It is extremely important to know what our customers, employees, affiliates, re-sellers, suppliers, and prospects think about our company, products, services and relationships. To assume that we understand our internal and external customers thoughts and behaviors is perilous. So what prevents us from asking them directly? Too often, we develop sales and marketing strategies around boardroom tables with piles of data and analysis from multiple sources, neglecting the most instrumental source needed to develop effective solutions -- the voice of our own employees and customers.
Designing and implementing online employee and customer attitude surveys has never been easier. We no longer require the assistance of major market research companies or expensive analytical tools and services. Online employee and customer surveys, like GroupSurveys from Infacta, makes creating, distributing and analyzing surveys a breeze. Just because employee and customer surveys are easy to conduct today, however, does not mean that they will necessarily be effective. In order to make an online employee or customer survey effective, there are several important aspects to consider. Here are 10 tips for effective online customer survey design:
1. Develop practical objectives: Before beginning your survey design, it is important to know what the purpose of your survey is. What information do you need? What will the survey help you to decide? Will you take action based on the survey responses? It is wise to keep your objectives simple and clearly defined. Measurement, analysis and resulting implementation will be more effective if your objectives are clear and specific. Consider the following two objectives:
Objective 1: To find out what our customers think about our newest survey product.
This objective is very vague, broad, and difficult to quantify. What action can you take if the results come back that they like or dislike it? It is not specific enough to provide enough data to work with.
Objective 2: The objective of this survey is to determine what features of online survey products are considered valuable to our market.
This objective focuses on features of survey products (not just ours) and responses could very well inspire a company to invest future effort on those specific features that are attractive to the market.
2. Prepare an introduction: Make the intent, objective and possible outcomes of your survey clear to your sample by writing a relevant title and short introductory paragraph. Include the importance of the survey and how long it should take to complete. Before anyone completes a survey, they need to understand why the survey is relevant to them, what the investment is and how it might benefit them if they complete it. Might taking part in the survey influence prices of a product they use? Might it result in new features that they want? A persuasive introduction explaining the importance and potential benefits of the survey will help increase the number of employees or customers who take the time to complete it.
3. Keep it short: It seems that nobody has time to stop and chat anymore. They certainly don't have time to spend 45 minutes answering questions on your survey. Keep your survey simple and focus on the key objective. If you can gather the data that you need in 10 short questions, then do so. Every question on a survey should be relevant to your objective.
4. Ask one question at a time: Avoid compound questions that require respondents to give an answer based on more than one element. Instead of writing How important is design and style in survey questionnaires?, break it into two separate questions, one for design and one for style.
5. Avoid open-ended questions: In traditional market research, open ended questions can provide very useful data about behaviors and attitudes. The difficulty with open-ended questions comes when you are analyzing the data collected. Because it is very difficult to measure written responses, it is best to keep questions closed and direct. If you still want to let your respondents provide free-flowing content, put the open-ended questions at the end of your survey so users aren't discouraged by the investment required at the beginning.
6. Avoid jargon and technical wording: Use plain language in your questions. While ISP, XML and RSS might be very familiar to you and your industry, they might not be familiar to many of your customers or administrative personnel.
7. Don't use leading questions: Sometimes, we tend to influence respondents with questions that sway their answers. If you ask somebody, Most professionals value demographic data. How important is it for you in your business? they might be influenced to answer very important, knowing from your question that it is something valued by most professionals. To illicit honest answers, stay away from any leading content that could sway responses.
8. Use contextual groups of questions: Arrange questions in relevant groups so that they are clear in context. Grouping sets of related questions together makes the survey clearer to the respondents and it will be perceived as easier to complete.
9. Provide an incentive: If you are worried about your sample size, and you should be, give respondents an incentive for completing the survey. Although small representative samples are considered to be relevant, larger sample sizes provide a more accurate reflection of the market. Think about giving respondents a discount on particular products or services; or offer them a free e-book or subscription to your newsletter.
10. Say thank you: Never forget to acknowledge the time and effort that your respondents invested in helping you with your survey. A simple thank you at the end of the survey makes respondents feel valued for their contribution. And they should be valued.
Online employee and customer attitude surveys are important tools for understanding your customers, employees, affiliates, re-sellers, suppliers, and prospects. Taking the time to set clear objectives and write simple, relevant and measurable questions will yield valuable information that could influence your future business strategy. Online employee and customer surveys are an effective way to really listen to your audience and learn what is important to them. And that, my friends, is priceless. To see for yourself how easy it is to create, distribute and evaluate online employee and customer surveys, visit group-surveys.com and get started.
For more information on customer and employee attitude surveys, read:
10 Reasons to Conduct Online Customer Attitude Surveys
Getting Feedback in 5 Easy Steps
