How a personalized Post-It note increased survey responses by 113%

When asked to do something for someone else, most people don’t scrutinize whether a request is worthy of their attention or action, and instead default to social norms of politeness by offering help. This is especially true if the request is perceived as a favor. Researchers, wanting to increase participation rates on surveys, looked at the impact of personalized Post-it notes in signaling importance, directing attention, and adding weight to a request. The addition of a Post-it note with a handwritten request on it positively correlated with higher completion rates. This proved less effective when the task outweighed the participants’ willingness to help. However, changing the Post-it note from a generic request to a personalized favor saw the response rate of the more difficult task jump by over 67%.