Consumer Survey Data

What Is Consumer Survey Data?

Consumer survey data is the collection of answers to survey questions on a range of topics.

Where Does Consumer Survey Data Come From?

Companies may craft their own surveys or they may use questionnaires provided by third parties. They issue surveys to both existing customers and to the general population. Companies find respondents in the general population through online and physical communities and social media sites.

Companies distribute these surveys by email, on their websites, or via SMS. If they have physical stores, they can also leave paper surveys there for customers to complete.

Alternatively—and less often nowadays—organizations may hire interviewers to conduct phone or face-to-face interviews or to mediate focus groups.

These focus groups, while not technically surveys, answer much the same questions. Further, they consist of people that match the target audience in demographics or lifestyle.

What Types of Columns/Attributes Should I Expect When Working with This Data?

Consumer surveys generally come in three types: customer satisfaction, customer experiences, and VoC (voice of customer)—the last of which asks lifestyle and psychographic questions.

They divide respondents by demographics or custom segments (such as existing customer, repeat customer, target audience). They also often divide respondents into geographic location segments.

The most common survey type is the satisfaction survey, which divides answers into either three or six options. These are positive, neutral, or negative or very positive, positive, neutral, negative, or very negative.

Experience, voice of customer, and other surveys include data about desired features of a product, customer budget, who makes most purchasing decisions in the household, and so on.

What Is This Data Used For?

The primary purpose of this data is to improve company growth by measuring customer satisfaction. Companies can then use the information to strategize how to improve.

Companies’ secondary purpose is conduct market and audience research. Additionally, companies can identify dissatisfied former customers in order to bring them back into the fold.

How Should I Test the Quality of Consumer Survey Data?

If you choose to create your own survey template or adapt an existing template to your needs, first research how to formulate questions and how to sample a large and representative audience. A good resource would be the European Commission: The Joint Harmonised EU programme of Business and Consumer Surveys. This resource also goes into some detail about determining whether you should weigh your survey responses and, if so, how.

Interesting Case Studies and Blogs to Look Into

QuestionPro: Consumer Survey: Questions, Templates, Definition with Examples
QuestionPro: National Health Insurance Bahamas case study

Tangible Examples of Impact

According to a new national survey the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies (ASOP Global) commissioned from Abacus Data, the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating an already growing trend toward the digitalization of the healthcare industry, including increased utilization of telemedicine and the purchase of medications online. Yet, a majority of Americans do not understand the prevalence of illegal online pharmacies or their inherent dangers, putting their health at risk.

PR Newswire: New Survey Reveals Dangerous Disconnect in American Perceptions of Online Pharmacies