Use our in-depth online survey guide to create an actionable feedback collection survey process.
Survey research assists you to unveil customers’ opinions and gain data points on customer behavior and sentiment. By asking your customers to answer questions relevant to your study and analyzing the findings you identify growth opportunities.
The survey can generate a large amount of information in a short time span. You can use Survey for various reasons. Many Research fields use surveys to generate a large amount of data – Social, Health, Market, Psychology, and Politics.
If you want to acquire insightful and valuable information, you need to survey the right audience and ask the right question by using the right method. For successful survey research, follow the steps given below:
Step-1: Define the Purpose of your Survey
Step-2: Define the Audience
Step-3: Decide how to Distribute the Survey
Step-4: Design your Survey
Step-5: Conduct the Survey Research
Step-6: Analyze the Survey Result
Step-7: Present your Survey Findings
Lets’ dive into the details of each step:
What is it that you want to do with the results of your survey? Do you want to learn the reason for customer churn? Or, do you want to understand the changing trends in customer expectations?
Clearly describe what your goal is for the survey and communicate that goal with every team member involved in the building of the survey questions. If you are unable to figure out your survey goal list all the issues your company is facing currently in the market. Prioritize the goals that seem to need immediate attention. Ask these questions to define the purpose of your survey:
When you decide to conduct a survey you should have a clear idea of whose opinion matters the most to you. Your target population is your relevant audience whose feedback you want to collect.
When you gather survey results you should be able to generalize them to the whole target population. For example, if you would want to collect the opinion of mothers on infant food, you need to specify with who you want to conduct a survey.
The sample is the group of people selected from the population. It is often not possible to survey the entire population. For these situations, you will survey a sample from your target population.
You can use a sample size calculator to figure out how many respondents you will need who can properly represent the entire population. There are several sampling methods – probability and non-probability – that can help you to select respondents for your sample.
The larger the sample size is the more accurate and valid your survey results will be.
You can deploy Surveys in various ways. You can send online surveys via email or SMS, post them on social media, or upload them on the website. You can also conduct interviews – FTF or telephone – and record their responses. The way you decide to distribute your survey depends on many factors.
With Email, you can send a survey to large sample size. It is easy and you can also send a customized message to the recipients of the survey. You can add a link or simply add a satisfaction question to receive a quick response. You can also send reminders or resend the survey via email to those who have not responded or opened the email.
Website
You can embed a link to the survey page on your Website or launch a pop-up on your site, which directs the users who click on it to the survey. The users won’t have to leave your website or follow a long path to reach your survey.
Social Media
Placing a survey link on social media platforms can increase the visibility of the survey and thus increase the response rate. You can also encourage the respondents to share the survey within their network. Using social media you can reach a large number of audiences and gather multiple opinions.
Interview
Interviews, whether Face to Face or by telephone – are a great method to collect in-depth feedback from respondents. However, it is more convenient when you have a small sample size and ample time to conduct extensive research. The interview allows the researcher and the respondent to explore the subject matter and generate qualitative information.
While there are many ways you can distribute your survey, you have to remember that every method has a drawback. Carefully decide how you want to gather feedback.
Knowing who your target audiences are and what your purpose is, it should make designing survey questions easier. When you conduct a survey, the result depends on the quality of your survey questionnaire. If the respondents find the questions confusing, intrusive, or vague, or if it is too long they are most likely to drop off. There are four factors you need to consider when you write down your survey questions:
Types of Survey Questions
There are primarily two types of survey questions:
An open-ended survey question is a better option to collect qualitative data. It allows respondents to share their thoughts and opinions in their own words.
Close-ended survey questions generate quantitative data. It offers the respondents a predetermined list of options or a rating scale and asks them to select their preferred answer.
You can combine both question types in your survey. You can use open-ended questions to follow up with a close-ended question on a subject you need detailed information about.
The content of the question should match the survey goal
The questions you ask should be relevant to the goal of the survey so that you can gather accurate customer insight.
Format of the survey questions
The questions should be asked in layman’s language.
Order of the questions in the survey
For better survey results, arrange the questions in a logical manner.
At this point, you have a properly written questionnaire, and a sample of respondents, and you know how you want to distribute your survey. Now you can run a test and when you are satisfied with your survey research design you can conduct the survey with a method of your choice.
If you are conducting a survey via online methods like websites, social media, or email, keep the survey open to respondents for approximately 2 to 3 weeks.
Use survey software that can ease the entire process and provide assistance in every step. With the survey software, you can gather the response automatically, and analyze survey results in real-time.
Filter any duplicate responses. Sometimes a respondent may accidentally fill in a survey more than once. Also, clean incomplete or incorrectly completed surveys.
You can use the Analytics tool to organize the response to closed-ended questions. Each closed-ended question must have a code. The survey software will comb through the responses and categorize them based on patterns.
For example, if you are surveying your customers to understand what issue they face with your mobile app, you can identify any pattern in the answer. You can determine if there is any issue that the majority of your audience face and prioritize such issues to fix them.
The analytics tool can also help identify respondents’ sentiments in qualitative responses. It can point out positive and negative emotions in the responses.
You have your survey results which you need to share with the rest of the company. You have to now report your survey research.
Start by explaining:
Then you need to inform the readers about the entire analysis process. Explain what statistical analysis method you use, and which software you used to analyze the test. Justify the methods used to analyze the collected data.
Present the survey result in a clear and factual manner, so that the reader can gather what you are trying to say by just looking at it.
In the discussion section of the survey report don’t just repeat the result findings. The discussion should present the researcher’s reflection on how well the survey has met the research goal. It should explain the problems faced during the survey process. Explain the conclusion and the limitations of the survey research.
The process of conducting surveys becomes much easier if you’ve access to the right tools. For instance, Voxco Insights provides you with all the tools you may need for successful survey research.
Voxco is named a leader in survey software by G2
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