Last year, a friend of mine purchased a new car. She was excited, because not only did it have that new-car smell (what’s up with that?), but because it’s something she had wanted for years — and could finally get it.
But that new car excitement plummeted when she opened her mail the other day. She received a survey that “will be used to help create the next generation of products the automotive industry produces.” Really? They survey came from Maritz Research, is 9 pages long and optimistically claims it contains only 77 questions.
But in my opinion, that’s simply a lie. Because many of the questions on the survey are actually multi-part questions that require multiple answers. Not exactly a way to endear you to a potential survey taker — deception by your survey’s numbering scheme.
What do you get for filling out such a lengthy and arduous survey? In the ultimate insult to a consumer’s time, Maritz Research will give you exactly nothing for sharing your opinions with them. Instead, you will be entered into a sweepstakes that — by law — anyone can enter, regardless of whether you fill out the survey. (Sweepstake instructions are listed at the end of this entry.)
If you want to get the most biased and un-representative sample of new car owners possible, this is certainly one way of doing it.
It’s that time of the year again — the time where gift-giving is a part of many people’s holiday rituals. While we don’t think twice about buying little gifts for close friends and family, sometimes it gives us pause to consider giving a gift to our therapist. Here’s a relationship with a professional that we see once a week, and yet it is a professional relationship (even if it doesn’t always feel that way).