Can Social Media Monitoring lead to additional Survey Sampling Bias?
I recently returned from the BAQMaR (Belgium Market Research Association) annual Conference in Ghent (http://bit.ly/18pmNXW). It was my first time there, I was honoured to be invited as a guest speaker - I was impressed, the event was innovative, interesting speakers, immaculately organised. I can recommend it.
On the trip back, I realised on arriving at Munich airport that I had left a small bag in the airplane with a few items I would miss. Enquiring of dedicated ground staff about the possibility of recovery, I was impressed at the efficiency of the operation put in place to track my missing belongings. The cleaning staff were informed of the flight, my seat, and what they should look for. After waiting a quarter of an hour, I left my contact details and set off into town, half resigned to not getting my stuff back.
I was wrong. At approximately 9.30 pm that same day, I received a phone call from the company, they had found my bag, and would send it to me free of charge. I was delighted, and wrote a tweet praising the airline for their outstanding customer service.
The next day, I received an email from the airline asking me to help them continually improve their service by completing a Customer Satisfaction Survey.
This seemed to me odd. I have flown with this carrier for decades, and never been asked to complete an online Customer Sat. Survey. Could there have been a link to my Tweet? Had Social Media Monitoring somehow picked up my comments and forwarded this to the MR sampling operation? If so - and I have no evidence to corroborate this - then surely they are introducing unwarranted bias.
My impression post-survey of the airline was unfortunately not improved. A brief outline of the experience:
too long
too many questions on aspects I have very little opinion about
an un-fun experience, with minimal gamification
flat-lining: a temptation I succumed to at least once.
When it came to the end of the survey, I was asked how the company could improve. By that time, I was no longer in such a warm frame of mind - many of the aspects that irritate me about what the company has done in the past 12 months came out; the immediately positive aspect of my recent experience was probably drowned out.
Was it a balanced view? Perhaps, but more likely not: the survey itself irritated me, prompted me to think in a negative manner, and the immediate and positive priming experience at the airport was overlaid.
What most worried me was the nagging question I still have: was there a connection between my Social Media comment (positive) and the subsequent invitation to participate in a Customer Satisfaction Survey? I hope not - but I have no way of finding out. Correlation isn't causality. However, it didn't make me more trustful of "Market Research".
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.