Traditionally, if you wanted to ask your customers a question, you had to post them a questionnaire and hope they filled it in and returned it. This meant spending money on paper, postage, envelopes and even return postage. Weighing these costs up in today’s ecologically sensitive market, it’s easy to see why you don’t get many customer satisfaction surveys through the mail anymore.
But the fact remains, companies still need to get information from their clients to ensure customers are happy, and receiving the exemplary products and services their suppliers intended to provide. Thanks to the power of today’s online software, it’s possible to obtain all this information without creating mountains of wasted paper or generating a massive carbon footprint by posting out tens of thousands of surveys each year. Instead, you can ask your customers a question anytime you like – and they can answer you at their leisure by filling in an online survey.
Saving Paper, Saving Time
Online surveys present a powerful option for anyone who needs to collect data from a large number of other people. Whether you’re a company needing to reach out to every customer you’ve ever had or an institution with a number of students and/or teachers to poll, innovative online survey software can be used to tailor a questionnaire to retrieve the data you need.
While it’s a widely-acknowledged fact that despite all our best efforts to run ‘paperless offices’, American businesses still use enough paper each day to wrap around the world twenty times, there are plenty of ways businesses can avoid adding to the pile. Using online surveys for internal evaluations, customer satisfaction polling and even training assessment is a great step toward that goal. And a good online software provider will be able to give you access to the tools you need to interpret that data and put it to work without wasting hours pouring over hundreds of pages of responses.
Maximum Savings from Great Survey Design
Unlike traditional paper surveys, a customized online survey can convey a truly cohesive image for your firm or institution. Creating an online survey is quick and easy with today’s powerful online survey software – you can incorporate corporate colors and logos with a few simple clicks. What’s more, you can work from a pre-designed template for a professional look, without waiting a week for the art department to get back to you with a handful of concepts. That’s right, a few simple clicks and your survey is ready to roll – all you have to do is choose the right questions, format them to get the best results and then invite the participants you wish to include in your research.
You set the parameters for how your online survey will be accessed, and are able to avoid the pitfalls of sending hard-copy documents in the post because respondents have the option of simply clicking away if they haven’t got time or aren’t interested in participating. That’s right, no more lying awake at night worrying that your last mail-out survey added even more paper to a landfill somewhere.
Showing posts with label surveys. Show all posts
Showing posts with label surveys. Show all posts
Affordable Focus Grouping Through Online Surveys
Whether you’re confident in your ability to construct an engaging online survey to get more information from your site visitors or new to the notion of online software and all it can do for you, online surveys are a great alternative to traditional focus groups.
The process of rolling out any new product can be exhausting – there are hundreds of hours of planning, research and development leading up to the first samples being available. And once you’ve got those samples to hand, you need honest feedback from people matching your target demographic – which isn’t always easy to come by.
What’s a Focus Group?
The traditional approach is to consult a marketing or research firm, who can assemble a group of people broadly representative of your target market – a focus group. Your chosen agency will distribute your samples or concept to the participants, then ask them for feedback on the topics you’ve indicated are important to your project.
The feedback can be invaluable – but getting it can be expensive and time consuming. And, as many seasoned business owners know, when you’re steaming toward a new product launch, time and money are two things likely to be in short supply. This is why savvy business managers are turning to online surveys to obtain that vital, pre-rollout feedback on new products and services.
Online Surveys Can Help
You could spend hours wading through brochures and recommendations from firms offering focus-grouping services, and then spending even more time trying to negotiate an affordable fee. Or you could channel a few minutes of time into creating an online survey to retrieve the information you require.
Advanced online software allows you to design a survey that will produce results similar to those you get from traditional focus grouping. Because you control every aspect of your online survey, it’s easy to ensure that you’re asking the right questions to the right people in the right way. Use your existing client database, or a random sample of those who visit your website on any given day – whichever best suits your research needs. You can even include a standing link on your homepage inviting people to participate if they’d like to contribute to your research process.
