to focus and explain your efforts. However, you need to find a way to resolve the obstacles. That is common with poorly designed and constructed surveys to achieve the objectives that you have.

Over the past decade, the use of online surveys has skyrocketed. You can now perform market research for a fraction of the price and time owing to technological advancements. This makes it simpler than ever before for anyone to collect data. When studying and choosing a software platform for surveys, consider not only how they help you develop, distribute, and analyze surveys, but also how they can help you achieve your organizational goals.

Online surveys, like traditional surveys, have advantages and disadvantages. Despite the numerous pros and pitfalls of online surveys, one thing is clear: they are considerably superior to traditional surveys conducted in person or over the phone. We all understand why: online surveys are simple to design, distribute, and evaluate. Participants will find them less intimidating, resulting in a higher completion rate than traditional surveys.

They assist you in maintaining respondent anonymity, saving time and effort, lowering costs, and doing more tasks in less time. On the other hand, online surveys can cause issues including accessibility, sampling, fraud, and other issues that can affect the data and analysis.

However, after careful consideration, the advantages of online surveys obviously exceed the downsides, and you should give them a try!