Surveying during Pandemic (COVID-19 effect on scores and response rates)

Bruce Temkin had a great blog post a few weeks ago with recommendations on adjusting a CX program during the COVID-19 crisis: https://www.qualtrics.com/blog/cx-program-covid-19/.
There are also a collection of additional posts on the https://experiencematters.blog/ that provide additional guidance!

Karvida Thanks very much -- my organization just completed an initial survey based on the Qualtrics pandemic pulse survey model. (Being a part of a U.S. federal agency, we had to make considerable edits to the survey to suit our population. We can't ask questions that seem to set expectations about any new benefits, etc. that people could receive, and we were asked not to refer directly to COVID, although a number of respondents did so when asked to elaborate on their responses.) We had a decent response rate of just under 40 percent.
The topline findings that staff are adjusting to telework and have at least some level of comfort with teleworking; the level and content of communication from leadership is appropriate; and staff generally have the IT equipment and tools that they need to telework effectively.
Beyond that, it's notable that a number of respondents in verbatim comments noted the challenges involved in managing both work and family while teleworking, and that boundary-setting seemed to be an issue for many people. These insights gave our managers some useful things to think about and to consider what kinds of updates and outreach they will continue to send out.

In the retail space, if you have surveys that are triggered off the back of a purchase behavior, you may want to consider temporarily changing your survey design to be more sensitive to how consumers are feeling about the return to in store shopping - and how those experiences have changed with new rules, policies and processes in place to keep them safe. Focus less on things like NPS and more about how they are handling transitioning back to shopping and what their feeling. Look for opportunities to help customers adjust to new norms. It also is a perfect time to get frontline feedback from employees - they as well have new processes to onboard and new experiences that will impact customer experience - as well their own employee experiences.

UgamIC_Christine I totally agree about the retail space -- and in addition to the disease state dynamic, with 24+ million unemployed there is also a heavy economic element to how people are making decisions -- in other words, they are not buying anything that's not absolutely necessary when the rent is due on May 1. Especially in consumer retail, companies need to think about the appropriateness of marketing messaging right now.

Agree with all that is mentioned above, and want to add that Message Testing is even more critical during this time. For example, companies who fight their employees' unionizing efforts and refuse to provide essential employees with masks should not be advertising how employees are the core of their business.