Posts published by Dayne Shuda

How To Manage Admin Roles For Company Surveys

Survey Tips

Did you know you can manage admin roles for your company surveys?

It’s quite similar to how you’d manage admin roles in WordPress, Google Analytics or another online program.

You can give different people in your organization special roles on certain surveys.

Why is this good?

By assigning different roles, you allow everyone to work together in your account, while keeping the overall management to yourself.

This helps in the information gathering and decision making processes. It also allows your team access to the pieces of your survey that pertain to them.

For example, your writers can add and edit questions, while your analysts can do the analysis while monitoring the results.

Or, if you are an agency, you can easily manage all of your accounts. This allows multi-user accounts the ability to collaborate together on their surveys.

Let’s look at how to manage admin roles in Survey Town.

Manage Admin Roles

At the top of your account, click Settings.
Then, click on Users.
In the top right hand side, click on Create User.
In the box, add your employee’s user name.
Enter a password for them.
If you want them to have permission for everything, you can click the box in the upper right hand side that says +Give All Permissions.
If not, choose the permissions you want to allow. You have a wide choice with regarding to giving permissions.
Under Surveys, you can choose to give permission for any of the following:
- Create/Edit Surveys
- Create/Edit Event Registrations
- Start/Stop Surveys
- Create/Edit Survey Templates
- View Survey Reports
Under Settings, you can choose to give permission for any of the following:
- Edit General Settings
- Edit Account Settings
- Change Username/Password
- Create/Edit Users
- Create/Edit External Fields
Under Tags, you can choose to give permission for any of the following:
- Create/Edit Tags
- Add/Remove Tags

In addition, you can choose whether or not to give someone permission to view all of your surveys and/or manage all of your surveys.

At any time, you can modify or change survey permissions for each individual user.

Survey Permissions

Let’s look at the permissions you might give members of your team pertaining specifically to your surveys.

Perhaps you’d like another team member to be able to manage an entire survey. If so, you’d give them permission for the entire Survey block.

Then, if you have another staff member who handles event registrations, perhaps you’d only give them access to this category.

You might give your designer the ability to create and edit your survey templates.

While giving your employees access to certain parts of your survey, you can ensure that everyone is part of the process, yet no one has complete access.

How Many Users?

Now that you know the roles available, you might be wondering how many users you can have in your Survey Town account.

With the Basic, Standard and Professional accounts, you can have one user. With the Enterprise account, you can have more than one user and multiple roles and permissions.

Why choose the Enterprise account? First, you can send an unlimited number of surveys with an unlimited number of questions. Second, you can collaborate on your surveys.

Finally, you also have access to integrations, report filters, API access and more.

The Take-Away

Sending surveys is good for your business. You can gain insight from your customers by asking the important questions that matter.

With Survey Town, you can choose from different question types to craft the perfect survey.

When it comes to developing your survey, it helps to have more than one person involved in its design and creation. (tweet this) This is where admin roles come into play.

By assigning different team members different roles for your company surveys, you enable group collaboration. This helps ensure you send out the best possible survey to your customers.

Often it takes a group of dedicated employees to design the perfect survey to get the results you need to improve your business or your products and services.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Thomas Lefebvre

Have You Used Allocation Questions In Surveys?

Survey Tips

Choosing the right types of survey questions is critical to the design of your survey. The type of question you ask determines not only the type of data you generate, but the quality of it.

Have you used allocation questions in surveys? If not, or if you’d like some more information on them, we’re going to look at allocation questions and their usefulness in your survey.

What is an Allocation Question?

Allocate means to distribute something for a particular purpose or reason.

When it comes to your survey, you’re looking for respondents to tell you how much they’ll allocate.

For example, you might ask this question, “You have $100 to spend on three areas – marketing, operations and software. How do you allocate the $100?”

Allocation questions allow respondents to tell you things like how much time or money they’ll give to something.

You can pose questions across multiple categories. Consider this question, “How much time in a 24-hour day do you allocate to family fun, work, eating, sleep and chores?”

Again, you’re asking respondents to allocate something.

