Summer sees scores of young people trudging the length and breadth of cities these days, filling out questionnaires. With the exponential rise in B schools and courses like BMM and BMS which favour internships, every Tom , Dick and Harry is doing a summer project. And the project you're most likely to be handed is a 'survey'.
Surveys serve two important functions:
a) They get the trainee out of the boss' hair for most of the duration of the project. This is important because few companies have extra seating space or computers for trainees.
b) The survey, if sincerely done, just might reveal something of use to the client or agency which they can further investigate. The operative word is IF, because survey forms are rarely administered or completed as they should be.
This happens for two reasons:
a) Idiot questionnaires: The survey is 7 pages long and the respondents lose interest by page 2. Asking people to rank and rate 7 attributes on 5 parameters is a pointless exercise but one which the designers of surveys nevertheless insist on.
So the student has no choice but to hurry through the survey, taking down a few answers, guessing/ making up responses to a few others before capturing the most crucial data: name, address and tel no.
Crucial because based on this info, the boss may randomly conduct a back-check - to ensure that the respondents are not a figment of the imagination, and that they were actually questioned. Which is true, but does not reveal the whole story.
b) Lazy/ unethical behaviour: Where there's a will, there's a loophole. And smart (lazy) students know fully well to exploit it. Many students are given a daily 'target' of forms to fill out. Others are paid on a per form basis (this is especially true of undergrads who work directly for market research agencies for pocket money, not experience).
Hence, however decent the questionnaire may be, these students are in a situation where dil maange more.
But sometimes, a questionnaire can be tuned topsy-turvy. The 3 page, 7 minute questionnaire can be reduced to a 1 1/2 page, 3 minute job. Smart people simply skip over page 2 and braze enough to smile and assure, "Don't worry, I'll fill out the rest myself".
Of course, many agencies use the exercise more to collect a database of names and addresses to subsequently market their newspaper or products. But what about companies who consider market research to be the 'holy grail'? And there are plenty of them...
Survey strategies
As an MBA student too goes around doing a survey for a summer projects working at some top company for projects like Surf Ultra vs Ariel many learn for the first time that there are a number of attributes to a survey who do it sincerely.
Eventually these candidates learn the Great Indian Survey Trick. The single most efficient way to get respondents is in the second class compartment of any local train. The trick is to do it at non-peak time. Beats going house to house and having doors slammed on their face - and they get a completely random sample.
Good deed for the day
Having 'been there, done that', many experienced people have on more than one occasion filled out surveys for forlorn looking trainees. Invariably, however, I find the questionnaires are badly designed/ worded and administered with minimum enthusiasm.
Sure, market research is a grueling and thankless job but treating it as a punishment only makes things worse.
If you're trudging around with a survey in hand this summer, see it as opportunity. To smile at random strangers, to connect with them for a few minutes. And also to deal with rejection, even rudeness, yet not take it personally. To live, to learn, to grow.
I know, I did.
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