Factors for Deciding Whether to Incentivize Research Participants

Before you decide whether to incentivize customer research participants, the first question to answer is why you may want to.  Are you trying to increase the percentage of people responding, increase the type of person responding,  or improve the representativeness of the responses to address bias?

Your sampling scheme is just as important as deciding to offer an incentive.  If the goal is to increase the number of survey responses, it may be more economically feasible to sample more people and not use a customer research incentive.  If the issue to increase participation for a specific segment of participants, then including and inviting a larger number of people from these segments to participate will increase the representativeness of the returns.

If the issue truly is about improving the response rate or if improving the response rate is likely the best way to improve the representativeness and/or the number of responses, providing an incentive to customers to respond is one of several tactics.

The choice of whether to respond to a survey invitation is a cost-benefit decision for the customer. How much time will participation take versus the benefit she will receive? Customers evaluate time, effort, difficulty, and privacy in exchange for feeling valued or receiving useful actionable information in return when deciding to participate in a research initiative.

Address Both Cost and Benefit with Incentive Decisions

To increase response rates, look at both sides of the customer cost-benefit equation and make an effort to decrease the cost to the customer and increase the benefits of participation.

Reduce the cost side:
•    Avoid over-surveying your customers by having multiple departments or divisions each conduct independent research programs.
•    Keep the survey clean, interesting, as short as possible, and uncluttered.
•    Include open-ended questions so customers can truly give their input.
•    Give participants an option to choose how and when to respond.
•    Avoid nice-to-know questions or sensitive questions unless they are absolutely necessary.

Increase the benefit side:
•    Send customers a thank-you and briefly explain how the information is used.
•    Follow up if the customer asks to be contacted.
•    Share the results.
•    Provide a customer research incentive –an appropriate non-monetary reward with monetary value to respond.

Purchase Your Assessment

Monetary vs. Non-monetary Incentives for Customer Research

Before offering a monetary incentive for customer research, consider non-monetary methods.  Most research has shown that inclusion of a small amount (e.g., id=”mce_marker”) is more effective at increasing response rates than the promise of a larger amount upon return of the survey. For an online survey, the incentive should be something of equal value to everyone, regardless of their experience, and match the methodology and the geography.

Possible non-monetary incentives include
–    Loaded/pre-paid cards, such as phone, restaurant, store cards, etc.
–    Offering a choice of charities for a donation (be careful, these options do not create a bias)
–    Whether you decide to incentivize your survey participants, first consider what it is you are trying to address in order to make sure the associated investment to provide the incentive will really make a difference.

To avoid bias, it is critical to balance engaging customers who will provide you twith he data and insights you need and compensate them for their participation.  If you’re not skilled in research, bring in experts. 

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