Good Allocation Surveys

When creating a survey with allocation questions, you’ll want to follow this basic design:

Limit your categories to three-five. After this, your data won’t be as reliable because you are asking respondents to think too much.
Your categories must be completely independent of one another. In other words, you don’t want to overlap them as this skews your data.

Final Thoughts

Online surveys open a wide world of actionable data. It’s always important to develop a survey that meets your needs as well as those of your respondents.

It’s your goal to ask the right types of questions at the right time to keep respondents engaged. (tweet this)

When you use allocation questions in a survey, you give your respondents freedom to choose and allocate their responses. The only requirement is that their answers add up to the number you specified – for example, $100 or 100 points.

Respondents will appreciate the freedom and flexibility to allocate their answers, while you’ll find your data is easily summarized and interpreted.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Elizabeth Lies

7 Survey Incentives That Get Respondents Every Time

Survey Tips

According to a survey by the American Statistical Association, surveys with incentives have a better response rate.

They tested a control group with no incentive, a group that was given $5 as an incentive upfront and a group that was told they’d receive $5 at the end of the survey.

Their data showed that the use of prepaid incentives not only increases response rates, but it increases the quality of the survey data.

What’s more, when offered the prepaid incentive, survey respondents were less likely to ignore a question and more likely to offer longer answers.

What does this tell us? It suggests that offering incentives is a valuable way to increase your response rates and the quality of your answers. (tweet this)

In this article, we look at seven survey incentives that get respondents every time.

#1: The Monetary Incentive

Have you ever been asked to take a survey that offered you money for doing so?

This is one of the most common types of incentives and the most successful.

When using a monetary incentive, it can come in several forms:

Cash (think PayPal)
Check (either mailed or e-Check)
Gift card

You’ll often find a higher completion rate when respondents are offered a cash reward.

Why is the return better? Survey respondents who are offered a cash incentive are more likely to complete your survey because there is a monetary reward. What’s more, they are more likely to feel compelled to take their time when responding to your survey because they feel obligated to do so.

How do you find the right amount of money to offer? First, look at your survey length. How long will it take to complete?

Then, think about your audience. If it’s college students, and it’s a five-minute survey, anywhere from $1-5 should suffice.

On the other hand, if the survey is sent to a professional group like doctors, and your survey takes 30 minutes to complete, your price should be significantly more – around $25-100.

#2: The Sample Product or Service

Knowing your audience is key to deciding what type of incentive you want to provide.

While cash is always a great idea, offering respondents a sample product or service is another way to give them what they want.

Let’s say you want to survey people to find out how they feel about your sports drinks. You’ve just developed a new flavor, and for completing the survey, you offer them a sample of the new flavor.

This can work if your respondents are your current sports drink customers, and they’re interested in trying new flavors.

Likewise, if you offer computer-type services, you might offer respondents a beta version of your newest software.

With this type of incentive, make it relevant to your company so it encourages your respondent’s continued business.

#3: The Coupon

Coupons are another often successful way to incentivize respondents.

Many businesses have success offering a 25% discount to people completing their surveys. This is often enough to encourage and grow your response rates.

The coupon or discount costs you less than offering a straight cash reward. Why? With a coupon, you are still driving business.

#4: The Charitable Donation

Again, you’ve got to know your target audience. For example, pick a charity that ties into your product line.

Let your customers know that for each survey returned, you’ll donate X amount to your favorite charity.

Your customers will feel good knowing that by completing your survey they did something good for the world.

In addition, you’ll provide a good feeling for your customers. In today’s world, people are more charitable than ever before, and they want to feel a part of something bigger than themselves.

This can be a good way to build good feelings for your brand while helping others.

#5: The Drawing

Another type of incentive is the drawing or raffle.

With this incentive, you tell survey respondents that for completing your survey they’ll be entered into a drawing to win something.

Popular items include gift cards, cash and iPads.

Just be sure the lottery incentive won’t break your marketing budget.

#6: The Whitepaper

You can also offer your survey respondents something tangible. For example, you can offer them something of value.

