Less Mobile, More Vile: When Surveys Go Wrong

posted by: Pat Molloy on 2/20/2012

I made an online purchase from a technology company recently, hardly news given my penchant for gadgetry, I admit. However, the sale was followed up by an online survey which I received via email and opened on my iPhone.
 
Horror!


    
Granted, the screenshot isn’t terribly clear, but I think you get the idea. From a user experience perspective, it was painful. I generally like to complete surveys because I admire companies that are trying to improve their customer experiences, but in this case a perfectly good customer experience was marred by a horrible survey experience. On top of this, the feedback the vendor receives is hardly likely to be top quality when my big fingers were hitting about 3 tiny radio buttons at once and I began to stop caring what answer I was giving.

I suppose I could have waited until I was at my PC and redone the survey in the enviroment it was so obviously designed for, but I’d probably forget, and really I don’t think it’s for me to have to alter the way I approach things to provide them with feedback. People are now used to receiving strong experiences through their mobile devices – why should surveys be different?

If you’re asking for customer feedback the channels you use need to reflect the ways your customers want to communicate. It shouldn’t be news that many people access email through mobile devices. Furthermore, it’s not as if there is no alternative, it’s quite possible to create beautiful surveys that are designed to automatically morph into a lovely survey depending on the device it’s opened in.

Well, it is in Confirmit, anyway...!