Article

Customer Surveys Are No Substitute for Actually Talking to Customers

Graham Kenny · Harvard Business Review Freemium Intermediate

This article names the specific ways a survey misleads you: people rush through it, answer the way that feels acceptable rather than true, and never get a follow up question when their answer is confusing. It is the clearest short case for why surveys are a trap at the start, written for a general business audience, which makes it a good one to send a co-founder who still wants to skip the calls.

• Rushed survey responses are low quality data dressed up as a clean number.
• Social desirability bias means people answer surveys the way they want to be seen, not how they feel.
• A dozen real conversations usually beat a survey for understanding why, not just what.