Ring! Ring! And remember
the 12-minute rule!
People are busy these days. Although participating in a survey
can be a lot of fun, it’s sometimes difficult to convince people to
give you a moment of their time. It helps to remember the 12-minute rule.
The 12-minute rule means that no survey should take more than 12 minutes of
someone’s time, and you can tell them exactly that. Depending on how
much thinking needs to go into answering each of your questions, the 12-minute
rule generally equates to about 30 questions. As a guideline, think in terms
of 2.5 questions per minute for a total of 30 questions.
There are exceptions to the 12-minute rule. When surveying users of a service,
such as former hospital patients or homebuyers, the rule can be relaxed a
bit. Often respondents of this type are more willing to spend a little longer
on the phone with interviewers. But, we caution that this exception should
not be abused. While it’s important to get the information you need,
it’s always better to keep telephone interviews as short as possible.
Before starting a project, we always ask what four of five things must be known
at the end of the survey. By prioritizing what is most important, we avoid
making side trips to cover extraneous material and are better able to focus
on sticking to the 12-minute rule. ‡
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