Respondents Are People Too: A Conversation with Lorin Drake of Publix

What do car dealership surveys, goldfish, and chatbots have in common? They all come up in this episode of Intellicast, where Brian and Mary sit down with Lorin Drake, a Consumer Insights Strategist at Publix, to discuss all things respondent experience. It is a refreshingly honest discussion about what’s broken in the world of survey design—and how to potentially fix it.

The episode begins with Lorin delving into his background, explaining how he got into market research and ultimately ended up at Publix. Lorin then shares highlights from his IIeX presentation, “Surveys are Dead, Long Live Surveys.”

This leads into a larger conversation about how improving the respondent experience can improve data quality. Lorin lays out a path forward, including short LOIs, gamified surveys, more engaging question types, and additional features – all of which contribute to a more human-centric approach to data collection.

A few key takeaways:

• Survey fatigue is real: Response rates are falling, especially for surveys over 10 minutes. Completion rates have dropped as much as 13 points in the past decade.
• We’re losing the attention war: The average human attention span has fallen to 8 seconds—shorter than a goldfish. If your survey can’t compete with TikTok, it won’t survive.
• Gamification works: Lauren highlights a study where a visually enhanced survey took longer to complete but was perceived as shorter and far more enjoyable.
• Chatbots show promise: Compared to traditional surveys, AI-driven conversational surveys yielded higher completion rates, longer engagement times, and richer open-ended responses.
• Brands must lead the change: As Lorin puts it, “Would you take your own survey?” If not, don’t expect respondents to do it for you. The push for better experiences must start with the people funding the research.

Don’t miss this one if you care about data quality, respondent fatigue, or fixing bloated, boring surveys.

You can connect with Lorin on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorindrake/

Thanks for listening!

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