Many companies conduct surveys to gauge customer satisfaction with their products and understand customer
needs
.
However, many people may feel that in order to obtain high-quality answers, it takes work and expenses such as analyzing the collected information and receiving rewards for the questionnaire.
In order to solve this problem, conducting a screening survey before conducting the actual survey is an effective method, but many people seem to be worried about “What is a screening survey?” and “How should I conduct it?” .
In this article, we will explain the screening survey, as well as points to note when actually proceeding with it, and practical examples.
What is a screening survey?
A screening survey, also known as a pre-survey, is a preliminary survey conducted to select survey targets.
The meaning of “screening” comes from the English word “screening,” and when you look up its meaning, it says “sifting, examination, preliminary selection, aptitude examination.”
Screening is a preliminary examination of a certain matter, so if you want to understand
the marketing
term screening survey, it would be best to think of it as a “preliminary survey conducted before the actual survey.”
For example, let’s say you want to use a survey to find out why 30-year-old programmers with an annual income of less than 4 million yen change jobs.
If the respondents to the survey are in their 20s or work in sales, the data you originally wanted to collect will be different, and the survey will lose its meaning. In order to avoid such situations, a screening survey is a survey to select the subjects to be surveyed in advance.
Benefits of conducting a screening survey
There are two advantages to conducting a screening survey.
I will explain them in order.
The quality of the actual survey will improve
By conducting a screening survey, you can conduct the survey to the appropriate target and obtain high-quality survey results.
If you conduct a survey widely to a general audience, not only will there be a large number of participants, but you will also be likely to collect unnecessary information from people other than the people you really want to target.
It takes a considerable amount of time to extract and select only the necessary information from many responses, so if you remove unnecessary subjects in advance, you can shorten the time required for analysis.
In addition, by narrowing down the survey targets, you can improve the quality of the survey itself by allowing you to ask exactly the questions you need. In this way, conducting a screening survey will improve the quality of the actual survey.
Expected to reduce overall survey costs
In surveys, you will often be compensated in order to get your subjects to use their valuable time to respond. Generally, fees are determined based on the time it takes to complete the survey, so costs are expected to increase depending on the time it takes to complete the survey.
If you conduct a survey without conducting a screening survey, you tend to increase the number of questions or create questions that take time to answer in order to collect the necessary information accurately. As a result, compensation to survey respondents increases and the cost of survey fees increases.
By conducting a screening survey, you can start by completing a simple questionnaire that only takes a few minutes to find your favorite research subjects.
Then, by requesting detailed questionnaires from only your target audience, you can reduce the number of respondents to time-consuming questionnaires, thereby reducing overall reward costs. Another advantage of screening surveys is that they can reduce overall costs.
Disadvantages of conducting screening surveys
There are two disadvantages to conducting screening surveys:
I will explain each.
Increased possibility of survey dropouts
By conducting a screening survey, you will be conducting two surveys together with the actual survey. Even if they cooperate with the first survey, there will be a certain number of people who will find it troublesome and will not cooperate with the next survey.
If you can expect high-quality results from the first survey, conducting the survey without conducting a screening survey will ensure more respondents and gather a larger sample.
A disadvantage of conducting a screening survey is that it increases the possibility that some people will drop out of the survey.
Costs may increase
As a result of the screening survey, if more people are found to be targeted for the actual survey than expected, the cost of remuneration to those targeted for the actual survey will increase, leading to an increase in costs.
On the other hand, if the screening survey is not appropriate and the expected number of survey respondents cannot be found, the screening survey will have to be redone, resulting in additional costs.
In either case, conducting a screening survey will increase costs and put pressure on the budget, which is a disadvantage.
What is important in screening surveys?
Up to this point, we have provided an overview of the screening survey. From here, we will explain the important points in the screening survey.
Enable to secure the correct sample size to accurately identify the relevant person
When conducting a screening survey, it is important to keep in mind the actual survey and whether you will be able to gather enough respondents.
Since the screening survey is a preliminary survey, the number of subjects for the actual survey will be determined based on the analysis results of the screening survey.
Not all people targeted for the actual survey will respond to the survey. To this end, it is necessary to consider from the screening survey stage whether a sufficient number of questionnaire responses will be collected.
For example, suppose you want to collect responses from 30 people to a real survey. In the above case, 30 or more subjects must be gathered at the time of screening survey results.
It depends on what response rate you assume to the survey, but if the response rate is 70%, you would have to send the actual survey to 43 or more people to collect responses from 30 people. .
In this way, when conducting a screening survey, it is important to carefully consider conditions such as how large the survey will be conducted, taking into account the number of responses required in the actual survey.
Is a reward necessary for screening surveys?
Even in screening surveys, it should be considered necessary to reward survey participants. The survey participants volunteered their time from their own lives.
