Extreme Survey Responses

Often companies use customers to make business decisions. These companies poll consumers about their wants and needs, decide on how to best address those needs, survey those ideas with the public, see which one polls best, and put that one into action. The practice of collecting averages is common, and an extremely useful part of research. It's not just a matter of "wisdom of the crowds" – it is also that the higher averaged items, the more likely a large percentage of people are going to respond well to the changes.

Of course, you have all of this data, and simply looking at averages may be causing you to miss out on something interesting and important. Customer research is designed not only to improve revenue, but also to reduce the loss of revenue. So rather than simply looking at averages, your company may also benefit from looking at the percentage of people that are strongly opposed.

If you have two near-identical averages, except that one slightly out-edges the other, but you find that the one with the better numbers has a higher percentage of those that are strongly opposed of the idea, you may find that initiating that idea is actually worse for your company, because it will have a stronger reaction by those that opposite it. Similarly, if you find that something averages lower, but you notice that it has a higher percentage of "strongly support," (or whatever the equivalent may be in your survey), it's possible that that idea is worth looking into as well. People often dislike change, so even the best ideas may get only a mild response at first, but if people that like the idea have stronger feelings for it than a different idea that is more well liked on average, but not with the extreme responses, there is a chance that the former idea is actually the one to pursue.

Without knowing your specific survey or what it includes, it is difficult to know if the extreme answers are indicative of anything. But there is a strong possibility that extreme responses are actually more telling of what your business needs to do – and it is possible that the extreme responses are showing you interesting information. While you should look at averages, pay close attention to extreme responses as well, and see if there are anything worth exploring.