surveys bullcrap.

catewithers

I've just started trying to play the paid surveys game and I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of survey invites that are coming through....

lemontart

yep I get that at least 3/4 of the time from caio and very annoying it is to.

Liz
xx

ancasta_2

Im totally shameless, ive signed up to different companies with different profiles to make sure i meet alot more of the criteria.

abitrubbish

ancasta wrote: »

Im totally shameless, ive signed up to different companies with different profiles to make sure i meet alot more of the criteria.

How do you remember who you're supposed to be in each survey?? I'm sure I'd get horribly confused!

Storm

The way I see it, I only do the surveys when I've got time to do so, and yes, it's pennies, but hey, if I get £10 after a year it's £10 I wouldn't have had before!

The main thing I've found is always say that you have sole responsibility for buying whatever they're asking you about, and when asked what brands you've bought in the last year or whatever tick several boxes - my theory is that if you're a 'floating' customer rather than brand-loyal they want to know how to get you on their brand

HairyHandofDartmoor

Ciao did this to me loads so I've ditched them now.

You Gov never do this. They don't send me many surveys and some of them are boring as hell to fill in, but they always pay you (a pittance but at least it's reliable).

kathfisch

It is annoying, I think it comes down to the companies not investing in the technology/software to do the job properly. If they haven't got the system to sort out the people they want they have to 'invite' everyone and put the 'selection' into the survey. YouGov obviously have lots of people signed up and keep detailed profile info about them and when they need a certain age of person for example (or a spread of ages) they have the system to sort these people out and invite them to do the survey. And I bet they have a much better response rate than other sites precisely because they're not going to decline you in the end, they certainly do from me! I have to say though, valued opinions are quite good - I often receive surveys from them where I get 20p just for answering my age and location (or something similar) and being told I'm not eligible. Those are the ones where you get something like £1.50 for completing it... think I've only been eligible once or twice!!

If you're looking for a way to earn vouchers for not too much effort, Pigsback is the best!

frugalpam

I'd agree with what people have written - it's very rare to 'qualify' for their surveys, and I got to dislike giving away personal information for nothing. Apart from Pinecone Research who are genuine, I ditched the lot of 'em

Pam

chevalier

with lightspeed it was prefer not to answer that did it. Ie not answering what age you work. I thought about and decided that them knowing my age wasn't a big thing. That and answering all the quick match surveys.

But the best way to get through is to do the survey as soon as possible after the invite is sent to you
chev

randomtask_2

I actually work for a market research company, and I do quite a lot of online work using panels of consumers like the ones mentioned here.

With my researchers cap on, I have to say that we don't *want* panel members to give false answers in order to finish the survey and get the cash (but I don't personally blame you).

You're actually referred to as "professional respondents" if you do this, and if we knew who you were, we'd request you not be invited for future surveys since some/all of your answers will be seen as unreliable and untrue. You may actually have your membership frozen, though that is down to the panel managers to decide.

We will also look at survey response rates and monitor those with high participation levels - they may well reduce (or cut altogether) the amount of invites you receive for surveys if it seems you respond to every invite straight away. We expect panel members to have better things to do!

Now, of course, it's incredibly difficult to monitor everyone (there are hundreds of thousands of panel members in the UK) and it's very likely that you will continue to get away with giving false answers should you do so. I'll be honest - I can't really tell if your lying when you say you do your grocery shopping at Tesco, or that you bank with Abbey unless your answers are so contradictory or unreal. So you can get away with creating whatever profile you wish to. It boils down to this - we researchers need panellists to take surveys because we need answers to questions our clients want to know...and online surveys are a growing area of the industry.

I agree that filling in long series of screening questions that ask for a lot of info only to be told you don't meet the criteria is annoying. I certainly try to avoid this in the projects I'm involved with but sometimes it's just that we're after very very specific audiences. So the advice of ancasta is right - you can't always meet the criteria so let it go and do the next one.

Certain information on you as a panel member will already be known but it is actually easier (and rather lazy on our part) to ask you these questions again rather than tag your pre-held information to your survey answers since they are kept in a separate database. kathfisch is right - the technology should be better. It'd make my day in the office a lot smoother too.

Right, adding my MSE feather to the researcher cap now - of course being on a research panel can earn you a tidy little sum of cash or vouchers. So go for it But note, you won't always be the person we need to get answers from so unless you're particularly lucky with guessing your way through an entire survey, and/or have a very well rounded survey taking alterego, you will often be 'terminated' before the main interview.

The advice I would give is - be honest. That way, you're being rewarded for your time and responses in a genuine fashion (so feel good about yourself). And that way the data you give is actually reliable and useful to the likes of me. However, if you want to try and guess your way through, or adopt another persona, I wish you good luck as a fellow MSEr

As for tips, chevalier is right - the sooner you take part, the more likely that the survey won't have reached it's target number of participants or that your profile quota will be filled. It's at the beginning of surveys that you'll be screened if we're only after a particular groups. Get beyond the demographic questions and whether you use product x or got to shop y, and you should probably go all the way through more often than not.

The bigger incentives get offered on the longest surveys (obviously) so if you want the money, you got to put in the time. Opting into follow-up stages also yields additional incentives but again, you've got to agree to do some more surveys.

Blimey long post!