Designing a great market-research survey is a lot harder than it looks.
In a previous post, we explored 10 of the most common mistakes people make while writing surveys—from unconsciously leading respondents toward your preferred answers, to baffling them with complex questions that make them want to throw in the towel.
These kind of mistakes aren’t just annoying. Poorly designed surveys can lead to bad data, sunk costs, and misinformed decision-making.
Harris QuestDIY is a self-serve survey platform that allows users to deploy surveys in over 100 countries. You can easily build an audience to target—say, 18–25 year olds in the United States who own dogs—and begin receiving responses within minutes. (FYI, if you're interested in learning more about the software, it's as simple as requesting a demo.)
But before you send out a survey, you need to write it in a way that will solicit actionable consumer data. That’s where QuestDIY’s AI Assistant comes into play.
Many agencies and brands already have research expertise, but “the challenge,” says Gary Topiol, managing director of QuestDIY, is one of bandwidth.
“Insight teams are stretched very thinly, under pressure to inform many more business decisions, at speed, but with no reciprocal increase in their budgets. So how can you relieve some of that burden on them?”
—Gary Topiol, Managing Director, QuestDIY
Simply begin inputting questions and ask the AI Assistant to evaluate their wording.
For example, let’s say you’re conducting market research for a clothing brand that’s looking to expand its brick-and-mortar retail presence in the suburbs.
You plan to ask respondents question “Why do you visit the mall?”
QuestDIY’s AI assistant has some tweaks. First, rephrase the question as “What is your main reason for visiting the mall?” The AI can then populate your answer options, from “exercise” to “socializing” or “window shopping/browsing.”
QuestDIY’s AI Assistant is also a great way to streamline the research process if you don’t necessarily have deep knowledge of the product you’re asking about.
Take car technology. Say you want to find out what innovations drivers like best, but you’re a market researcher living in New York City and have never driven a car.
In the old days, you’d probably default to Google to start learning the basics about car tech, comparing models, and reading blogs about the latest developments in cruise control or heated seats.
Now, you can ask the AI assistant to help you create a list instead. Below, you can see the answer options QuestDIY suggested for a question regarding new automotive technologies.
“The assistant will quickly come up with options, some of which you wouldn’t have thought of yourself—and if you want more options, you can just ask,” Topiol says. “It can be a real time saver.”
If you’re staring at a blank slate and barely know where to begin, the AI Assistant can draft the whole survey from a simple text prompt.
For instance, let’s stick with our electric car example.
In the “request” field, we spell out what we’re looking for: “A survey that will investigate attitudes of Gen Z drivers in America who do not own an electric car. The goal is to discover what is preventing them from making an EV purchase, and what can be done to increase education around how EVs work and why they're good for the planet.”
Within a few moments, QuestDIY generates a 10 question survey that covers a ton of ground, and includes a mix of question types, from single-select to open ends.
Let's try it again, this time with a completely different topic and audience. Let's say we want to ask avid gamers what they're looking for in a new energy drink.
We tell the AI Assistant that we're looking to deep dip into this audience's gaming habits, in tandem with their thoughts on energy drinks. The suggested questions and answers swiftly map out the territory we should be covering in this survey.
While you would never deploy this generated survey without giving it old-fashioned human editing and oversight, you’re suddenly in a much better place.
Think of what QuestDIY’s AI Assistant serves up here as akin to a nicely researched, thoughtful survey draft pulled together by a junior colleague. The main difference? This took seconds, not days.
That’s not to say QuestDIY will swiftly replace humans doing market research jobs. “It’s a drafting tool,” Topiol adds. “It's going to make people more efficient, more effective.”
It still requires intelligent humans to oversee the process, tweak its responses and, most importantly, do the hard work of deciding what problems they need the survey to solve. (For that, Topiol says, “The best advice really is to start at the end and then work backwards.)
“QuestDIY frees up time to engage with the business and ensure that the results of the study are well understood; it leads to better decision making.”
—Gary Topiol
The platform is equally helpful as a guide for entry-level researchers or those who aren’t experienced. By modeling survey building skills and leading users step-by-step through the process, the assistant doubles as a teaching tool.
If you’d like us to show you QuestDIY in action, simply request a demo. And if you’re curious how other products within the Stagwell Marketing Cloud can change the way you work, check this out.
