Survey Tips

10 Proven Methods You Can Use to Get Customers to Answer Your Survey

7 Proven Methods You Can Use to Get Customers to Answer Your Survey

Survey Tips

You want to grow your business and provide the best experience to your customers. You know that happy customers mean repeat business and new customer acquisition as well.

To accomplish your business goals, you want to use an important marketing tool – the customer survey. Securing customer feedback is crucial to growing your business.

Smart businesses know that sending surveys helps you gain valuable information to propel your business forward. Plus, surveys are easy and affordable to create. (tweet this)

You’ll find there are a few tricks to sending surveys that get responses. In this article, we look at seven proven methods you can use to get customers to answer your survey.

#1: Make Customers Feel Special

Since you want people to complete your survey, you have to make them feel special. How do you do this?

You want to show you genuinely appreciate your customers’ participation in your survey.

There are various types of messaging to use in your survey that accomplish this, and here are two suggestions:

Use the subject line: “We want to know what you think.” This immediately sets the tone and lets your customers know that you really want to know their opinion on your products, services, or customer support. You might then elaborate a bit and tell your customers how their feedback will impact them and your business.
Or, use this subject line: “Please take a short five minutes to complete this important survey.” With this sentence, you tell your customers up front how long your survey is going to take them. Five minutes is a good length because most people have that amount of time to spare. Be sure that you have had sample subjects take your survey, though. You don’t want to promise five minutes when it is really 10. Don’t forget to thank them as well. Always remember that shorter surveys are better.

#2: Provide an Incentive

You can try the above tactics, but if they aren’t working for you, try something different in your next survey.

Offer your customers an incentive to raise your survey completion rate. Here are a few examples:

Offer a discount at the end of the survey. For example, you might provide a 15% off coupon for their next shopping trip.
Give your customers a gift certificate at the end of the survey – $10-15 is a nice range.
You can also offer a drawing as an incentive. For example, “Enter our survey and be entered into a drawing for a $100 gift card.”

Whatever incentive you offer, make sure you know your target audience. It should appeal to a broad range of your respondents.

#3: Use Multiple Channels

Sometimes businesses make the mistake of only sending surveys through one channel.

For example, if you post a link to your survey on Facebook, you won’t necessarily reach all of your customers. Some of them might not even use the social media platform.

The easiest, and usually the best way, to send surveys is through your survey provider or in other instances, your email marketing service provider.

If you have your customers’ email addresses, this is the most reliable way to get your surveys in front of your customers.

Next, you might consider posting your survey through your social media channels and putting it on a landing page on your website. You can also send survey links through SMS.

How does all of this help? It ensures that your customers will see your survey. If they ignore the first notice, but they see a link to the survey three more times, they might just click and complete it.

#4: Keep Your Survey Short

How long is too long?

Research shows that survey length is one of the most important thing respondents consider when completing your survey and accounts for many drop-outs.

As a rule of thumb, keep your surveys under 10 questions. For most surveys one-three is the ideal amount.

The last thing you want is your survey drop-out rate to increase because your survey is too long. Show your customers you appreciate their time by keeping your survey short.

It should only include the questions that you are actually going to act on in the near future.

#5: Be Timely

You want to send your customers their survey the same day they made their purchase or used their services.

It’s best if the experience is fresh in their mind because they’ll be more likely to complete your survey. If they can’t remember their experience, they might provide you with inaccurate feedback.

#6: Know the Goal of Your Survey

Before you even begin putting your survey together, you want to make sure you know the goal.

Perhaps your goal is to find out if your customers would recommend you business. Your go-to survey is the Net Promoter Score survey.

Or, your goal might be to find out how your customer liked the product they purchased. This is a short survey with detailed questions.

Next, you want to tell your customers up front what you’re going to do with the information. And, after the survey, when you’ve formulated your plan, email your customers and let them know the actions you’re going to take.

This helps them feel appreciated once again.

#7: Personalize Your Survey Email

Your customers expect you to know who they are.

