How much do surveys really mean?

Some time ago, I took a break from blogging and articles. Like most, I got busy with interesting client work and we know that clients always come first. Then, an article about internal and external surveys and a subsequent reader comment incited a personal proverbial riot!

The article discussed the different factors influencing survey engagement and the variances between internal and external engagement. Pretty boring stuff to most, but a real page turner for me.

Then a reader dropped a comment BOMB....

"You know how much surveys really mean." 

I know I am being a bit dramatic but we, at Evantec do so much work with surveys and assessments that the comment stings a little. We spend so much time carefully crafting questions, developing user friendly technology, plan for timely distribution, conduct in-depth response analysis, and create informative summaries and reports, for what?! 

I acknowledge the hard truth - People don't like surveys! 

Drama, sensitivity and a bit of wounded ego aside...We, as survey and assessment professionals need to do better! 

Let's get to the root of the why people don't like surveys! - We already know but let's dig in!

We need to continue to gather information from our internal and external customers - but how can we do it better?

We need to know what our audiences think - can we do this without surveys?

How can we make surveys and assessments better, faster, smarter and more palatable?