Late over-quota FAQ

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Late over-quotas

What is an over-quota (OQ) LOI?

The amount of time that a respondent spends answering questions in the survey before they eventually hit a quota limit. This time spent in the survey is not compensated to the respondent, as respondents are only paid for completing the survey.

What’s a fair LOI for OQs?

The industry benchmark is that a respondent should spend no more than 3 minutes in-survey without getting paid. Disqualifying for an OQ or a term after 3 minutes is not fair to respondents who have spent time answering questions in your survey. OQs with an LOI above this threshold are considered late OQs.

Where can I find my OQ LOI and specific Late OQ IDs in the Marketplace?

  • Steps for calculating the LOI for each respondent can be found here: How to find LOI

  • Calculate the median for all respondents with an (3,40) status code to find OQ LOI

What’s the impact of a Late OQ?

If respondents spend extensive time in a survey only to hit an OQ and not receive the incentive, they will be extremely frustrated with their experience in your survey

Bad survey experiences are abusive to respondents, erode trust in our industry, and make people unengaged and fatigued when taking surveys.

With so many online options competing for respondents’ time, our industry will struggle if we don’t all take personal responsibility for keeping respondents engaged!

Better survey design results in better data, cheaper costs, and quicker fielding time.

Not acceptable on Lucid’s marketplace. See auto survey health

My survey doesn’t have any quotas after 3 minutes - what else can cause a Late OQ LOI?

  • Over-sending to the survey, resulting in qualified respondents hitting OQ late into the survey - this is the most common

  • Survey Design Error - not enough page blocks, too many questions on a single page

  • Redirect error

I don’t have any late quotas in my survey. Why am I flagged for Late OQ?

It’s possible that you are sending too many respondents into the survey at once. If your survey flow has an extra set of quota checks at the very end to prevent overfilling, a large blast of samples at once can result in extremely late OQs for respondents who are live in the survey at the time that the survey reaches quota

This is very unfair to respondents—they should be compensated, as it’s not their fault that too many of them were in the survey at once.

How can I prevent overfilling in my survey?

  • Adjust your quota calculation type to “prescreens” instead of “completes”, especially for surveys with high conversion and long LOI

  • Use this formula as a guide when deciding how many prescreens (survey entrants) to send in order to achieve the required completes.

  • Prescreens * Conversion = Completes

  • See advanced quota management for more information on advanced quota calculation.

What other options do I have?

Refine your targeting by using standard qualifications in the Lucid Marketplace to ensure only qualified respondents enter the survey. This gives respondents the opportunity to go to a different survey, which they may actually qualify for.

What if I don’t have control over the survey design because my client programmed the survey?

This is an opportunity to take responsibility for the respondent experience and educate researchers who may not yet realize that better-designed surveys yield better data, lower costs, and faster fielding time.

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Late OQs are harmful to respondents, to suppliers, and to the integrity of your survey. Please take the time to proactively address Late OQs before they happen!