According to a survey, when you send emails with personalized subject lines, your customers are 26% more likely to open them.

When survey respondents see their name in print on their screen, there is a subtle nod that encourages them to complete your survey. The human touch works when it comes to increasing survey response rates.

Consider using their name in not only the email subject line but the body of the email as well.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know the seven proven methods you can use to get customers to answer your survey, you’re ready to create your first survey.

You are also well on your way to understanding your customers’ needs and wants better so you can refine your products and improve your customer service.

By taking the time needed to create the best survey possible, you have a better shot at more responses which is just what you need to improve your business.

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.

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What is CSAT and How Does it Work?

Survey Tips

Do you know if your customers are satisfied? Do you have processes in place to measure customer satisfaction?

If not, consider implementing the CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) survey.

To help you, we look at “What is CSAT, and how does it work?”

The CSAT measures how your products and services meet or surpass your customers’ expectations.

In today’s busy world, where everyone expects the best service, knowing how you meet your customers’ expectations can mean the difference between a successful business and one that closes its doors.

CSAT is Key to Success

Poor customer service affects your business in many ways, which is why it’s so important you know your CSAT.

Customer service is key to helping your business grow. And, in our digital age, it’s important to keep your customers satisfied. Why?

Quite simply it’s too easy for people to leave you bad reviews on Google and social media. It’s too easy for them to get in a negative discussion about you online, and their angry rants may go viral.

This spells disaster for business.

Yet, on the flip side, if you know your CSAT, you know you also have highly satisfied customers who go on to leave you glowing reviews. They become your brand ambassadors telling everyone they know how great you are.

How the CSAT Works

To measure customer satisfaction, you send out a survey with the following question. It might be a one question survey or included in your regular survey.

You ask, “How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the product or service you received?”

CSAT scores are expressed on a scale of 0-100% with 100% representing total customer satisfaction. Usually respondents rate their satisfaction on a scale of one to five:

The formula is the number of satisfied customers (those answering four or five) divided by the number of satisfaction survey responses times 100 to equal the percentage of satisfied customers.

To Conclude

The CSAT reveals important data about your company.

You can use your customer satisfaction score to make an actionable plan to improve your number.

Once you know your CSAT number, you can use it to improve your customer service, train your employees, develop new products or services, and make your business stand out from the competition. (tweet this)

At the end of the day, your CSAT helps you boost your revenues by showing your customers they are number one.

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.

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Decoding the Customer Effort Score (CES)

Survey Tips

Have you heard people toss the term CES around the conference room? Struggling to understand just what it means?

In this article, we are decoding the customer effort score (CES) so you understand how it can help your business.

What is the Customer Effort Score?

In the simplest terms, the customer effort score measures your customers’ perception of how easy or hard you company made it for the them to complete their chosen action. (tweet this)

This could be anything really. For example, how easy or hard was it for:

A customer to buy something from your website or in your store.
Someone to resolve an issue with your staff.
A customer to register a product.
Your website visitors to navigate your website.
A person to leave you a review.

So, you can see that while the CES most often involves your service and support staff, it doesn’t always.

You can use the CES metric to evaluate how easy it is for your customers to deal with your business in a myriad of ways. One of the most common uses it to learn how easy it was for your customers to find a resolution to their problem with your service team.

In the 21^st century and age of social media and review sites all over the internet, you know your customers want to do business with companies that are easy to work with. And, all too often, if they had a bad experience, they’ll spread it all over the internet.

You don’t want this to happen. It’s imperative that your customers are happy with their solutions and that they feel their issues were handled promptly and simply.

The CES allows you to determine if this is actually true.

When Should You Use the Customer Effort Score?

Best practice is to use the CES right after a customer has had an interaction with your business.

For example, you would send the survey after a customer purchased a product or service or had an interaction with your customer service department.

Your goal is to get real-time feedback. If you let too many days or weeks go between the interaction and the survey, you are likely to lose valuable data.

