Panel Engagement: Getting High Response Rates from Panelists
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Fri, Dec 03, 2010
When you survey a panel again and again, you are training respondents in what to expect. Whether you are surveying a panel explicitly recruited for conducting surveys, or a house email list that is being used as an implicit panel, what respondents experienced with one survey sets their expectations on what to expect with the next survey from you.
We see panel engagement rates (the average response rate across all surveys fielded to the panel) ranging from 5% to 65%, and much of what drives the wide variability in response rates are the panel practices. To grow and sustain panelist engagement, you need to follow these best practices in panel management.
- Short surveys – You need to train respondents that your surveys are short and enjoyable. If they have a spare ten minutes, you want them to spend that ten minutes answering your questions. When building a panel for the first time, the natural inclination is to field a long survey that satisfies the pent-up demand for answers. Resist that temptation, and field a small survey instead. The first survey is the most important, as first impressions create lasting impressions.
- Varied topics – No one wants to answer questions on the same topic again and again. Mix it up: one month ask about product needs, the next ask about competitors, the third month ask for reaction to your firm’s charitable initiatives. Plan an editorial calendar of panel topics, spacing out studies that are too similar to one another (or fielding them at the same time to separate random samples within the panel).
- Reciprocal relationship – Take, take, take! Most panel owners ask for lots of information, but never provide any of their own back. You ask for information; you should give it in return. Create a monthly or bimonthly newsletter summarizing highlights from a few of the studies you ran; discuss how your organization used the information to improve. When panelists see how valuable the information they provide is, they are more likely to participate in the next survey you send them.
- Proper frequency of surveys – I prefer to ask panelists to complete no more than one survey a month, or even, one survey every other month. To do that, while fielding many surveys a month to the panel, you need to build a large enough panel that you can divide it among the surveys you are fielding and still get enough responses to each study.
- Surveys written from respondent point of view – Too many surveys are written from a researcher’s perspective. This is offputting to the respondent and makes them less likely to participate next time. Avoid jargon and “inside baseball” terminology; don’t make distinctions that are unclear to outsiders.
- Incentives – Most house panels of customers do not need to offer incentives. For traditional panels for use by third parties, the quality of incentives for each survey are important.
When it comes to building panel engagement, we – the panel owners and managers – have met the enemy, and he is us. Failure to create a discipline and philosophy to how respondents are surveyed results in systemically low response rates in the future. Break the cycle, treat panelists well, and build high response rates over time.
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