The (Survey) Monkey On Our Back – Disruption In The Research Industry
October 23, 2015
The (Survey) Monkey On Our Back – Disruption In The Research Industry
There is currently a disruption happening in our own backyard.
No I’m not talking about someone upending a few deck chairs and knocking over your favourite garden gnome (we have a different blog post for that). I’m actually talking about the winds of change blowing through the research industry.
At BrandHook we’ve been focusing on disruption and the many ways in which it has interrupted ingrained, habitual behaviour and made huge shifts across entire industries (see Paul Dixon’s blog about Uber for example). We’ve looked upon change in these other fields in a positive light, while at the same time there’s been a big disruption swell emerging in our very own industry’s backyard.
Survey Monkey (I can hear the sighs from the researchers already) is a DIY survey platform that allows ANYONE to create, host and send surveys to anyone and everyone they like, which is according to many, circumventing the standard services of a research agency.
The company is now worth over $2billion^ and spruiks having over 20 million customers and a huge proportion of the Fortune 500 companies using their services. This kind of growth is creating a lot of nervousness and concern within the research industry, which was evident at the recent AMSRS conference where the Managing Director of Survey Monkey Australia (Tony Ward) spoke. The poor soul was entering the lion’s den, so I knew the Q&A session would be fun.
Although it wasn’t actually the bloodbath that I’d been expecting, the major point of contention was about quality. How could Survey Monkey could guarantee the quality of surveys being created by anyone with an account and no research experience? This, as a professional researcher, is a big concern and it’s understandable that the industry is concerned as well.
However like a surly taxi driver complaining about Uber drivers, the answer isn’t what Survey Monkey should be doing but what we as researchers should be doing in response. Instead of putting our collective heads in the sand or worse, waste our time attacking Survey Monkey, we need to look inward. We need to adapt, change and innovate, because unlike the taxi industry there’s not going to be any governmental assistance for the research industry.
It all comes down to ensuring that the work we do as researchers is of the highest quality to ensure that the gap between us and ‘the rest’ is as evident as possible. Prove the worth of using professional research rather than DIY and the blip in the industry may not be the disruption that is predicted.
Written by Chris