Since such valuable time is taken up, it is necessary to reward participants commensurate with the time it takes to answer the survey, in order to increase their motivation to respond.
However, the reward is not directly related to money, but some people cooperate with the survey for experience-based reasons such as “I was able to help a company I like” or “I enjoyed answering the survey itself.”
Consider how you would like to thank the person who participated in the survey, taking into consideration the relationship of trust you have with the person who participated in the survey.
What should I not do or be careful about during screening surveys?
There are two main things that are important in screening surveys.
I will explain each.
Avoid questions that can infer who the target of this survey is.
If the target audience of the actual survey can be guessed, the quality of the survey response results will deteriorate as some people will give different answers in order to get a reward.
This is because reward-motivated respondents are more likely to give non-factual answers for compensation, even if they are not actually using the product.
Such answers will diminish the meaning of the survey. To ensure the quality of the actual survey, avoid questions that allow you to guess the target of the actual survey.
Refrain from asking questions that are not related to identifying the target audience.
If the number of questions unrelated to target identification increases in the actual survey, unnecessary information will increase and the work cost for analysis will increase.
For example, let’s say you’re looking into the reasons why programmers in their 30s with annual incomes of less than 4 million yen change jobs, and you ask them about the types of programming languages they use for development.
The type of programming language used for development is, in most cases, information that has nothing to do with the reason for changing jobs, so the addition of unnecessary information about the language used requires unnecessary analysis work. .
For survey respondents, meaningless questions can cause frustration by increasing response time, so avoid asking questions that are not related to target identification.
Examples of screening surveys
We will explain specific examples of screening surveys. Here, we will conduct a screening survey with the purpose of investigating “Reasons for changing jobs among programmers in their 30s and office workers with an annual income of 4 million yen or less” in the actual questionnaire survey.
Additionally, the scope of the survey will be limited to employees working at IT companies.
1.Please tell us your age.
- 20s
- 30s
- 40s
- 50s
- Over 60s
- Not answered
2. Please select the one that applies to your work. (Multiple answers possible)
- programmer
- system engineer
- help support
- infrastructure design
- operation and maintenance
- others
3.What is your current annual income?
- 1.99 million yen or less
- 2 million to 3 million yen
- 3 million to 4 million yen
- 4 million to 5 million yen
- 5 million yen or more
4.Are you thinking about increasing your annual income? (Multiple answers possible)
- Assigned to work in charge of upstream processes
- Improve your skills by acquiring qualifications
- do a side job
- Career advancement by changing jobs
In the example above, only questions were asked with the purpose of finding the target audience for the actual survey.
Additionally, since asking directly about changing jobs might lead to people guessing the actual survey, we asked roundabout questions such as whether they were thinking of ways to increase their income. In this way, conduct a screening survey to collect only the information that will narrow down the target of the actual survey.
Other points to be aware of during screening surveys
Here are three other points to keep in mind during the screening survey.
I will explain them in order.
Value your survey participants
Surveys are only possible because of the people who cooperate with the survey, so it is important to value them. Even though it is a screening survey, be sure to pay close attention to individual privacy and build a relationship of trust with your survey participants.
For example, even if you want to confirm the gender of a question, consideration must be given to the participants, such as providing an option such as “Do not answer” in consideration of those who do not wish to answer.
Your survey participants are taking time out of their lives to cooperate with you, so please be grateful and respect their wishes.
Conduct internet research in keeping with the times
When conducting an Internet survey, it is necessary to be aware of the devices that can be used to respond and conduct the survey in a manner that is appropriate to the times.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications’ “Trends in the Use of ICT Services in the Information and Communications White Paper 2021 Edition”, 86.8% of households own information and communication devices, and 86.8% of households own smartphones and 70.1% of computers.
Looking at the data above, you can see that many people are already using the Internet on smartphones, but they are also continuing to use computers, which they have been familiar with for many years.
As this trend changes from year to year, it is important to conduct surveys to create a device environment that is easy for respondents to use in accordance with the times.
Create a survey with the response load in mind
A screening survey is a preliminary survey conducted before the actual survey. The purpose of the survey is to accurately screen the subjects for the actual survey, so be careful not to exhaust the survey participants at the screening stage.
Since this is a preliminary survey, I think the compensation for participants will be set at a low level. If you ask too many questions or use a lot of free-text questions that are costly, it will increase the burden on respondents and lead to them leaving.
Be aware of the burden of answering and be careful not to inadvertently increase the number of questions.
summary
In this article, we have explained the screening survey, as well as points to note when actually proceeding with it, and examples. By conducting a screening survey, you can narrow down the target audience for the actual survey and obtain high-quality responses.
In addition, by conducting targeted questionnaires, screening surveys can help reduce costs associated with analyzing the collected information and fees for the questionnaires themselves.
If you have any issues with conducting the above-mentioned surveys, please consider conducting a screening survey by referring to the contents of this article.