Getting the Best Results
Before you design and launch your online survey, you’ll need to know what you need to know. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Establishing a list of questions is much easier if you plan ahead – so consider what it is you need to learn from your respondents, and design your questions accordingly.
Similarly, you’ll need to ensure you are inviting the right participants to take your survey – if you’re launching a newsletter for women, there’s little point in surveying men. A good online survey software provider will give you access to tools that help you whittle out participants who won’t provide the sort of information you need. One way to do this is by using a pool of existing clients, another is by designing your survey to weed out unwanted respondents. For example, in the beginning, asking a question like, “are you a regular customer” will allow you to tailor the subsequent questions so you can learn either what the person regularly purchases or why they don’t regularly buy from your shop.
The process of rolling out any new product can be exhausting – there are hundreds of hours of planning, research and development leading up to the first samples being available. And once you’ve got those samples to hand, you need honest feedback from people matching your target demographic – which isn’t always easy to come by.
What’s a Focus Group?
The traditional approach is to consult a marketing or research firm, who can assemble a group of people broadly representative of your target market – a focus group. Your chosen agency will distribute your samples or concept to the participants, then ask them for feedback on the topics you’ve indicated are important to your project.
The feedback can be invaluable – but getting it can be expensive and time consuming. And, as many seasoned business owners know, when you’re steaming toward a new product launch, time and money are two things likely to be in short supply. This is why savvy business managers are turning to online surveys to obtain that vital, pre-rollout feedback on new products and services.
Online Surveys Can Help
You could spend hours wading through brochures and recommendations from firms offering focus-grouping services, and then spending even more time trying to negotiate an affordable fee. Or you could channel a few minutes of time into creating an online survey to retrieve the information you require.
Advanced online software allows you to design a survey that will produce results similar to those you get from traditional focus grouping. Because you control every aspect of your online survey, it’s easy to ensure that you’re asking the right questions to the right people in the right way. Use your existing client database, or a random sample of those who visit your website on any given day – whichever best suits your research needs. You can even include a standing link on your homepage inviting people to participate if they’d like to contribute to your research process.
Getting the Best Results
Before you design and launch your online survey, you’ll need to know what you need to know. It sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Establishing a list of questions is much easier if you plan ahead – so consider what it is you need to learn from your respondents, and design your questions accordingly.
Similarly, you’ll need to ensure you are inviting the right participants to take your survey – if you’re launching a newsletter for women, there’s little point in surveying men. A good online survey software provider will give you access to tools that help you whittle out participants who won’t provide the sort of information you need. One way to do this is by using a pool of existing clients, another is by designing your survey to weed out unwanted respondents. For example, in the beginning, asking a question like, “are you a regular customer” will allow you to tailor the subsequent questions so you can learn either what the person regularly purchases or why they don’t regularly buy from your shop.
User-Friendly Surveys in 5 Simple Steps
What good is an online survey if no one takes it? Or similarly, how useful are survey results if questions go unanswered? As you might expect, it can be an almost completely wasted effort. Some researchers are willing to accept a large percentage of non-responses. This is usually the case with surveys being distributed to large populations. However, regardless of any survey size, there’s no need to settle for less-than-optimum response. By following just five simple guidelines when creating online surveys, response rates can be maximized to their fullest potential.
Step 1: State Your Purpose
In today’s world of spam-sensitive email users, it is important to let recipients know why they’ve made it to your list of survey participants. If it is to evaluate a recent purchase, give as many details about the purchase as you can. Things like purchase date and items purchased can help jog participants’ memory as to the nature of their relationship with your organization. Like any other email, surveys from a trusted source have more chances of getting opened.
Step 2: Give Clear, Concise Directions
It was Mark Twain who said, “If you make something idiot-proof, the world will build a better idiot.” While his words are a bit harsh, there is a bit of truth in them. What seems obvious to some is completely confusing to others. If it is important that respondents complete the survey within a certain period of time; say so. If questions have multiple choice answers and participants can select more than one answer; be sure to let them know. There’s nothing to be lost from survey recipients that already understand the intended directions, and everything to be gained from those that needed a little extra help.