Let’s say you run a marketing business, and you are sending your survey to all of your retainer customers.

You might offer them a how-to manual, video or whitepaper that you aren’t offering anyone else for free.

While not the most enticing incentive, it can work for the right audience.

#7: The Giveaway

This type of incentive includes branded giveaways. We’re talking pens, cups, notebooks, etc. with your company’s logo.

You want to know your target audience well, and if you’re giving away something they find useful, this can work.

Things to Consider

Now that we’ve looked at survey incentives that get respondents every time, we’re going to provide you with a few more things to think about.

Know your budget. This is the most important thing to consider when deciding on an incentive. Make sure you can afford to give away the item you promised.
Decide if every respondent gets your incentive. You can also offer the first 200 respondents the incentive or even the lottery option giving them a chance to win the incentive.
Know your audience. When choosing your incentive, it’s vital that you can define this group of people. Offering an incentive that’s valuable is of utmost importance. If they don’t care about the incentive, it won’t matter.
Decide on your delivery method. You want to provide an incentive that is easy to redeem and one that doesn’t eat up your manpower.
Pick the time you’ll offer the incentive. Will you offer it before they complete the survey or after? Upfront surveys have been known to increase response rates because survey takers feel obligated to complete the survey.
Set up some form of quality control. This is especially true if your survey incentive is really valuable. You don’t want people completing it more than once.

To Conclude

If you aren’t sure where to start, you can begin with testing a few different incentives.

Begin with a small group of respondents and see if they respond. For example, if you decide to offer cash, test this out with half of your respondents. Then compare it to your control group and see if it made a difference.

Through testing you’ll know what works and what doesn’t. You might have to test a few times to find out which one works best for your target audience.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Annie Spratt

The 3 Best Questions To Ask In A Customer Satisfaction Survey

Survey Tips

So, you’ve decided it’s time to collect some data. You want to know just how happy your customers are.

The best way to find out is with a customer satisfaction survey.

It helps you learn how satisfied your customers are while finding ways to improve your products or services. And, finally, it helps you identify people who love your products and might be your brand ambassadors.

But, where do you start?

It can be confusing trying to decide the best questions to ask. In this article, we’re going to help you.

Here are the three best questions to ask in a customer satisfaction survey.

#1: What is your biggest challenge in ___?

Depending on your business, you can fill in the blank at the end of this question.

Your goal is find out what the biggest problem your customers are facing as it pertains to your company, services or products.

When you find out what their challenges are, you can meet them head on and help them solve their unique issues.

Hopefully, once you start receiving responses, you’ll see some common threads so you can create actionable solutions.

Here are some example questions you might ask:

What is your biggest challenge in speaking to our customer service staff?
What is your biggest challenge in using our services?
What is your biggest challenge in using our products?

#2: What would you most like us to know about ___?

This is a great open question that lets your customers know you really care about their opinion. You’ll find that you gather some very useful information through this question.

It can be tricky to elicit the right answers from this question. So you will need to direct your customers a bit. You might limit the number of characters they can use in the text box or give them a few choices so you can narrow their answers.

You might find that the answers to this question allow you to tailor your business model to meet customer needs directly.

#3: How would you describe us to a friend?

Wouldn’t you like to know what terminology your customers use to describe your business, products and services?

With this open-ended question, you’re sure to gain a great deal of insight. You can use the answers to this question to position your company and fine-tune your marketing strategy.

This question also provides good verbiage for testimonials and reviews on your website. Please just make sure you have permission to use them.

Through this question, you can also pick up on any negativity and make plans to change it.

To Conclude:

We’ve covered the three best questions to ask in a customer satisfaction survey. So, those of you ready to start have a good base.

For those of you still on the fence about sending out a customer satisfaction survey, we’re going to leave you with a few reasons why you should think about sending a survey at least once a year.

You can find out if your customers have had any problems with your company and your products or services. Some of your customers won’t complain, so a survey is a great way for them to respond anonymously.

Customer satisfaction surveys can shed light on the performance of your staff. You’ll learn how they respond to your customers.

