There are two main reasons that people want to do market research surveys: Firstly, it is nice to know that people – our clients – genuinely want to know what you think. Walk down any street and you are bound to hear someone giving their opinion on something, even if you don't want to hear it. TellUsAboutIt offers you the opportunity to get your opinions heard by people who actually influence the products and services you pay for.
The other main reason people do surveys is for financial reward, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you are going to give up 10 minutes of your valuable time to tell us what you think, it is only right and proper that you are offered something in repayment. We reward people by awarding points for every survey you do. When you have accumulated sufficient points, you can convert them into airtime, cash to your bank account, or store vouchers.
Our clients pay us to carry out market research for them. If we use an example of say, a business who is thinking of spending R5 million on designing, manufacturing, advertising and distributing a new product, they'd be a bit remiss if they didn't actually bother to find out if people are likely to buy the thing! We design and program questionnaires, send them to our panel, and then provide the client with the results when we have collected all the data – which is why we need your honest and truthful input. We charge depending how many people we interview, how difficult those people are to find, and how long a survey is. We reward our members for doing the surveys.
To be honest, all we really care about is that when you do decide to respond to a survey you are honest and take your time – we need to know we can trust you, and we really want to know what you think. If people regularly go too fast, or give inconsistent answers, then we figure they are not serious about the work we do, and we will stop asking their opinion. Although we try to make our surveys easy to complete, and lighthearted when we can, they are meant to get at the truth.
Not at all. Obviously, if you never do any, we'd assume you weren't interested, and stop sending them to you. But you are under no obligation to take part. The more surveys you complete, the quicker you will accumulate points, of course, but we would rather you enjoyed the experience. And you wouldn't enjoy it if you felt unreasonable pressure to participate.
Every sort of person is in our panel. We don't have anyone under 18, but there is no upper age limit. One restriction we do enforce is that you are only allowed to join the panel once. If you had 2 IDs in our community, then the risk is that you take the same survey twice. If you answered both the same way, then the data would be skewed. If you answered differently, it means you weren't telling the truth on at least one occasion, and there'd be no point to counting your data.
The only other thing that we need to say is that the TellUsAboutIt panel is a SA-only community. There is nothing to stop you joining if you live elsewhere, but for now we can only pay in SA, so there would be no point in you joining.
Essentially, we are all quite similar in that we want our community to tell us what they think. Some research panels don't give rewards to their members, but we think it's right that we do. We think we offer rewards that are quite a lot higher than most panels and we try to avoid asking you the same old questions time and again. Most panels even seem to forget whether you are male or female and keep asking again. We try to treat you with respect and hope you will do the same to us. Another thing that does set us apart is that we pay rewards for each and every survey you complete whereas most other panels only do prize draws.
This depends upon how much work you have to do. If you only have one question to answer, you would only get 5 points or so. If you stuck with a very long survey, you could get 100 points or more. But most carry between 50 and 100 points.
Easy peasy. When you have accumulated enough points, log in to your account and choose your payment preference. We offer airtime straight to your cellphone, cash to your bank account, or vouchers to spend at a various stores and sent directly to you electronically so spend online or in-store.
Zaka are the rewards points you’ll earn for completing surveys, sometimes called points, which you can cash in for rewards of your choice.
1 Zaka = R1. So if you earn 50 Zaka for completing a survey, you’ll actually be earning R50.
You need 15 Zaka to redeem airtime, 50 Zaka to redeem store vouchers and 200 Zaka to redeem cash to your bank account. You can accumulate Zaka and redeem whenever you want to.
Of course. In fact we hope you do. Some of our members have written to complain that they did not receive a payment. Then we discover that they changed their email address or cell number without telling us. So please keep your details up to date!
It couldn't be easier to take one of our surveys. You will receive an email invitation from us, in which there will be a link that you click on. This will take you straight to the survey, and it is a piece of cake after that. When you have reached the end of the survey your points automatically get updated. That's it!
The more you tell us about yourself, the more chance you have of receiving invitations. Should we be looking for, say, parents of teenagers, and we don't know you have a couple of them filling up your house, then you might not get the invitation.
There are two types of data you give us. One is your personal info. We NEVER share that with anyone without your express permission, and we hardly ever need it. The people that pay you will have details in order to make the payments (but nothing else about you).
The other type of data you give us is your answers to our questions. We always use this information in an accumulated way. In other words, if you are a male aged 51 and living in the North West, what you have told us will be aggregated with other people with a similar profile. We’ll never provide this kind of data in a way that you, as an individual, can be identified.
Yes. We'd hate to lose you, but we always understand if anyone wishes to leave. There is any easy-to-follow link on the site. Once you have clicked to unsubscribe from our panel, you should receive no further communications from us.
Well you can if you insist but we’re not really active anywhere but SA at the moment – so it isn’t really worth your while.
Yes - very. TellUsAboutIt will not share your personal details with anyone. TellUsAboutIt will not sell your personal details to anyone. All data is securely stored and protected behind a 'firewall'. We are a member of ESOMAR and also abide by the Data Protection Act regulations.
There are several types of polls and interactions besides surveys in which you can earn points on the TellUsAboutIt site:
You don't have to give us much at all. A name, address and date of birth are pretty essential, as is knowing your gender. However, the more we know about you, the more chance we have of sending you suitable surveys. Knowing you are a mum, or a car owner, or self-employed (or all 3!) might help us fit your profile to that sought by a client for a particular question they want to ask. We do not store highly sensitive information like credit card details – there’s just no need – or very personal information like sexuality. Also it really is your choice whether or not you answer questions like this.
No. Once you register you will be issued with a confidential password. Only you can enter your page or take part in a survey.
We need contact details (such as your email address) so we can contact you about survey opportunities. We collect postcode data and other info so we can select relevant surveys. Only someone with very young children would be suitable for a nappy survey. We also need bank account or cell numbers in order to pay you!
We collate all redemptions every two weeks and send through the info to the service providers. You WILL receive your vouchers, airtime or cash within 2 weeks of redeeming. However, if you don't receive your payment within three working weeks, please contact our Support Team – support@tellusaboutit.co.za