How to create great online surveys

Using a customer satisfaction survey in your business will give you some valuable insights and lead you to make better decisions for your company and your customers.

A great business survey creates a comfortable distance between you and your customers and allows you both to take a look at your work relationship from a more objective perspective.

It is a form of interaction between you and your customers where you allow and encourage them to express their feelings and experiences honestly. You analyse the data gathered, learn from them and make adjustments where necessary to create an even better experience.

Ever seen online surveys that look boring, are dry and robotic right from the start?
The good news is that there are tools that help you create customised surveys with a friendly, personal tone of voice and design, plus – they are super easy to use. I happened to discover one that I want you to know about …

I recently created a little survey for my teaching business.

Why?

I decided to reposition myself as a German & Hungarian “personal language coach” on the market and therefore felt the need to listen to my customers’ thoughts and feelings about my service. I want to give more and improve my work constantly. In order to achieve that, I realised that I need to listen carefully, and take more constructive criticism and feedback on board.

“We all need people who will give us feedback.
That’s how we improve.”

– Bill Gates

Creating a survey and asking the right questions was so much fun, and the results gave me some massively valuable insights as to how I can serve my customers even better.

MY DISCOVERIES, IN A NUTSHELL

Great surveys should

be super easy to fill out,
have higher response rates and
provide unbiased, high quality data.

Types of surveys you could use:

Customer satisfaction surveys
Customer development survey
Branding questionnaire
Event planning
Post-event survey
Market research
Marketing research survey
Evaluation forms
Social media survey
… the list is endless.

2 of the probably most known online survey tools:

And my personal favourite and recent discovery: Typeform

The surveys you can create with Typeform are not just easy to fill out, but are beautifully customised and highly enjoyable too. No need to be a techie, a coder or any kind of expert. All you need to focus on is asking the right questions.

The following 13 tips will help you to create a customer satisfaction survey with high response rates and valuable insights.

Clearly define purpose and objective of your survey.
Keep it short and focused. Respect the time of your customers.
Make it look fun and inviting.
Your intro should be short and sharp to motivate your survey takers to complete the survey.
Keep questions simple. Avoid use of jargon.
Using closed ended questions will help you gather more measurable, quantifiable data for analysis as they don’t allow the respondent to give unanticipated answers. They can take the form of yes/no, multiple choice, drop-down, check boxes, rating scale etc.
Open ended questions (where you allow them to type in their response and use their own words) will give you massive value and loads of great ideas, but are not directly measurable.
Make sure your questions flow in a logical order.
Check for bias. Make sure you’re not asking leading questions. (That’s a hard one btw!)
If there are any sensitive questions, make sure to ask them towards the end.
Pre-test your survey. Send it to friends and colleagues for a test run and see what they think.
Consider sending several polite reminders.
Collect results and analyse data. This is where the fun really begins J.

The point is this:

When creating a survey, always have the respondents and their time in mind. A simple, engaging, beautiful looking survey will keep them focused and engaged, which will boost completion rates and give you the results you are after.

Now, I’d love to hear from you, and this time I’ve got two questions for you:

Have you ever used online forms to gather feedback?

If so, which online tool is your favourite and why?
If not, what sort of survey do you think could benefit your business right now and why?

If you are an experienced “survey user”, what was your single biggest lesson you learnt from your respondents?

Of course, if there is anything else you’d like to share in the comments, please go for it. Thanks, as always, for tuning in, and please share this blog post if you found it useful or know someone who could benefit from it.

With love,