In-House Surveys vs. Outsourcing

Often, when calculating the cost to conduct surveys within their own company, managers do not account for a few key measurable expenses such as office space and other peripheral work necessities, telephone, reporting, survey management and, finally, the cost of poor quality. Just as important are the pitfalls to in-house surveying that don’t show up on the expense spreadsheet but which have a probable and undesirable affect on the actionability of the data being collected.
Before we answer the question directly, we need to address the assumption that doing surveys in-house is less expensive. Often, when calculating the cost to conduct surveys within their own company, managers do not account for a few key measurable expenses such as office space and other peripheral work necessities, telephone, reporting, survey management and, finally, the cost of poor quality. Just as important are the pitfalls to in-house surveying that don’t show up on the expense spreadsheet but which have a probable and undesirable affect on the actionability of the data being collected.
 
The Hidden Factory
Often overlooked with in-house survey programs is the cost of office space. To achieve any kind of statistical validity in survey results, an ample amount of staff is needed. These interviewers will not only require a quiet work area, but other materials used throughout the course of conducting surveys: computers, telephones and other hardware, spreadsheet or database programs and other software, writing materials, survey training/reference documentation, dictionaries, etc.
 
When tallying staff time, managers must also be sure to include non-productive time such as breaks (scheduled or unscheduled) into their equations. They must also not forget any other costs associated with people (human resources, benefits, QA, etc).
Accounting for these and any other “peripheral” elements is necessary in your in-house survey valuation. 
 
Many of the managers we have spoken to do not include the cost of telephone usage in their in-house survey budget. To properly do this, add up the total amount of telephone time used for all calls launched (whether they be calls that glean completed interviews or the 20-to-45-second calls that result in reschedules, answering machines, privacy managers or abandons). Multiply this number by your per-minute telephone cost and you have accounted for a key variable expense in conducting telesurveys in-house.
 
Other important functions that are sometimes overlooked by managers are day-to-day survey management, maintenance and reporting.
 
In our experience, most companies do not use a CATI interface or auto-dialer for their in-house surveying. Instead, a staff member dials customers randomly and keys responses into a spreadsheet, or some other database file. There is seldom the time or capability to build in the requisite data controls that prevent keystroke error and skip logic errors (navigational errors that result in asking the wrong question, or worse, accidentally skipping a question). A flexible CATI system accomplishes both of these tasks, and does so in the background with as little manual input by the interviewer as possible.
 
Without these real-time controls, time and effort must be taken after-the-fact to clean up errors in the data. Unfortunately, some errors are difficult or impossible to correct—if an interviewer skips a question, you have the option to live with the missing data or call the customer back. The prospect of calling a customer back a second time and appearing to run a disorganized survey process is unappealing to most.
 
If quotas are involved (groups such as regions, managers, agents, etc. that you want to target a certain number of surveys for), there is inevitably some dial management required. Not only must care be taken to ensure quotas are being met for each subgroup, but that surveys are executed in a randomized fashion. Calling in a non-random order creates the danger of biasing survey results. A predictive auto-dialer will eliminate this danger with maximum efficiency.
 
Finally, unless the in-house survey interviewer is exclusively assigned to administration of the telesurvey, there is risk of not meeting targets during a work period that is busier than usual.
 
Reporting, in our experience, is an area where there is much time-saving opportunity. Once the data is collected, validated, cleaned of errors such as open-end typos, and input into a database application that one can easily query against, it must then be summarized for reporting purposes. A survey company, having conducted telesurveys and all associated processes for years, has likely run into 99.9% of any reporting challenges the in-house team will eventually run into. A good survey company will be able to not only meet reporting requirements but improve on speed (time-to-delivery) and quality. We have taken over reports from customers that took hours if not days to generate and were able to turn them around in minutes.
 
Problems Downstream
In addition to overlooking expenses, there exist potentially more disastrous issues that involve the actionability of the data.
 
By assigning a staff member to an in-house survey process, the independence of the research may be lost. It is critical to any survey process that the users of the information trust that the data has been collected in an accurate, unbiased, and dispassionate manner. This trust is sometimes compromised when a staff member is used to conduct the interview. A high number of keystroke or skip logic errors, and non-random dialing are a few examples of things that may compromise buy-in from end users. As mistakes build up and are apparent to the people being measured, their investment in the process decreases.
 
An uncomfortable reality is that the accuracy of the in-house survey data is at times intentionally compromised. In some cases, we have spoken to clients who admit that respondents in their in-house survey process were selected in a non-random way (for example, where only the “good” scores are collected) thus introducing selection bias. Data may also be directly manipulated by pushing the respondent toward an answer, recording a positive response when the customer gave a negative one, etc. These all produce data fraught with inaccuracy. An independent interviewer has no other motivation but to collect accurate survey data.
 
We should note that the “sabotage” described above does not happen 100% of the time, but certainly enough to be a concern. A professional telesurvey firm will eliminate this risk through selection and training of interviewers, constant on-the-floor monitoring, bias analysis with appropriate statistical techniques, and through the use of sophisticated technology that will allow for the minimum amount of interviewer “touching” of the data.
 
Without accuracy in the results, there is a much larger cost to surveying and that is the cost of not having actionable customer feedback. Inaccurate results cannot be used with any semblance of reliability to improve your business processes.
 
If you are a company that employs Six Sigma, ISO or another standard/method for certification and process improvement, telesurveys conducted by a professional, independent third party are an excellent solution. We have worked with many customers, for instance, that have used our survey data for both the Voice of the Customer component to their Six Sigma projects, as well as for tracking consequential metrics, or for measuring supplemental and primary performance metrics.
 
A good survey company will also provide you with analytical assistance that is appropriate for the type of data being collected. We have worked with many certified Six Sigma Black Belts and Master Black Belts in interpreting survey results – although all good Six Sigma programs have robust analytical curricula, there is still a learning curve when it comes to interpreting survey data the right way. A good survey company will help in this function.
 
In the end, whether it is more expensive to hire an independent company to conduct a survey than doing it in-house really depends on the specifics surrounding the in-house interviewer’s salary and benefits, his or her capabilities, your company’s telephone costs, time used in generating reports, etc. The pitfalls of in-house surveying, however, may be more costly than one can calculate on a variable expense sheet. Outsourcing the survey function to a reliable supplier can have very tangible benefits downstream when it comes to improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, thereby fattening up your bottom line. Fortunately, not only is it important to ask a telesurvey company to show you what they can offer, but it is also free.

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