Whenever we go on a trip, we get emailed a flood of surveys about how was every aspect of the journey. Each leg of the journey has a survey, so in individual surveys, we get asked about the parking lot shuttle, airport experience, Clear checkpoint, our flight (from the online check-in, bag drop, boarding, in-flight experience and baggage claim), hotel, rental car, restaurants, shows, tours, and anything else we did while away from home.
I’ll usually start getting these emails while we’re still on vacation, and the last thing I’m going to do while away is answer a bunch of questions. I’ll usually save them in my mailbox and have good intentions about answering them when I get home. However, several things keep me from completing these surveys. They take too long to complete, ask too many questions, and are poorly designed, repetitive and flat-out annoying.
What Makes A Bad Survey?
I’d say that the number one thing that makes me close the window on a survey is if it takes too long to complete. How much of your time do you want to invest in this project? I give them a few minutes at best. By then, the company should know if I was satisfied or not.
I understand that a company wants to “dig down” and see what customers like and dislike. However, there’s a thing called overkill, and some surveys go into way too much detail.
For example, have you ever completed a hotel survey asking which amenities you used during your stay? If you say you ate at the hotel restaurant, the next page will be another list asking which meals you ate there. Then, you’ll go to another series of pages asking about each meal in painstaking detail. If you give any items a great or terrible rating, you’ll have to type what you liked or disliked. And don’t think about leaving the field blank. You need to complete each one to advance to the next page.
I’ll also add that I dislike surveys that ask separately about every possible option. Take an airline survey, for example. You have to say if you used the online check-in (and if you used a computer, mobile browser or app), skycap service, self bag-tag kiosk, airline counter, airport service desk, branded lounge, and that’s just the questions about everything before the flight. I will log out if I get asked about every part of the in-flight experience.
What’s A Good Survey
Here’s a survey for the travel insurance we purchased for our cruise on Virgin Voyages (And yes, you shouldpurchase travel insurance when leaving the US). This survey took less than a minute to complete. However, there were additional boxes at the bottom of the page where you could type comments and a place to say if you wanted to be contacted by a customer service representative.
This survey was from Insuremytrip.com, which is one of the websites I use to shop for travel insurance.
I received another email from a hotel, which was more to the point.
If you click on a number, it takes you to a longer survey. But even if you don’t fill that out, they’ll still have an idea if you loved your stay or hated it.
When Is A Longer Survey OK?
I’m OK with taking a longer survey if it’s warranted. When we go on our Adventure by Disney vacations, we receive a lengthy survey that covers different aspects of the trips from our guides, hotels, activities and transportation. When I’ve paid that much for a vacation, I want the company to know what I liked and what I didn’t. I think that survey took 10+ minutes to complete, but that’s fine for a 12-night trip visiting 3 countries.
Final Thought
While I have good intentions when it comes to filling out surveys after a trip, I have little patience for the ones that take too much time to complete. I’ll usually end up deleting the emails after a week or two because what do I really have to say about a flight to New York on Delta or a one-night stay at a Holiday Inn Express?
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