Step 3: Watch Your Language
Even if you want your organization to be viewed as an incredibly intelligent or experienced authority, try to avoid industry terms or difficult vocabulary words. All they serve to do is confuse your audience – and confused audiences don’t take or finish surveys. If you keep in mind that most of America reads at about an 8th grade reading level, a fairly easy self-test to run on any survey is to see if the words in your survey are typically used by the average junior high or middle school student. Of course, if you’re speaking to an educated or highly professional audience like physicians, lawyers, scientists, architects and the like, feel free to use any industry-specific terms that will encourage greater understanding among your participants.
Step 4: Go With a Flow
There’s a logical order to the way the human mind thinks. Surveys that follow this order help respondents spend more time focusing on answering questions and less time trying to understand them. Begin with simple answers, those that require the least amount of consideration from the audience. Personal data such as age, education level, profession, and household income are easy warm-ups for virtually any online survey recipient. Once participants are comfortable, the more complex questions become easier to answer.
Step 5: Size Matters
Be respectful of your online survey participants and their time. No one wants to invest the time to complete an 80-question survey. Even if they’re your most loyal customers, it is unreasonable to expect that any respondent is as interested in your survey as your organization is. Be as brief as possible while still collecting all the information that you need. Remember also that this is not your only chance to gather survey information, so stick to a single topic for each survey and save other topics for future surveys.
It’s surprising how large of an impact these small changes can have on the success of your online survey efforts. As your organization gets more experienced and skilled at applying these five strategies, they’ll become like second nature for your organization and you can concentrate on other survey strategies.
Step 1: State Your Purpose
In today’s world of spam-sensitive email users, it is important to let recipients know why they’ve made it to your list of survey participants. If it is to evaluate a recent purchase, give as many details about the purchase as you can. Things like purchase date and items purchased can help jog participants’ memory as to the nature of their relationship with your organization. Like any other email, surveys from a trusted source have more chances of getting opened.
Step 2: Give Clear, Concise Directions
It was Mark Twain who said, “If you make something idiot-proof, the world will build a better idiot.” While his words are a bit harsh, there is a bit of truth in them. What seems obvious to some is completely confusing to others. If it is important that respondents complete the survey within a certain period of time; say so. If questions have multiple choice answers and participants can select more than one answer; be sure to let them know. There’s nothing to be lost from survey recipients that already understand the intended directions, and everything to be gained from those that needed a little extra help.
Step 3: Watch Your Language
Even if you want your organization to be viewed as an incredibly intelligent or experienced authority, try to avoid industry terms or difficult vocabulary words. All they serve to do is confuse your audience – and confused audiences don’t take or finish surveys. If you keep in mind that most of America reads at about an 8th grade reading level, a fairly easy self-test to run on any survey is to see if the words in your survey are typically used by the average junior high or middle school student. Of course, if you’re speaking to an educated or highly professional audience like physicians, lawyers, scientists, architects and the like, feel free to use any industry-specific terms that will encourage greater understanding among your participants.
Step 4: Go With a Flow
There’s a logical order to the way the human mind thinks. Surveys that follow this order help respondents spend more time focusing on answering questions and less time trying to understand them. Begin with simple answers, those that require the least amount of consideration from the audience. Personal data such as age, education level, profession, and household income are easy warm-ups for virtually any online survey recipient. Once participants are comfortable, the more complex questions become easier to answer.
Step 5: Size Matters
Be respectful of your online survey participants and their time. No one wants to invest the time to complete an 80-question survey. Even if they’re your most loyal customers, it is unreasonable to expect that any respondent is as interested in your survey as your organization is. Be as brief as possible while still collecting all the information that you need. Remember also that this is not your only chance to gather survey information, so stick to a single topic for each survey and save other topics for future surveys.
It’s surprising how large of an impact these small changes can have on the success of your online survey efforts. As your organization gets more experienced and skilled at applying these five strategies, they’ll become like second nature for your organization and you can concentrate on other survey strategies.
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