What dangers lurk in interviews and how to avoid them

Many companies use surveys, e.g. of their customers. The basic intention is to increase the success of the company through the satisfaction of the respondents.

Unfortunately, fundamental mistakes are often made during the survey. In the worst case, these errors can lead to dissatisfaction. In other words, exactly the opposite of the intended reaction.

So what 3 characteristics should good surveys have and what approach will help you?

(1) The questions should be relevant to the respondents

If the respondents do not feel addressed by the questions, they will not answer. This reduces the feedback rate, the evaluation is less valuable and it becomes difficult to derive improvement measures. 

Procedure: Checks the potential questions before the actual survey with some of those to be surveyed (e.g. selected customers or some employees), adapts the questionnaire and only then conducts the “real” survey. 

Because the relevance of the questions can shift over time, each subsequent questionnaire should also ask about relevance, at least for key issues (e.g. with “How important is this aspect to you?”). This also makes the results more valuable because the answers can be evaluated in the context of their relevance.

(2) The questions should be clear and understandable

If the respondents do not understand the questions, e.g. due to complicated wording or formulation, the answers are not useful. Even if two or more different aspects are asked at the same time, an evaluation is not useful (example: How satisfied are you with the quality and price of our product?”).

Vorgehen: Check the wording and semantics of the questions as well as the question itself with some of the interviewees. Make sure that you also include people with different educational levels and cultural backgrounds in the test, e.g. people for whom German is not their first language. Then adapt the questionnaire accordingly. For questions that require explanation, you can also briefly explain the context before asking the question. 

(3) The questions must not overwhelm the respondents

If respondents are confronted with a large number of questions, they are more likely to abandon the survey.  

Procedure: Create a test evaluation before the survey. This way you can check whether you are really asking the questions that are important to you. You can optionally ask for interesting details (e.g. “Would you like to specify this?”). This way you leave it up to the respondents to decide how much attention they want to give you.