If you are considering a new product launch or other significant change at your business, do not, please do not conduct a survey.

Surveys are pretty close to useless.

If you ask “would like to see our product in purple?”, you will get more positive than negative responses. You likely will never sell a purple model of your product. 

Why?

It’s easy to say, “yes, show me one in purple.” There is no commitment to buy. So why not say yes?

And if you ask for approval such as, “are you happy with our service?”, you will get a lot of negative answers because of what is called the “negative response bias”. People who are upset are more likely to take the time to complain than those who are satisfied.

You can’t win. So don’t waste your time. You’ll end up creating some item nobody wants (New Coke?) or having your feelings hurt by 70% of respondents being unhappy with you in some way.

Have you noticed that political polls have become about as accurate as weather prediction? Remember the presidential election? Every primary was a ‘surprise’. Just shows that even ‘scientifically’ conducted polls are flawed.

Save your time and don’t waste your money.

Chris Reich