Surveys also help you understand your customers’ needs, want and desires. The overall goal of your survey is to help your customers have a better overall experience. (tweet this)

Finally, the last two important parts of conducting a customer satisfaction survey are compiling the data and actually doing something with it. Don’t let the data sit on a shelf. Act on it to improve your business and your customers’ happiness.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Farrell Nobel

Why Bias Is The Biggest Survey Mistake

Survey Tips

What is survey bias?

Survey bias includes any error that occurs due to the design of your survey. Bias can occur when you write leading questions. It can occur when you survey the wrong population or one that isn’t equally representative.

Today we pose the question – “Why bias is the biggest survey mistake?”

We’ve put together a list of ways bias is detrimental to your survey and how it can skew your results so your survey is worthless.

Researcher Bias

When the person conducting the survey has an outcome in mind, researcher bias can sneak in.

While we all have our view points, researcher bias is a huge mistake and can affect the way questions are worded and the way results are interpreted.

The purity of your survey is important, so take steps to avoid researcher bias. Involve several people in the writing and review of your survey questions before sending it out.

Bad Sample

A bad sampling of the population is another reason bias is the biggest survey mistake because it doesn’t give you a representative view.

You’ll note in the most recent political polling and surveys that there is always a margin of error. This is to be expected, but you want it to be as small as possible.

From the beginning, focus on your sampling and make sure you survey a broad population for the best results.

Biased Questions

The final way bias enters into surveys causing faulty responses is through leading questions. Be sure your question doesn’t lead respondents to an answer by avoiding biased survey questions.

Asking a double barreled question is another way to introduce bias. Don’t ask two questions in one. Measure one item per question.

To Conclude

Bias is the biggest survey mistake you can make. (tweet this) To avoid it, take time when writing your questions and make sure you send your survey to a representative population.

It is helpful to involve others when creating your survey as they can review it with an open mind.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Simon Dalmeriv

10 Great Questions To Ask In An Employee Survey

Survey Tips

Did you know that globally only one in eight employees are actively engaged in the workplace? According to a Gallup poll, that’s only 13% of workers worldwide.

This has led to an increased commitment by businesses the world over to increase employee engagement through retention and morale boosting activities. It also begs the question, “Why the low engagement?”

To answer that question for your business, you’ll want to conduct an employee survey to find out. This is the only way to find out if your employees are satisfied at their job, and if not, what they’d like to see changed.

Now that you’re on board with sending surveys to your workforce, we’re going to look at 10 great questions to ask in an employee survey. First, let’s look at the important things you want to gather.

What You Want to Know

Your basic goal is to find out if your employees are happy and content with their job. You want to know if they are engaged and will continue to be so. And, finally, you want to increase their on-the-job performance and productivity.

To gather this kind of information, it’s a good idea to keep a three things in mind.

First, you want to know if your employees understand and connect with your company’s mission and goals. Just going about their business to get a paycheck doesn’t equate to an engaged employee.

Engaged workers are more productive, so you want to know if your employees are aligned with your company’s goals. (tweet this) Do they believe in your vision?

Bottom line – you want to know if they understand the link between your goals and their goals.

Second, you want to know how they feel about their co-workers. Are they committed to a team atmosphere?

Third, are your employees capable of doing their job, and do they feel they have the necessary competencies?

While your employees may feel like they are part of the team and adhere to your vision, if they don’t believe in themselves or need extra training, they are less likely to be engaged.

Now that you know to keep these things in mind when crafting your survey, let’s look at 10 great questions to ask in an employee survey.

#1: Question About Mission and Goals

Your employees are your best advocates, and to be engaged, they need to believe in your vision. You want to know if they are in it for the paycheck, or if they truly buy in to the products and services you offer.

Questions you might ask include:

Do you understand the mission and goals of the company? What are they?
Would you recommend our company’s products or services to a friend? Why or why not?
What do you think of our customer service?

#2: Question About Team Work

Team work is big in the 21^st century. Driven by the Millennial generation and their desire to collaborate, you’ll find that employees thrive in a team atmosphere.

