The local outlet of a large home and garden chain store wants to better understand the needs and perceptions of its customers. The general manager is attracted to the option of using an online survey (with e-mail recruitment) because it won't cost her much to implement. She prepared a fifty-seven-item questionnaire, posted it online using one of the many online survey providers, and then had several employees stay late after work one Friday night to send the following e-mail message to 100 recent customers whose e-mail addresses were in the store's customer database:
To: john.customer@provider.net
Subject: Customer Survey!
Hello. Thank you for your recent purchase at Home Stop. Please go to the following web site and complete our customer survey: www.oursurvey01.surveysmaster.net.
Thank you!
The manager was disappointed when she found that only three surveys had been completed by the middle of the following week. Evaluate her approach to data collection and offer suggestions for how to improve the response rate the next time that she chooses to do an online survey.