Surveys for your company are a great tool when looking for more feedback on how you are perceived and regarded by your customers. However, many surveys are not properly designed and offer little to no actual information to improve upon your efforts. Often times, surveys are skipped over, and the data you receive is either from extremely upset customers and fiercely loyal participants.
How do you gather the most accurate information to get the best data for your survey? We’ll tell you!
- Why are you conducting a survey? Before starting any survey process, make sure you have a clear goal in mind for why you believe this is a necessary step for your business. Surveys should be carefully put together, and not rushed, in order to maximize their efforts. Survey should stray away from answering questions you already have answers to. Find more about the unknown!
- Cut down your questions. Lengthy surveys are often ignored and abandoned halfway through the survey process. Try and strive for a survey that is no longer than 5 minutes. Additionally, keep your questions brief and direct. When you’re conducting a survey, don’t try and get answers for everything you want to know about your company and customers, and keep questions limited to 5 – 10 bullet points.
- Find the proper flow for your survey. If there are broad questions or statements that you need to put in your survey, make sure to keep them at the top. The sooner you get information in that makes a customers offer the most amount of detail, the more likely they will be to finish the survey. Once they feel they’ve invested the time with valuable knowledge, keep the last questions of your survey short and simple.
- Examples of broad questions – Are you satisfied with our business? Why do you keep coming back to us?
- Examples of simple questions – How would you rate your experience with a specific product? (Offer a scale either with words or numbers, about one product or service). Would you use this product again?
- Make sure your questions make sense. It’s great to get feedback on what you already know to be true, or gathering data on what you know customers already like. However, your survey questions should follow down a path that will allow you to apply the data to an area of your company. If you collect all of the survey answers, and can’t do anything with the information, your survey is basically useless. Make sure your questions are centered on a focal point, and you’ll stay on track.
- Test your survey on your employees. This allows you to see if there are any holes or confusing areas in your survey. If your employees understand what is being asked of them, chances are your customers will too.