How to Measure Customer Effort Score

As we mentioned, you want to send out your CES survey shortly after any particular interaction.

The survey includes only one statement.

A sample question may look like this: “Your company (X) made it easy for me to handle my issue (buy a product, purchase a service, talk to support, use your website, figure out how to use a product).

The possible answers would be: strongly agree, agree, somewhat agree, neutral, somewhat disagree, disagree, or strongly disagree.

You might also ask the question like this: “How easy was it to solve your problem with (name of your business) today? The answer choices might be: very difficult, difficult, neither, easy, or very easy.

It’s also possible to send out your one question CES survey with just Yes/No as the possible answers.

Some businesses even include the option of allowing their customers to leave a comment. This can often provide a better look at what happened to that particular customer.

You’ll find many successful businesses measure CES right alongside the Net Promoter Score.

Why Use the CES

If you want to instill customer loyalty in the people who shop with you and retain them in the future, you want to explore the customer effort score.

The CES tells you in the most basic terms whether or not you are providing the best customer experience. If you are, great. If you aren’t, you know it’s time to improve if you want to better the customer experience.

When you reduce customer effort in all aspects of your business, but especially when it comes to service, you build customer loyalty.

Bottom line – you differentiate your business from the competition when you help your customers by providing them a quick and easy way to purchase from you, use your products or services, and work with your service staff.

Why Customer Effort Matters

You’ve been there before. You ordered something from a business, it didn’t work, and you called customer service. Then, you spoke with the first tier, second tier, and third tier, and yet you still don’t have a resolution.

That means you expended way too much customer effort. You probably won’t return to that business again, and you certainly won’t recommend them to others, and you may even broadcast your bad feelings about them.

Now, you don’t want that to happen to your own business, and that’s why your customers’ effort actually matters.

By reducing customer effort, this is what you get:

People who will recommend you to others in the form of positive word of mouth. This is where your Net Promoter Score can come in.
Customer retention increases, and your customers purchase from you again.
Your costs decline because you solve customers’ issues quickly instead of spending additional money on labor costs.
Employee retention also rises because they are happy to provide a better customer experience, so they incur less stress and frustration.

How CES Helps You Improve Your Team

If you have staff members or customer service agents who above normal CES results in negative territory, you can recognize that they either need additional training or a new job.

Knowing your CES score can help you identify where you can help your team grow which ultimately makes your company stronger.

Do be cognizant though of your service staff who regularly handles the most difficult and complex cases. Naturally their CES score may be less than the agents that handle the easier issues.

Final Thoughts

Measuring the customer effort score ultimately helps you grow your business. Combine it with your Net Promoter Score, and you’re well on your way to providing the best customer service.

Today’s customers demand a good shopping experience, and they’ll shop elsewhere if they don’t find it with you.

Effortless customer service will improve your bottom line. Make a concerted effort to eliminate hurdles and hassle for your customers, and they’ll soon be shouting your praises.

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.

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5 Reasons to Integrate Survey Results into Your CRM

Survey Tips

A CRM (customer relationship management) platform is a vital centerpiece to your business.

Why? In our digital age, the business that builds relationships is the one that succeeds. The best way for you to set yourself apart from the competition is by using your CRM to interact with your customers.

And, when it comes to meeting the needs of your customers and providing the best products and services, you have to know what they want. One way to learn about their needs is through surveys.

So, instead of leaving your survey results out there on their own, you can send the information to your CRM.

In this article, we look at five reasons to integrate survey results into your CRM. When you do this, you can add this info to your CRM to enhance the service you provide your customers.

First, let’s look at customer feedback.

Why Feedback is Important

Before we get into the importance of integration, we want to discuss why surveys are so important to the customer service experience you provide your customers.

Feedback is vital to understanding the desires of your customers and to learn how they feel about you. It’s nearly impossible to improve your customer experience if you don’t ask people what they think.

Asking for input means you can take action quickly.

Because feedback is so important to your success, it doesn’t help you to keep it outside of your CRM. Enhancing the customer experience means seeing the big picture, and that’s best done through integration.

