It has been proven that offering an incentive significantly increases response rates in many customer surveys. It is also proven that prepaid incentives are more effective than promised incentives. We like to tout our ability to help market researchers offer prepaid rewards that provide instant gratification to survey participants. How do we do it? With cutting-edge technology.
It’s always nice to come across an article that supports our argument and shows we are part of a growing trend. Jason Hreha, from Big Think, writes about how instant gratification is one of the biggest trends in technology. The reason being, because it reduces uncertainty.
How does Instant Gratification Work?
It does this primarily by speeding up processes, making what used to take days, weeks, or months take hours or minutes. With new methods of agriculture, we can grow crops in off-seasons, allowing us to, in practice, travel ahead a few months. We can make trips in hours that once took us weeks or years with automobiles and airplanes. Then with services like Uber and Instacart, we can compress daily tasks into a fraction of the time they took before. These new kinds of products, in which a user can press a button and instantly herald something into the world, are what I call “Instant Gratification Technologies.” They let us get what we want right away.
Instant Gratification Technologies
With BloomThat, you can have flowers delivered to a loved one within hours. Shyp, allows you to send off a package within minutes. Spoonrocket makes it so that you can have a hot meal at your doorstep in minutes. Tinder enables you to introduce yourself to two or three people within seconds. All of these products take a part of life that used to require a bit of effort and patience and make it easy and nearly instantaneous. In most cases, the price increase for these conveniences is low enough that the time and effort advantages more than outweigh the marginal monetary costs.
In the quest to build committed users, many of these companies are likely losing money on each transaction while still providing us with compelling and even addicting experiences. After getting nearly free delivery with services like Instacart and Google Shopping Express, it will be hard to go back to the old car-and-shopping-cart routine. When that occurs and operational efficiencies have been realized, it’s not hard to imagine that instant gratification will be the norm in most of our areas of life. All the way from shopping to shipping to sharing. This is one of the main trends I see going forward.
The New Norm
At one point in time, getting food cooked by someone else and delivered to you was an absurd fantasy. Today, it’s common for people from almost every socioeconomic bracket to experience this once-rare luxury. Likely in the form of pizza, Chinese food, etc. Grocery delivery, packages pick up and shipping, and on-demand-drivers are a common luxury that will transform into a new norm. If you can think of an area of life that requires a lot of time and effort and grunt work, you can think of a new company that will emerge in the coming decades. However, this company will likely interface with you through a phone or some other wearable. Additionally, it will allow you to fulfill your momentary whims and current desires at a reasonable cost.
While it’s easy to picket and pillage in the face of change, it’s even easier to sit back, take out your phone, and hail a cab. The path of least resistance is where we always flow. In this case, it will take us into a new world! One where the wait is short and the gratification is instant.
Survey Participants Don’t Like to Wait
When market researchers partner with us, survey participants don’t have to wait for their incentive. Rewards embedded in surveys, let respondents cash in on their reward immediately. Ordering is fast and easy using either the Virtual Incentives API or the online shopping portal, The Buyer Zone. Researchers can leave inventory management to Virtual Incentives, and superior data and security practices offer peace of mind.
How can Virtual Incentives’ technology help you with your next survey?