Surveys are a great way to collect data and learn more about your audience. But when you’re working through several surveys at once, it can be hard to keep track of what you’re doing and when.

That’s why we’ve put together this guide to help you prevent fatigue on your surveys. This is an issue that can impact brands across all industries. This post will explain what survey fatigue is, how it affects your brand, and how you can mitigate its effects.

What is Survey Fatigue?

Survey fatigue is the phenomenon whereby people become less responsive to survey invitations. Survey fatigue is the act of getting sick of surveys. 

It’s when you’ve taken so many surveys that they begin to feel like a chore, and you don’t want to do them anymore. This can occur for a number of different reasons, but it’s important to note that there is no single cause.

Survey fatigue is a common problem for researchers, who have to keep their surveys relevant to the topic at hand because of the probability that responders may feel exhausted from having to answer the same questions over and over, even though they’re all important.

Read: Survey Research: Types, Examples & Methods

The term “survey fatigue” was first coined by researchers when they found that people who had taken multiple surveys in a row were more likely to experience it than those who had only completed one survey at a time.

Survey fatigue can be measured by asking participants how often they experience it, how long it lasts, and what happens when they do experience it.

How to Measure or Detect Survey Fatigue

To measure survey fatigue, you can use the following methods:

1. Create a simple questionnaire asking your users to rate their level of fatigue and ease of completing a survey.
2. Make sure you ask questions in a way that will allow respondents to answer them as they choose and not as you direct them to do so.
3. Consider the time it takes for your survey to be completed. If a survey is going on for more than 20 minutes, it is likely that respondents will become fatigued and begin to lose focus on the topic.
4. If you are using automated phone systems, there should be an option to pause or cancel calls if they become too challenging. You should also make sure that your survey has been approved by your client before launching it.
5. You can use a variety of survey tools to measure survey fatigue and find out how respondents are responding to your questions.

Learn: What is Participant Bias? How to Detect & Avoid It

Implications of Survey Fatigue

Survey fatigue is the result of survey participants becoming tired of receiving requests for feedback on a particular topic.

The main implication is that it’s important to make sure your surveys are engaging and fun so that they don’t become boring or tedious. If you’re interested in surveying people about their views on a certain topic, then you should make sure that it’s something that the audience finds interesting.

Another implication is that if you don’t want people to get tired of participating in surveys, then you need to make sure that the questions aren’t too long or complicated. The ideal length is 10 questions or less. 

If a survey is too long, then it will be harder for participants to answer all of the questions and complete the survey within the time frame allotted by your organization.

Causes of Survey Fatigue

Survey fatigue is caused by continuous exposure to surveys, which can make you feel like there’s no reason to take them anymore. The more surveys you take, the more likely this will happen.

Survey fatigue also happens when people feel that they’re being overworked or don’t have enough time to complete all the tasks associated with surveys. For example, filling out multiple questionnaires or writing lengthy responses). Survey fatigue can also be caused by a series of questions that are redundant, or from an overabundance of questions asked in a short period of time.

Surveys can be frustratingly time-consuming, but they’re also important for research and marketing purposes. They help us understand what people care about and how they think about things. If we don’t understand those things, we’ll never be able to develop creative solutions or solutions that resonate with people on a personal level. 

Survey fatigue can be mitigated by choosing engaging questions and presenting them in an interesting way (for example, using video).

How to Reduce Survey Fatigue

There are a couple of ways to mitigate this issue. Some of them include;

• Make sure that you don’t ask the same questions over and over again 
• Have clear goals for each survey you conduct and make sure that they align with your organization’s mission
• Be transparent about how many people will be completing each survey so that they know how long it will take
• Give participants plenty of time to answer questions and consider each answer before moving on to another question
• Ensure that you’re actively communicating with respondents throughout your survey. If someone says they aren’t sure about one question or doesn’t understand something, make sure that you clarify it. You don’t want people leaving because they were confused by a question on the survey.
• If you conduct periodic surveys, switch up what you ask so that it’s not just new questions with repetitive answers.

Steps to Prevent Respondent Fatigue in Future Surveys

1. Measure The Length Of Your Survey: If you want to be sure the survey will be completed in a timely manner, give respondents enough time to answer all of the questions. The longer the survey, the more likely it will exhaust its participants.
2. Calculate The Time The Survey Requires: This will prevent anxiety among participants who may not have enough time to complete their responses.
3. Determine How Frequently You’ll Survey Your Customers: If you plan on conducting surveys frequently, make sure that you give respondents adequate time between each interview so they don’t feel rushed or pressured by having to participate more than once per week (or day). The more often you ask your customers about their needs and wants, the less likely they will want or need to complete another survey.
4. Analyze Your Questions As You Write Them: Make sure you have clear, concise questions that do not include too much jargon or long sentences. This will help you see how long each question should take and how complicated it is for the respondent to answer. 
5. Ensure Active Communication: Ensure active communication between you and your respondents by asking open-ended questions instead of yes/no or multiple choice questions. Open-ended questions require more thinking on the part of the respondent, so they’re less likely to feel tired during the survey process and less likely to skip questions because they don’t understand what they’re being asked.

Survey fatigue is a growing problem. So it’s important to understand its causes and mitigation strategies so that you can stay on top of it.

The results of a survey can be affected by the number and length of questions asked, as well as the frequency with which they are asked (e.g., daily, weekly).

Conclusion

Researchers should put the responders into consideration while curating their survey as the quality of the responses can impact the result of the survey.