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It’s So Much More Attractive Inside the Survey Kiosk

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As I briefly alluded to yesterday, once when I was in London doing face-to-face interviews, when crossing the street, I looked one way, the wrong way, and stepped into oncoming traffic.  I nearly got run over by a motorcycle in a motorcade, and jumping back to the sidewalk, I saw a limo go past me bearing Princess Diana to her next appointment.

Well, my last two posts about our new Mobile Survey - PC Edition product have looked only one way at its capabilities, because that's the way I am most familiar with it:  an interviewer using the system to ask a respondent questions and record their answers.  In fact, that's typically how I think of CAPI (Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing) systems.

But, looked at from the other direction, Mobile Survey can also be used for self-administered surveys.  Here are a few scenarios:

• Intercept surveys - The respondent is intercepted at a retail location or at a resort and invited to take a survey.  The facilitator intercepting them will introduce the survey, discuss the incentive, if any, then have the respondent sit down and take this survey.  The facilitator will be at hand to answer any questions that might come up during the survey process and will disburse the incentive upon successful completion of the survey.  I've seen this approach used successfully for mall intercepts and at amusement parks.  For mall intercepts, the kiosks were great for displaying very large videos, which exceed the ability of many consumers to download and view on dial-up connections; this is a great way to test which of several commercials is most effective.
• Field surveys - For sales calls or field-service calls, the prospect or customer is given a laptop or handheld computer to complete a short survey on their satisfaction with the transaction.
• Kiosk surveys for consumers - A kiosk or workstation is set up for participants to complete a short survey.  It could be a trade-show satisfaction survey, positioned near the exits from the exhibition area.  It could be a retail-satisfaction survey, positioned near the Point of Sale; such kiosks might be deployed for just a few weeks at a location, and then rotated to other stores.
• Kiosk surveys for employees - In many workplaces, few employees have computer access.  For factories, big-box retailers, military bases and similar locations, survey kiosks can be temporarily deployed a few weeks each year to collect employee-satisfaction data.