Downsides of Great Survey Incentives

Not long ago we shared a potential downside of having a great incentive – namely that those that receive the email may believe the incentive is “too good to be true” and not fill out the survey, even though great incentives are, in general, far more likely to lead to a high response rate. Today we’ll look at a couple of other potential downsides to offering a great incentive.

Imagine you were able to offer an iPhone as an incentive to every single one of your respondents. iPhones are valuable and highly sought after, and even those that have an iPhone already will likely enjoy receiving one either as a backup or to sell online. You offer iPhones as an incentive for filling out the survey. There is a good chance – possibly even a great chance – that those that had no motivation to fill out the survey would still complete it because the incentive is so great.

But a small subsection of those may also spend no time looking at survey questions, instead answering them at random in order to get the incentive as quickly as possible. There is no great solution for this problem – and indeed, in many ways researchers already have to worry about this phenomenon even without a great incentive – but it is still a concern that may need to be addressed. One possible solution is to require the customer spend their own money, but receive products at a hefty discount.

But this still may not be enough to prevent quick respondents from answering.

Of course, the primary reason that companies don’t offer great incentives is because they cost a great deal to the company. It should be noted, however, that the ROI of a great sample may be more than worth the cost of the incentive, but it is possible that too great of an incentive could cost the company money – especially if the response rate is high as a result. Once again there is no guaranteed solution.

You need a great incentive to get people to fill out the survey, but a great incentive costs money. Your ROI should more than cover this, but this just stresses the importance of ensuring your survey is well designed and providing you with meaningful results. Neither of these should discourage you from offering a great incentive.

But it is important to note that with every aspect of research there is a potential downside that could affect the quality of your data, and these are two more examples of how even a great incentive may be harmful.