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WHY Are Surveys Always Longer Than First Indicated???


Sandy21

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Why can't survey sites be honest from the get go? 95% of the time surveys are MUCH longer than indicated. Do they want to lure us in and then tell us a 5 minute survey is 28 minutes?? I back out of this ploy over and over again. Wish they wouldn't waste our time.

And sometimes it takes five minutes to see if we qualify for a supposedly five minute survey. In five more minutes we are told we don't qualify! (I won't even mention all the times that you finish a survey and then you are told that you don't qualify after the fact!. Well, I just mentioned it, sorry!) Why are we even getting surveys that we don't qualify for all the time anyway?? We fill out the profile. If we don't qualify, don't send it!

Bottom line, be honest with us from the start, survey sites. If a survey is 30 minutes long don't say it is 5 minutes! AND if we don't qualify, don't send us the survey in the first place!

(PS  Steam is coming out of my ears right now!)

 

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It's been that way for at least 15 years for me.  I was on mypoints the other day and it said it was 8 minutes.  Great, I will try that.  When I got through the usual qualifying questions and then it said it would be 15-20 minutes.  When I clicked on the link to go ahead with it, it was then 30 minutes.  It didn't change survey company, it just got longer and longer with each click.  I just x'd out of it and tried another one.

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Yes happens to me ,I get where they love to keep you going on one ,then all of the sudden they go into a brand new survey .I get so bored with some of them that it takes me longer because of being bored .I mean some of them make no sense to me .

 

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My survey calibration chart.

5 minute surveys,  8-10 minutes
10 minute surveys, 12-15 minutes
15 minute surveys 20-22 minutes
20 minute surveys, 25-30 minutes
30 minutes surveys, 40-45 minutes
Anything longer than 40 minutes,  pack a lunch. 

My rule of thumb is,  I don't do any surveys with time listed over 20 minutes.  If a survey does not list a time or a progress meter,  I do not take it. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I find progress meters are sometimes fraudulent. Move along nicely, but then crawl on seemingly forever near the very end. J.D. Power is one that does that. I quit doing theirs years ago.

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I think one of the keys is to be able to tell which surveys  are going to be able to allow you to finish in a reasonable amount of time and which ones are going to take a long time.  If the survey is asking you to provide a lot of very detailed information and the progress bar is moving very slowly in my opinion you'd be better off just Xing out and trying a different one.   After you  have done this awhile you'll be able to recognize those surveys that are going to take way too much of your time.  A couple of rules of thumb for me.  I never take a survey that is listed over 20 minutes and I never take one that doesn't have some kind of progress meter (bar),  even though can sometimes be rather inaccurate. I try to go with the kind of surveys that have worked for me in the past, one example is most Qualtrics surveys can be completed in a reasonable amount of time and there are other survey providers, through experience, I have learned that I can trust.  Don't take just any survey that comes up,  go with those that over time you have figured out that you can get though without spending an inordinate amount of time.   My bulletin board above my desk is filled with sticky notes with URLs of surveys  that have taken way too long or they have disqualified me after I have completed the survey. I just avoid those altogether.  I have a daily goal,  an amount I want to achieve and I have cultivated knowledge about which surveys will help me get there in the least amount of time and  I am going to get there whether it takes me 3 hours,  4 hours or 6,7, hours. 

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