Quick Tips to Improve Your Survey Results
Surveys can be exhausting and confusing if not done right. They are no longer just a mandate to tick off. But putting together survey questions that make sense and help you decode the next course of action is an art that takes time to curate. Primary data collection is not just limited to motivating your target reader to complete the survey but also getting actionable insights that can make a meaningful impact on your business.
In the age of social media, where a negative comment spreads like wildfire, it is essential to keep your company and its products in the right light and ensure constructive word of mouth. Here are a few quick tips to make sure your survey gives you the best outcome for the efforts spent:
1. Set the Tone for Your Survey
Vague surveys that don’t show any intent can turn away your respondents without answering a single question. A short paragraph setting the right tone on why you are carrying out this survey will help your consumer be invested and honest with their answers. Make them care about the survey that they are about to invest their time to fill out and participate in.
2. Keep it Straightforward and Short
Gone are the days when people took the time out to fill out long winding questionnaires that seem to go nowhere. While it is tempting to get as much information as possible from potential customers, it can put them off. Keep them concise, which means you need to envision where the eventual data is likely to have an impact on your operations and how you can tweak processes internally to meet your consumer’s expectations. Surveys can be as short as a Net Promoter Score or NPS that is hosted on a SaaS platform that is single-click feedback. This is an accurate measure to gauge the pulse of your products. Or can be detailed with multiple choices to pick from.
3. Time it Right
Discard the one-survey-fits-all approach. Consumers change their perceptions all the time and it is important to stay relevant to your target base. A short survey as soon as a purchase is made is an accurate measure of your customer service. You can use different types of survey questions at fixed intervals; you can check on after-sales services, upsell and cross-sell related products or even check for launching new product lines. With surveys, timing it right and spacing it out is the name of the game!
4. Incentivize the task
If you want inputs only from your existing customer base, your fantastic products, and great customer service is incentive enough for people to fill out a form. But what if you plan to expand your horizons? There needs to be a greater pull to attract non-paying potential customers to make time to fill out a survey. A variety of fun options are available to you, from interactive quizzes and games to keep participants engaged. In addition, you can offer coupons and discounts to encourage them to use your products and become customers at the end of the exercise.
5. Make it inclusive
Do you have an audience pool that spans across ethnicities? Polylingual groups feel more warmed up to companies that make an effort to reach out to them in the most comfortable language. It provides your respondents with a better experience as they will understand your survey better, resulting in an improved response rate and high-quality data. That said, be sure to have native speakers translate your survey forms; you don’t want to misrepresent your intention or appear tone-deaf.
6. Create survey questions with specific intent
Customer survey questions can help you come up with powerful content that can be used beyond the regular product. You need to draw up questions that reach a goal you have in mind. These specific, leading questions will enable you to gather intelligence to create content that makes you stand out. Apart from helping you with advertising and social media campaigns, such types of survey questions will aid in follow-up interviews with customers that will help your brand scale new heights.
7. Dry runs are necessary
Before you move ahead and open up the survey to your respondents, make sure you have tested its flow and logic with several people internally. Go through the responses and see if you can spot any glaring issues that make your survey results go off tangent. This will also help you iron out any technical glitches, by testing on several platforms that your users may turn to.
8. Go through the results with a fine comb
While this is a no-brainer, it is essential that you look at your data, especially for the intent that you create but also neutrally. Share the results across teams and the organization. You would be amazed to see what insights are derived from seemingly innocent surveys. It makes for great learning for cross-functional teams.
9. Outsource for the win
Crafting survey questions and reaching out to a large pool of interested respondents in a specific audience base may be a cumbersome task, especially if it is an ancillary task for your teams. Reaching out to independent service providers further improves the credibility of your surveys.
For instance, tools that combine the power of AI with Facial Coding and Eye-tracking Technologies to get you subconscious responses. It discovers beyond what is listed in the survey questions to offer a more accurate insight into customer behaviors.
They offer templates for crafting different types of survey questions and access to an online panel of 60 million+ respondents from across 120 countries. They further give you access to extensive benchmarks from over 70,000 media and Ad-insights.
Online and interactive surveys need to be fun and insightful not just for you as a brand, but also to make your audience feel happy and invested. These quick tips can go a long way in building brands that are loved and celebrated by all consumers.