Now let’s discuss why you should integrate your survey results into your CRM.

#1: You Get Immediate Feedback

Integrating your survey into your CRM software gives you more power to convert leads into customers.

For example, if someone contacts you through your website, you can set up an automatic survey to learn more about them. Once you get this feedback, you can qualify the lead based on their survey responses.

#2: You Get to Know Your Customers

Let’s say you use a survey platform like Survey Town, and you have a CRM. If you integrate them, you have access to all of your customers’ information in one place.

For example, you may have a website lead, Bob Smith. You have the info he requested on your contact form. He may have even made a purchase from you, and that information is in your CRM.

You sent out a survey last week, and Bob Smith completed it. Because you have an integrated system, you can see his data in your CRM and use it with the other data to reach out to him and provide him with just what he’s looking for.

Or, conversely, if he hasn’t made a purchase yet, you can send him a survey to learn more about his needs.

#3: Provide Better Customer Service

Your customer just purchased several items from you. Then, you wait about two weeks, and you send them a survey to get their feedback on your products/services.

The survey responses land in your CRM, and you have all the information you need to reach out. This is especially helpful if the comments are negative.

By having this leverage, you may keep bad reviews off social media and Google because you can respond faster.

An integrated system lets you respond to negative experiences and provide immediate solutions which is a win-win for everyone.

#4: You Reach Qualified People

You can use your CRM data to conduct better surveys. For example, if you send a survey on its own, you may not have a way to tie it to a person. But, if you integrate your CRM, you have a better chance of reaching qualified people who give you great feedback.

Customer feedback surveys and customer relationship management systems are uniquely intertwined.

They pack a powerful one-two punch when it comes to building customer relationships and improving their satisfaction.

#5: You Get Your Staff Involved

Another benefit to integrating your survey results and your CRM is the help it provides your employees.

This integration gives your team members the ability to handle leads in a more informed way which in turn helps them convert more of these leads into paying customers.

If closing sales is your goal, integrating your survey results into your CRM is a must-do.

Improve Your Systems

We’ve looked at some ways this integration helps with your customers, but let’s also look at how it helps your business.

When you tie the two together, you simplify your processes. Everything lands in one place, and you aren’t spending time importing lists or manually sending out survey emails. Your integrated feedback and CRM solution does all of this for you.

When you can see your survey results along with the purchases and contacts each customer has had with your business, you have more insight into what works and what doesn’t. (tweet this)

This also helps your sales team and your customer service team because all of the info is in one place.

To Conclude

Marketing in today’s digital climate is all about the customer. You want to get them the right information at the right time, and you want to make sure you’re meeting their needs.

To do this, you may already be sending surveys which is terrific. Increase the power of your surveys by integrating them with your customer relationship management system.

By integrating, you’re also streamlining your systems. This makes your data work harder and allows you to build strong customer relationships.

Combining your survey feedback and your CRM helps you personalize your customer messaging and your marketing targeting.

You can send custom surveys that are tailored to happy as well as unhappy customers, again enhancing the relationship.

Bottom line – your goal is connecting your target audience with your products and services. To do this you not only have to know what they want, but you have to build a relationship.

Integrating your survey results into your CRM helps you connect everything together so you can grow a strong business.

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.

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What is an NPS Score, and Why is it Important

What is a NPS Score, and Why is it Important?

Survey Tips

For businesses who like to know what their customers think about their company, the NPS Score is an important tool.

But, you may ask, “What is a NPS Score, and why is it important?”

In this article, we look at the NPS Score survey and how it can benefit your business.

What is the NPS Score?

NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. It measures customer satisfaction.

This score comes from the Net Promoter Survey, and it’s a really simple, one question survey.

All you do is ask your customers this question: “How likely are you on a scale of 0-10 to recommend our (name of business/products/services) to your friends, family, or colleagues?”