When your employees work together with a healthy team, you’ll also find that each team member will go the extra mile to complete the project.

Tied into team work is your employees’ satisfaction with their peers. This is a good place to find out if they are all getting along and sharing the workload.

You want to know if your employees respect each other and manage conflict well. These questions help you gauge employee morale.

Questions you might ask include:

Are you a proud member of your team?
Does your team inspire you to work better and harder?
Do you think your team helps you get your work done?

#3: Question About Supervisors

A bad boss is the number one reason people quit a job. This is why including a question about your managers and supervisors is a good idea.

You want your managers to be supportive, not oppressive. Ask your employees how they feel and if they have any suggestions.

Questions you might ask include:

On a scale of 1 to 10, how comfortable do you feel giving feedback to your supervisor?
What are the strengths of your supervisor?
What are the weaknesses of your supervisor?

#4: Question About Appreciation

Engaged employees feel valued and appreciated. Yet, more often than not, employees feel underappreciated in the workplace.

You’ll encourage productivity among your employees if they feel appreciated and recognized for their hard work, so find out if they do.

Questions you might ask include:

Has your supervisor thanked you for a job well done in the last month?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how valued do you feel at work?
Have you received any recognition in the last month?

#5: Question About Growth

Another big reason, especially among the Millennial population, that people leave jobs is because they don’t feel there is an opportunity for growth.

So, ask your employees if they feel stuck.

Questions you might ask include:

On a scale of 1 to 10, do you feel there are growth opportunities?
Have you received training on a new skill this year?

#6: Question About Long-Term Goals

To help you plan for the future, you want to understand your employees’ career goals. This can also help you motivate your workforce and provide them with opportunities.

Questions you might ask include:

What do you want to be doing two years from now?
Do you see yourself working in the same position in two years?

#7: Question About Accomplishments

Along with growth and long-term goals, this question can help you see into the minds of your employees. Plus, it gives them a chance to toot their own horn.

Questions you might ask include:

What was your greatest accomplishment this year?
Was there anything you wanted to achieve but didn’t?

#8: Question About Job Specifics

Employees aren’t always comfortable voicing their concerns, so this can be a helpful question.

Questions you might ask include:

Which part of your job do you like best?
Which part of your job do you like least?

#9: Question About Help

Are you creating obstacles for your employees? If you don’t ask, you won’t ever know.

Question you might ask include:

How can the company help make your job easier?

#10: Question About Morale

Your employees want to enjoy the workplace, so a little fun each week is a good idea. Find out what their idea of fun is.

Questions you might ask include:

How can we make work more fun?
Do you like team-building activities?

Final Thoughts

When planning for your employee feedback surveys, you want to think of these surveys as a long-range plan. (tweet this)

We don’t recommend sending just one survey and thinking it will fix all of the problems at your company. One survey should be followed several months later, and then again a few months after that.

This allows you to gauge the change in response. Hopefully with enough time in-between surveys (but not too much), you’ll see some change in the answers.

Lastly, when crafting your survey questions, stick with a mix of closed-ended and open-ended survey questions. Take care not to lead your employees down a particular path, and ensure your questions aren’t biased.

Keep your surveys short and on target. Finally, once you’ve received feedback, be sure to act on it. Let your employees know the feedback you received, and what you’re doing to remedy any issues.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Jonathan Simcoe and Gilles Lambert

How To Get Survey Responses From Restaurant Customers

Survey Tips

Keeping your current restaurant customers happy is one of the keys to your success.

This is especially true, because according to LinkedIn, it costs between four and 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.

Knowing that keeping your customers loyal and returning to your restaurant is pivotal to your profit margins, how do you know what they like and don’t like? How can you improve?

The best way to know if your customers are happy, or unhappy, is to ask for their feedback. One of the easiest ways to do this is with a customer feedback survey.

But, how do you get them to complete it?

In this article, we look at how to get survey responses from restaurant customers.

Incentivize the Survey

Consider offering your customers an incentive for completing your survey. You might offer a discount coupon, free appetizer, dessert or drink.

