Covid-19 Impact on Consumer Online Surveys | Syno

Within the consumer data industry, many have wondered what effect Covid-19 has on studies around the world. In particular, researchers have seen surveys that are normally conducted offline, such as in-depth interviews or group discussions that require direct contact with survey participants, be postponed due to the risk of contact infection. Many clients may be wondering, should I postpone, cancel, or switch my studies to online?

Within the consumer data industry, many have wondered what effect Covid-19 has on studies around the world. In particular, researchers have seen surveys that are normally conducted offline, such as in-depth interviews or group discussions that require direct contact with survey participants, be postponed due to the risk of contact infection. Many clients may be wondering, should I postpone, cancel, or switch my studies to online?

Summary of Results

• There was no negative impact on the completion or dropout rate of our ten-country, quantitative tracking study. On the contrary, the completion rate was higher in all 10 regions compared to 2019. (IE, the dropout rate has decreased.)
• Since similar trends were seen in all age, gender, residence types, and other segments, it is clear that the above is not a tendency limited to a specific demographic.
• In particular, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand had a higher completion rate, over 120% year-on-year.
• In addition, while a dropout rate of over 10% was seen in all countries in the March 2019 survey, in March 2020, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, and France fell below the 10% line.
• With regards to the response rates of customer experience surveys, for those whose answers were solicited online, no negative impact was seen. IE, there was no correlation between the rise in Covid-19 infections and the number of completed responses or the dropout rate.
• However, for those CX surveys that were solicited using offline QR codes, the number of respondents tended to decrease significantly as the number of people infected with Covid-19 increased.

Syno’s Take on the Results

• It is interesting that the Covid-19 outbreak has not had an effect in online quantitative and CX surveys. Indeed, the field time required to collect our samples was no more than usual. Perhaps because people have more time on their hands, they are more open to answering online surveys. In light of this, it seems that there is no problem in terms of collecting responses when switching quantitative and qualitative surveys to online methods.
• For CX surveys, especially for those collected offline from store receipts, etc., the drop in respondents cannot be avoided considering the fall in foot-traffic to stores due to suspension of business and shortened business hours. However, as with our global tracking study, there was no effect on the response rate or dropout rate for online CX surveys using channels such as email and SNS. Because of this, it is possible to continue to understand your customers’ experiences by conducting CX surveys using online channels (for example, by targeting online buyers).

Details of our Global Research Study

Verification Method

In March 2019 and 2020, we conducted the same 10-region study (Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, US, UK, Germany, France) using the same conditions (target, survey time, duration, panel source, etc). Using these two studies, we were able to compare the response completion rate* and dropout rate** for each country.

* The completion rate is the percentage of all respondents who clicked on the survey link and answered it all the way to the end.

** The dropout rate is the percentage of all respondents who clicked on the survey link and who answered it all the way to the end verses those who discontinued the survey halfway through.