Response Data Reclassification

Today, we’re excited to launch Response Reclassification for all plans. With this feature, Fairing users can reclassify their response data to improve reporting accuracy in Fairing and third-party apps. This is the first product update in a series that will eventually enable automated response reclassification.

In January alone, Fairing brands amassed roughly half a million open-ended and “Other” responses. These write-in responses are, by nature, a compromise: on the one hand, you’re chipping away at known-unknowns and gaps in your understanding of the consumer… on the other, you’re removing the guide rails that make zero party data easy to route through your marketing stack.

Why “Other” Data Is So Important

In most cases, we strongly recommend having an “Other” choice in your post-purchase surveys. Forcing consumers to fit your structured data model erodes quite a bit of the value in gathering ground truth data — they can’t tell you what you don’t know if you won’t provide a forum to listen.

But that’s not to say this unstructured data can’t be easier to operationalize, and if you can clean it efficiently, you’ve got the best of both data worlds. That’s what we’re starting to build today with this iteration of Response Reclassification.

Reclassification For Cleaner, Structured Data

Open-ended feedback has a lot of low-hanging fruit for reclassification, mainly in these two categories:

• Overlooked choices: a subset of consumers write in some alternative version of a choice you’ve already provided, because they gravitate toward conversational interactions. Fun fact: these people have heavy overlap with the users who would rather find a search box or chat widget than navigate your website.
• Misaligned taxonomy: there’s no getting around the fact that your consumers don’t know (or care) how you personally structure something like your media mix. You want to hear “YouTube ad” in an attribution survey... your customer wants to say “Mr. Beast.” You’re both right, so we need to bridge that taxonomy gap.

Our Response Reclassification feature helps you address this data easily, with an Edit button next to each response which populates an autosuggest drop-down. Where do those suggestions come from? You. Each question in your stream will display both its current responses and any classification edits you’ve provided. In short: as long as you’ve defined a response, it’ll be there in the autosuggest menu.

Fixed, But Not Forgotten

Transforming open-ended feedback into structured data can notably improve its utility in reporting and automation, but you wouldn’t want to sacrifice the raw responses to do so. Our Reclassification feature retains all open-ended responses, while passing along the “correct” version to their intended destinations. Again, best of both worlds.

If data structure has been a pain point for you, be sure to check out this Reclassification feature in the Fairing app under Analytics > Responses , or check out our support docs . And by all means, get in touch if you’d like to beta test future advancements in this area of our product, including rules-based reclassifications and programmatic cleanup.

Want to learn how to set up your post-purchase survey for your brand? Read more here.