Editor’s note: Ken Peterson is president, customer experience at online survey and research firm QuestionPro, Austin, Texas. 

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” 

[Phrase popularized by Mark Twain.] 

After results from the past two presidential elections dramatically differed from projections of nearly every reputable national polling agency, many people no longer trust polls.

In fact, a Hill-Harris poll taken last year found that 66% believe others are likely to lie to pollsters when asked about politics.

But when it comes to lying itself – spoiler alert – we all do it. The only item in dispute is the number of times per day we lie: anywhere from twice to 200 times per day. And if we ourselves lie a few times a day, guess what? That means we are experiencing dozens of lies being told to us on a daily basis. 

We lie for a number of reasons. In our professional world, we lie to escape accountability, avoid punishment or gain an advantage. In our personal relationships we tell white lies to avoid hurting someone’s feelings (i.e., “Do you like my haircut?”).

What does this have to do with consumer surveys?

People lie in surveys. Why is anyone’s guess, but it’s not a question if but rather when and how many. There is no single reason to lie on a customer satisfaction survey. Nothing bad will happen if you say you will buy a particular product or service in the future even if you have no intention of doing so. Nothing bad will happen if you break up with a brand during a rant then continue to buy their products/services the following day.

Part of the problem with customer satisfaction surveys has to do with the sheer volume. This ultimately results in survey fatigue for the consumer. Even when we tell them it is a short survey, it often turns into something much longer. The reality is that today’s shoppers want personalized experiences – they assume their favorite brands should already know what they think and want. 

Another problem is respondents’ attempts to gain advantage. Many people will provide “good” feedback because they believe it will increase their chance of getting some future benefit. This is especially true when the brand offers an extremely attractive incentive for their feedback. I’m not implying the respondent should not be incentivized, but the reward should not be the key driver, especially in the case of customer satisfaction surveys.

Finally, some customers are people pleasers – they tell us what they think we want to hear.

Does this mean we shouldn’t conduct customer satisfaction surveys?

Not at all. But it means we need to be smarter about how we use them. Building in mechanisms to fight the influence of liars in our surveys will not overcome every trick, manipulation or misrepresentation, but the following can go a long way in minimizing the influence:

  1. Truly shorter surveys. Fulfill on your promise of a short survey. Use relationship surveys to capture more detailed information about your customer with an incentive.
  2. Include a check question. When using a longer survey, include a check question that makes certain the customer is reading the questions for which they are providing responses. It can be as simple as “Select 7 for this question” or ask them to answer the same question that was asked earlier to see if the same response is provided.
  3. Use an e-mail-embed question. Put the overall rating, whether NPS or CSAT, into the body of the invitation to make it easy for them to respond. Then ask their permission to ask any other questions.
  4. Survey on the customers’ terms. Pick the right mode for the circumstances (e.g., e-mail invitation, in-store kiosk, SMS or even an always-on feedback tab on the website). Approaches such as invitation by SMS can improve response rates by 300%. Consider the effort needed by the customer to both receive the invitation and complete the survey – don’t just depend on the approach used by the survey company.
  5. Only ask unknowns. It can be difficult to get all the data you need from other departments, but a focus on the customer means you don’t ask them to answer questions you should already know the answer to. Minimize the customers’ efforts to provide information such as transaction details, locations and loyalty levels. 

Customer satisfaction surveys will continue to provide us with valuable information, but the feedback needs to be reliable and used in conjunction with other methods of gathering feedback.