The New Survey: Answers Without Questions

Making Decisions

All organizations rely on information to make decisions.  From financial data to customer insight to market intelligence, data has been the main lifeblood of the modern company.  Yet when it comes to understanding the voice of the customer, many organizations are still muddled in methods popularized in the late 1990’s (or earlier).

A main tool of understanding customers/consumers/users has been, and still is, survey research.  That is, ask people to answer questions about a variety of topics. A simplified index of questions and analysis called Net Promoter Score is widely used by vertically integrated companies the world over.

So what’s wrong with asking people to share what they think?  Reliability for one, validity for another. But moreover, survey research doesn’t accurately capture the emotion of the granular customer experience.  Good or bad, it’s the emotion – how a person feels – that will drive behavior such as purchase, loyalty, overall engagement. Too often companies are really understanding just the what without understanding the why.

We’re asking the wrong questions

Case-in-point, two questions addressed to a 22-year old who’s recently purchased something on the E-Commerce Company X website and received a survey moments later:

Question #1 Asked: How satisfied were you with your experience with E-Commerce Company X today?  (Very Satisfied, Satisfied, Neither Satisfied Nor Dissatisfied, Dissatisfied, Very Dissatisfied)

What the 22-year old is thinking:  Uh, I dunno. It was ok but I don’t really remember half of the pages I clicked through and I really just wanted these headphones because all my friends are talking about them.  Can’t wait till they come.

Question #2 Asked: Why does that describe your level of satisfaction with E-Commerce Company X today?

What the 22-year old is thinking: WTF.  IDK. TLDR.  

People will never say what they mean!

It’s absurd. Companies are already spending millions of dollars a year to survey customers, and all they’re seeing is the tip of the iceberg. Today there is a better way to find out the feelings and emotions of people, ways that don’t involve asking them any direct questions and simply mining for insights they are already sharing through social media, customer service interactions, ratings/reviews, etc.   It’s more accurate and avoids the TLDR phenomenon of survey research.

Said differently,

 “it’s the difference between studying elephants in the wild and inviting 6 elephants to a focus group to talk about the jungle”

People think this is an impossible problem to crack -  it’s not. There are myriad AI/ML tools in the marketplace that have developed tools to recognize language and make sense of it in an orderly way.  What Stitched Insights does better than most is recognize underlying sentiment and emotion beyond the words said. That’s a game changer. By using Stitched Insights tools, companies will be able to deeply understand the Why, very quickly, and take action on it.  

“Understanding the root cause of behavior as it changes in real-time is much more powerful in driving correct business decisions than sending a survey”

The future of business in our highly competitive world rests with differentiated, accurate, and timely insights.  Methods and approaches must keep pace. Stitched Insights has cracked the code on passively understanding mode, tone, and expectations and quickly applying it to action.

About Adam:

Adam Simons is an investor, adviser, and board member to a portfolio of start ups and emerging companies around the globe. After spending 15 years in large enterprises, Adam has grown a practice where he works hands-on with some of the best startups in the world - both consumer and enterprise - helping to cultivate and grow the talents of early stage founders and their teams.