Your best bet is to provide them something of value so they’ll want to complete your survey. Don’t provide it until the end of the survey, though.

By offering a discount, you encourage survey responses from restaurant customers and give them a reason to complete the survey in its entirety.

Make It Easy to Complete

Your customers are busy people. This is why it’s important to make your survey easy to complete. This helps ensure you get responses from restaurant customers. Here are a few tips:

Send your survey to your restaurant’s email list.
Post it on your website.
Link to the survey through your social media accounts like Facebook and Twitter.
Hand them a card with your survey’s URL address after they’ve eaten, or let them take it through the iPads at your table if you have them.
Don’t make it too long. Anything more than 10 questions is too long.
Have a purpose for your survey, don’t just ask a bunch of random questions.
Ask only the questions you will use.
Fine tune your survey questions. Don’t be biased or leading.
Ask only one thing in each question so it’s easy to answer. For example, “Tell us what you liked and didn’t like about our new décor.” Separate these into two questions.

Act on the Data

If you want your customers to respond to your survey, show them you care. (tweet this) For example, let’s say you plan to send two surveys per year.

On survey number one, you gather your responses, but you don’t do anything with your data. Then, when it’s time for survey number two, no one responds because they don’t think you really care.

A great way to get survey responses from restaurant customers is to do something with the data. This lets your customers know that not only do you care about what they have to say, but they can see you’ll take an action.

If you fail to act on your survey responses, you show that you disrespect the opinions of your restaurant customers. This sends a strong message to your customers that improving your restaurant really isn’t a priority.

Consider sending an email to your restaurant customers and highlighting the feedback and the changes you plan to make.

This encourages future survey takes to send you their responses.

Final Thoughts

Survey your customers on a consistent basis to help you know if your restaurant is headed in the right direction.

Craft short, to-the-point surveys to get survey responses from restaurant customers. And, always process your feedback and report back to your clientele.

One final suggestion for encouraging feedback is to offer a mixture of question types. Give your customers a chance to check boxes, but also give them the opportunity to use their own words.

When they have a chance to jot down their ideas, you just might be surprised at the wealth of information you can learn.

This can help you improve things about your restaurant and ultimately increase your bottom line.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your restaurant. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Jay Wennington

How Many Questions Your Online Survey Should Have

Survey Tips

You’re working hard on your survey, and you want to be as thorough as possible.

But, suddenly, you notice you’ve created a lot of questions. Have you ever wondered how many are too many?

In this article, we look at how many questions your online survey should have for great results.

We’re going to highlight some tips for keeping your surveys short and focused while getting you the information you need.

Focus on One Objective

To get the best results for your survey, focus on one objective. (tweet this) Know exactly what you want to learn before crafting your questions.

For example, let’s say you want to know what customers think about your website because you’re thinking about building a new one. This would not be the time to throw in product questions.

Make sure your questions are specific and easily answerable. Keep away from biased, misleading or confusing questions.

If you want to know about other things, make another survey.

Keep Your Survey Short

With your clear objective in hand, craft your survey with as few questions as possible.

While there isn’t a one-size-fits-all number of questions a survey should have, a good rule of thumb is to keep your survey short enough that the average person can complete it 5-10 minutes. This usually amounts to 10 questions or less.

Most of your customers will abandon surveys with too many questions – think more than 10. This is especially true if your questions are long and detailed. If they’re short and focused, you can often get away with a few more.

We do recommend keeping your questions short as respondents tend to abandon long-winded, complicated surveys.

Final Thoughts

Consider letting your respondents know upfront how many questions they can expect and how long you estimate it will take them to finish.

This lets them know your value not only their opinions, but their time.

Tell them why you are conducting your survey and let them know their opinions count.

No matter how many ultra-focused questions you decide to ask, offer survey respondents a small incentive for taking your survey, and you’ll find you just might have fewer dropouts.

Surveys help you make the best decisions for your business. Are you ready to get started with your free Survey Town trial? Start with your free account today, and you can upgrade at any time.

Image: Evan Dennis