Handling Private Questions

Much of market research deals with topics that can be asked easily in conversation. Rarely does a market researcher need to know about something truly private to the consumer, so issues of privacy and sensitivity – while important – are not necessarily something that most market researchers need to deal with on a regular basis. But when you do need to ask anything that can be remotely seen as a personal question, developing your survey becomes a little more difficult. You cannot simply ask the question right away without developing a strategy for creating rapport with the respondent.

Privacy Before the respondent even takes the survey, and at least once in the survey itself, you need to make sure the respondent knows that their privacy is going to be protected. In today’s spam right world, very few people are going to trust a company that asks for personal information without guaranteeing their security in a way that leaves them confident that their data is protected. Easy Questions First Unless you need to, you do not want to quickly break into the most personal questions right away.

Make sure that you have some basic questions that won’t intimidate your sample into quitting the survey too early. If you start out with the most personal questions first, you run the risk of making your survey appear too personal, causing people to quit or provide you with censored answers. Write an Introduction When you are going to deal with personal questions, you should have an introduction that re-assures them that their information is not only private, but also not mandatory.

You should never force your respondents to answer questions too personal to them, and you should let them know that they have the option of skipping a personal question at any time if they are uncomfortable answering it.

Most market research surveys do not need to ask personal questions, allowing you to easily avoid worrying about whether or not your questions are too sensitive for your sample to answer. But when you are going to ask private questions, you need to make sure you handle them the right way. Mishandle the private data and your respondents are going to be upset. Use the above tips to ensure that you get the best responses.