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Response Bias Strikes Again

Posted on January 10, 2012 , by Steve Bernstein
CATEGORIES: Loyalty Research

Great article here in VentureBeat, Why the Internet was wrong about Ron Paul.  We’ve written many times in the past about how response bias — only looking at survey results from people that respond to your survey — skews customer feedback results (most recently here:  Net Promoter & Statistics: When Accuracy Goes Haywire, and 5 Ways to Proceed).

 “Paul dominates positive tweets in an atmosphere that is incredibly negative,” said David Rothschild, a Yahoo researcher focusing on event prediction and individual behavior.
“But,” he continued, “tweets originate from an unrepresentative segment of the electorate who can ‘vote’ many, many times… These are not representative samples of the relevant electorate.”

Ever wonder why your company’s financial performance may not be as strong as the marketing hype around your “customer satisfication” would lead you to conclude?  Pay attention to who ISN’T responding:  there’s gold in understanding who’s engaged with you… and who isn’t.