Overcoming Survey Fatigue

They’re everywhere now: after every purchase, after every meal, whenever you open up an app or close an account, you see the dreaded four words pop up onto your screen: “Give Us Your Feedback.” There’s the five-star reviews, the call quality ratings (ranging from a sad face to a smiling face), the emails that ask for just two minutes of your time, and more and more, on and on, until the end of time. These days, it seems like every business on the planet wants to know what you think of them, and it can be exhausting. If you’ve found yourself fed up with polls, questionnaires, reviews, and comments, it’s time to face it: You have survey fatigue.

What Is Survey Fatigue?

Survey fatigue is just how it sounds—fatigue. There are two types of survey fatigue: pre-response fatigue and survey taking fatigue. Pre-response fatigue comes about because of the seemingly unlimited number of questionnaires thrown at us every day. If you’re getting dozens of review and feedback requests every day, chances are you’ll start to ignore most, if not all, of them. Survey taking fatigue happens in the midst of a survey, after an overwhelming bombardment of long questionnaires, difficult choices, and poor survey design. These can lead to rushing through questionnaires, giving poor answers, or just outright quitting the survey.

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone: survey fatigue is so common an experience that there have been studies investigating it. The good news is that, if you’re a member of ACOP or interested in taking surveys for money, you’re doing better than most! However, don’t think that you won’t experience survey burnout at some point. Luckily, we have some tips that should help you keep from getting sick of surveys.

Choose Surveys Sparingly

You probably do this already, but it’s good to remember: you don’t need to take every survey that you come across. Plenty may make it seem like they’ll be quick, easy, or important, but even if that is true, you have no obligation to them. As such, it’s always best to take surveys that you can get something out of: if the company is asking for your time, it’s only fair that you should get rewarded! Whether it’s a free meal with your next purchase, entry into a big sweepstakes, or cold hard cash, surveys that give you something for your time are always better than ones that don’t. You and your opinions are worth something—make sure companies know that too!

Take Breaks

Usually the better the reward, the longer the survey is: that’s just the way it is. While there may not be any way to get around that, it’s important to know you don’t have to do the entire survey in one sitting. If the 10-minute survey is dragging on to 15 or 20 minutes and you feel the brain fog starting to set in, it may be good to take a little break. Get some water, walk around the house, spend some time browsing your favorite social media. Once you feel a little more refreshed, head back and knock the rest of the questionnaire out. But don’t take too long—many surveys will reload after a long enough time, and you may lose all your progress. Generally, don’t spend more than 10 minutes away from your computer, or else you may have to start over!

Remember: It’s Not Your Fault

The most important thing to know about survey fatigue is this: it isn’t your fault. Survey fatigue is a perfectly normal thing that happens to everyone eventually. In fact, more often than not, it’s the survey-makers themselves who are usually responsible for the fatigue! Poorly designed surveys lead directly to fatigue, so it’s not your fault if you find yourself getting tired of them. Survey fatigue is an issue that market research companies must face in order to make respondents happy. Here at ACOP, we try our best to keep our surveys short and easy, to take as much of the burden off our panelists as possible, while still offering some of the best rewards around. We hope that you agree!