Getting customer feedback with online surveys

Online surveys are beginning to replace tra­di­tion­al survey methods that rely on hand­writ­ten results. Generally, the same method­olog­i­cal re­quire­ments apply to both formats: the goal of the survey should be as clearly defined as the target group itself; the questions should be specif­i­cal­ly tailored to your product offer or somehow be relevant to it. Online surveys are being used more and more these days due to the ad­van­tages that their digital formats offer. Here’s a list of some of the ad­van­tages of online surveys:

• Time and location bear no sig­nif­i­cance: a survey that’s published online can be answered at any time and from any location. The results are available im­me­di­ate­ly upon the survey’s com­ple­tion. 

• More man­age­able: thanks to digital data pro­cess­ing, it’s much easier to spread and evaluate an online poll. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly ad­van­ta­geous when dealing with larger numbers of par­tic­i­pants, as this processes is entirely paperless; instead, a simple in­vi­ta­tion via e-mail or within an online store is all that’s needed.

• More pos­si­bil­i­ties: the format of elec­tron­ic surveys opens the door to many pos­si­bil­i­ties that were not available to tra­di­tion­al survey methods. For example, those con­duct­ing surveys are now able to use special filter functions, ran­dom­iz­ers as well as other features with which the sequence of questions found in a given survey can be generated. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, online surveys can be upgraded with different types of media, like images, videos, animation, or audio files.

• In­for­ma­tion for editing: the way in which users fill out surveys is au­to­mat­i­cal­ly recorded. This allows you to gain in­for­ma­tion on the amount of time users have spent on each page and the location in the web presences where the viewer last looked. All of this in­for­ma­tion provides you with valuable insights on how to improve your survey.

• En­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friendly and space saving: with an online survey you save more than just paper; the place needed to store all the printed paper is also spared.

Once you’ve created an online survey, you can then promote these in different ways by including them in newslet­ters or featuring them as popups on your company website. Within retail, it’s important to ensure that such mail is sent soon after the product in question has been purchased in order to obtain reliable results. Ad­di­tion­al measures for pub­li­ciz­ing surveys include an­nounc­ing them via social media or im­ple­ment­ing QR codes that forward users directs to the online survey. Keep in mind, however, that surveys open to the public may be prone to de­liv­er­ing easily falsified results if no lim­i­ta­tions are in place that restrict certain users.

There are different ap­pli­ca­tions available for designing online surveys; these tend to vary in price, op­por­tu­ni­ties for use, and the size of the survey in question. For some specific survey types there are free tools available that evaluate the re­spon­dents’ questions — Facebook surveys are an example of this. For more extensive surveys, there are both web as well as desktop ap­pli­ca­tions available. The latter variant is often ob­tain­able with providers that also take over the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of hosting data. Here, it’s par­tic­u­lar­ly important to consider data pro­tec­tion. In any case, website owners have to rely on security measures in order to ensure that their re­spon­dents’ personal in­for­ma­tion remains protected. Generally, different packets with different polling options and prices are offered.

While the operation of the ap­pli­ca­tion may vary, there are standard tasks involved when struc­tur­ing any survey, and these apply to both online polls as well as any other sort of customer survey. What counts here is to make sure that survey questions have been for­mu­lat­ed in a suitable manner. 

Before trying to find the best way to pose a question, it’s important to be aware of what type of in­for­ma­tion you hope to gain from the question. Depending on what you aim to find out, the following three types of questions may prove more or less useful in an online survey:

• Questions about char­ac­ter­is­tics: these primarily involve questions that give insights on the re­spon­dent’s age, location, and family back­ground.

• Questions about beliefs: these questions revolve around the customer’s views regarding a past, current, or future issue. Here, it’s not so much about finding the right or wrong answers as it is to reflect an accurate picture of reality. For example, a potential question could be, ‘Who’s going to win the next election?’

• Viewpoint and opinion questions: these questions help deliver insights on how re­spon­dents evaluate certain issues. For example, ‘There are too many tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials.’ (Possible answers: ‘I agree’, ‘I disagree’).

• Be­hav­ioral questions: the be­hav­ioral pref­er­ences of a user can be found out by asking them how they would react to a certain situation or, if ap­plic­a­ble, how they have reacted to this situation in the past. For example, ‘Would you be willing to accept more frequent com­mer­cial breaks in exchange for free access to cable tele­vi­sion?’ (Possible answers: ‘Yes’, ‘No’, further questions, if ap­plic­a­ble; follow-up ‘Why?’ also possible).

When you design your survey, it’s crucial to formulate your questions in such a way that allows re­spon­dents to answer them as truth­ful­ly as possible. Open questions, while full of potential in terms of the type of answers they may reveal, often tend to deliver results that are too varied to glean coherent feedback. Closed questions specify answers for users, but don’t allow for any in­di­vid­ual answers. You should make sure to cover any potential possible answers. What’s more, the questions should be con­struct­ed in a clear and con­science manner so that they’re as logical and neutral as possible.

With a well thought-out structure, you can ensure your survey is filled out to the very end. In­ter­est­ing questions about different topics helps arouse the interest of the re­spon­dents. Tran­si­tion­al questions help guide the user through the survey. Structure questions into different themes. More sensitive topics and personal questions should appear at the end of the surveys or at least within ap­pro­pri­ate portions of the poll. Make sure to also pay attention to the length of your survey, both in terms of the number of questions as well as the number of potential answers.

When creating your survey, it’s important to make sure that a suf­fi­cient number of users are able to find it. As mentioned above, dis­tri­b­u­tion platforms include social networks, your website, newslet­ters, and QR codes, which can be spread through print media or in brochures. You can gain ad­di­tion­al par­tic­i­pants by rewarding survey re­spon­dents with a gift cer­tifi­cates or an entry into a sweep­stakes. For web store operators, it’s often enough to offer your customers regular eval­u­a­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties. This helps make it clear that feedback surveys present an op­por­tu­ni­ty to increase the quality of your shop.