Better Intelligence, Better Strategy, Better Win Rate
Four Ways to Eliminate Bias in Your Surveys
and Interviews
Demonstrating the value of your products and services in a way that resonates with your buyers is the
difference between winning and losing, between developing a trusted partnership or just being another vendor. To do this effectively, you need to know and understand your buyers, their business drivers, your competitors, and the key performance indicators essential to building valuable relationships.
Surveying and phone interviews are proven methods for understanding and analyzing your buyers
and their respective industries. But the information gathered from these surveys and interviews needs
to be based on solid research methodologies.
At Primary Intelligence, we’ve had years to fine-tune our research methodologies. Here are four ways
we’ve found to prevent bias during the survey or interview process.
1) Use a disinterested third party. Having a professional external organization administer your
surveys and conduct interviews makes respondents feel more comfortable in answering questions about their experience with your organization since the third-party company has nothing
to gain or lose from their responses. A third-party is also less likely to ask questions and supply
answers with inherent bias – bias you may not even be aware of.
2) Choose the right wording. Keep the wording in your questions as neutral but as detailed as
possible. When asking questions that measure opinion, people are influenced by the wording of
a question and their perceptions can be partial when they are provided with a reference point or
anchor (known as deliberate bias). People are apt to stay close to the anchor because of either
having limited awareness about the topic or being diverted by the anchor.
Biased Question: ABC Inc. is noted for its renowned payroll and tax services. What specific
features or aspects of ABC Inc.’s solutions did you feel were particularly stronger than the other
vendors you evaluated?
Unbiased Question: What specific features or aspects of ABC Inc.’s solutions did you feel
were stronger than the other vendors you evaluated?
Another way to eliminate bias in wording is to avoid unnecessary complexity such as double
negatives and double-barreled questions (covering more than one issue when only one response can be provided).
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3) Avoid filtering. Filtering happens when certain options such as “undecided” or “don’t know” are
not included in the list of possible answers. Your respondent may not have a definitive opinion
on the question to answer it properly. By removing filtering, you will avoid respondents choosing
an option simply because they had no other choice.
4) Randomize your answer options. For multi-select, single select, and other quantitative questions, the order of the questions and their applicable answer options can change your results.
Randomize the answer options in your surveys and interviews to improve the integrity of your
data by removing order and reducing survey fatigue. For example, some respondents may
choose the last option simply because it is the last item they read. Other times, especially with
long surveys, respondents may select the first option and ignore the rest.
Respondent A could see:
While Respondent B could see:
And Respondent C could see:
5. Why did you select ABC Inc.? 5. Why did you select ABC Inc.? 5. Why did you select ABC Inc.?
• Reputation
• Best Value
• Product Features/
• Breadth of Services Offered
• Ease of Use
Functionality
•P
roduct Features/
• Breadth of Services Offered
• Breadth of Services Offered
Functionality
• Product Features/
• Reputation
• Ease of Use
Functionality
• Best Value
• Best Value
• Reputation
• Ease of Use
By eliminating bias in your surveys, you will collect the pertinent data you need and get the
voice of your solution to meet up with the voice of your buyer.
How does Primary Intelligence use these principles in our research process?
Use a disinterested third party
Choose the right wording
Avoid filtering
Randomize your answer options
We conduct phone interviews and surveys on behalf of our clients.
We specialize in win loss and customer experience analysis and
have proven research methodologies. We’ve conducted thousands of interviews over 13 years and know how to format questions, ask questions, and probe for insights.
We always include Don’t know, Unsure, Refused, None, and
Other (please specify) when applicable and provide the largest
span of answers possible.
Our decision and experience driver questions, which ask buyers
to identify and rate influencers, show answer options in a random
order for each web survey.
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801-838-9600 • primary-intel.com • [email protected]