Harris Poll is a completely legitimate survey site that has been conducting surveys and polls globally, on different subject areas since a long time.
Harris Poll is owned by Harris Interactive, a New York based company that deals in market research. It is also recognized by the established marketing research organizations such as –
- US Council for Marketing and Opinion Research,
- US National Council of Public Polls
- Council of American Survey Research Organizations
- British Polling Council, and
- UK Market Research Society.
People on this site are free to join as the survey panelists, and get rewarded for submitting their honest opinions.
Location, Registration and Eligibility
Harris Poll Online operates in a lot of countries through the single website. Candidates residing in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, U.K., and U.S can become members and participate in the surveys.
Signing up is a very short and an easy process. One just need to enter some personal details like name, username, e-mail, password, country etc and complete the registration. [ You may also be required to fill up a profile page to give some more intimate information about yourself, such as demographic or shopping habits etc. This helps in getting surveys of your interest.]
The age limit is 13+ years in the U.S. & Canada, and 14+ years in all other countries.
Survey Length & Frequency
A typical online survey takes anywhere between 5 – 25 mins to complete and are pretty much straightforward to answer. However, some high valued surveys are a little complicated & longer and can take upto 40 to 50 mins to complete.
Harris Poll’s survey frequency or email invite rate is unfortunately low. One can expect about 2 surveys per week or may be 3- 4 surveys per month. Also there are no surveys available in the dashboard.
Survey Value, Payment Process & Minimum Payout
Harris Poll do not offer cash. It rewards by giving ‘ HIpoints ’ to their members, in exchange for their participation.
Usually each survey is worth 75-150 HIpoints, (longer surveys offer more HIpoints). If you are disqualified while attempting to complete a survey, you receive 15 HIpoints.
On getting a prerequisite number, these HIpoints can be redeemed for a gift card or an e voucher from various online stores such as Amazon, Walmart, iTunes, ESPN or restaurants like Starbucks, or may be for magazine subscriptions. They can also be redeemed for e-vouchers, discounts and savings for brick and mortar stores too.
Typically, 1,250 HIpoints can be redeemed for a $10 gift card. The redeemed awards are then sent to your email account within 15 business days.
Minimum payout depends on what the individual wants. One also has an option of donating their rewards to a charity through the website.
Sweepstakes & Other Reward Opportunities.
One of the special Harris Poll offers is the $ 10,000 Sweeptakes or Histakes as they call it, which they announce every quarter. One can get an automatic entry with every survey they take, irrespective of whether they are qualified or not.
The name of the lucky winner is then published on the HIstakes winners page.
Harris Poll also gives a choice to its members to participate in focus groups (chat room style or bulletin board style), in person focus groups, telephone surveys and direct mail assignments.
Quick Assessment
Pros
- Is legitimate and NOT a scam
- Member information is secured
- Will not spam your inbox
- Will not attempt to sell you stuff
- Most surveys can quickly be completed
- Offers a variety of ways to earn money
Cons
- Getting qualified for a survey is hard
- Disqualifies a survey taker in the middle of a survey, leading to dissatisfaction and a waste of time
- Survey time and reward points are not known at the beginning of a survey.
- Some surveys may not award points at the end
- Has a very low survey invite rate
- Low rewards
- No cash rewards
- Time consuming
- Non-existence of referral program
- No mobile app
