There was a time when survey research was easy. Getting responses to survey questionnaires these days could turn into a difficult task, especially when respondents are top company personnel. So, how did we get to this situation? Too many questionnaires or something else? While there is no correct answer, the sheer number of questionnaires, ranging from customer surveys, product surveys to research surveys, could be playing a part in this situation.

To get around this issue in our latest research survey about the digital competencies and future orientation in strategy work, we reached out to the respondents personally over telephone. The survey itself was digital and all we did was to ask for permission to send a survey link via email. Of course, this is not to say that the previous attempts were not dedicated towards eliciting answers to the questionnaire. The survey was a bit long, and despite our best efforts to keep it short, it was still time consuming, considering that it combined needs of two different projects. However, the surprising thing we discovered was that the length of the survey was a really small factor in refusing participation, and even the personalized touch did not yield desired levels of response.

The reason is the different surveys that top management personnel receive leave them very little time to offer meaningful responses and they just refuse to reply to them. While lack time may be a legitimate reason, but that might not be the only contributing factor in refusing to engage with surveys. As a researcher, this issue of getting responses to survey questionnaires remain unresolved. There have been a variety of efforts, ranging from initiating personal contacts through phone calls to lottery prizes and promises of personalized reports, but so far, we have not been able to narrow down a single solution, rather it has just gotten tougher over the years. Conducting surveys is not going to get easier any time soon.

-Marko Siltamäki