This is what your answers mean:

Those who choose between 0-6 on the scale are called detractors.
People who answer with a 7 or 8 are neutral or passive to your business.
Respondents who choose a 9 or a 10 are your promoters.

To get your NPS Score, you subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, and you have your answer. You completely ignore those who answer with a seven or eight.

The higher your score, the better you did.

Why is it Important?

Overall, the Net Promoter Score is important to your business because it provides a big-picture look at your customer loyalty. (tweet this)

You can see how this separates you from the competition, and it helps you see where you can improve.

The NPS Score also shows you how specific departments in your company are doing so everyone is getting equally high scores.

Plus, if you use the NPS Score, and you use it as a key indicator of how well your company is doing, you’ll see it helps drive your business growth as you work to improve your score.

For example, if your first score is under eight, and you make a plan for improvement, you can resend the survey six months later and see if your score grows.

The NPS Score Works

We like the NPS for many reasons, one of which is that you can gauge company success by this score.

Those people rated as promoters (score of nine or ten) are much more likely to be repeat customers. You are in essence closing the funnel because you are locking in future business.

So, by aiming for a promoter rating, you are helping ensure your success.

In addition, we like the score because it lets you know if you can count on word of mouth.

Hands down, word of mouth referrals are the most important piece of your marketing strategy. Word of mouth is better than any marketing strategy you can come up with.

In our hyper-digital age, people want to know what others think. They even trust the word of strangers. So, the more promoters you have promoting your business, the better.

Because you value the NPS Score, you can work hard for your nine or ten score, and if you do, you’ll know that the referral is right around the corner.

Best practices are to track your NPS Score on a regular basis, compare the results over time, strategize for improvement and continue to evaluate the data.

Final Thoughts

The business environment is increasingly crowded, and it’s more important than ever before to not only get new customers but retain your current ones.

The best way to increase your business is to keep your customer base so happy that they’ll share how much they like you with friends and family.

The Net Promoter Score is the best gauge of customer satisfaction and one you can use to determine how content your customers are with your products and services.

Bottom line – the NPS helps you understand if your customers would recommend you to others. If your score is under eight, you’ve got some evaluating to do.

A low score means you need to have frank discussions about your products, customer service, and overall processes. Your goal is to get your score to nine or ten.

If your score is already a nine or ten, you still want to have a strategy session to make sure you carry on and provide for your customers, so they continue to sing your praises.

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.

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5 Smart Ways to Improve Your NPS Score

Survey Tips

Are you ready to supercharge your Net Promoter Score (NPS)?

As the game-changing survey, you’ll find that the NPS is the single best way to gauge your customers’ loyalty and find out how willing they are to talk positively about you to family and friends.

In this article, we look at five smart ways to improve your NPS score so you can make your customers happier and increase retention.

#1: Concentrate on Service

In this day and age, your customers expect incredible customer service. Make sure their experience is seamless and easy. Don’t waste their time and make sure your employees keep the customer at the forefront.

In addition, resolve any conflicts quickly.

#2: Engage Your Staff

Happy employees mean happy customers.

Treat your employees great, and you can be sure they’ll pass on the good service. An employee who is content at a job is more likely to share those good feelings and culture with your customers. (tweet this)

#3: Listen to Phone Calls

You can improve your NPS by listening to customer calls or watching employee/customer interactions at your place of business.

If an employee falls short, it’s time for some extra training.

#4: Provide Ongoing Training

Customer service training should go on all year long and not just once a year or at new hire on-boarding.

Create a culture of service by working on it on a daily basis.

#5: Say Thank You

You should of course say thank you in your NPS survey, but you also want to consider saying thank you after the results come in.

There are several options for thanking your customers for completing a survey. One way is to send a thank you email, but if you really want to impress, and you know your customer’s name, send them a hand-written note through the mail.

Final Thoughts

Surveys have their place for any business, especially when you want to know how your customers feel about your products and your service.

NPS surveys are important, too, as they give you a clear picture of how your customers feel about you. It helps you learn if you’re excelling or falling short. It also lets you know very specifically if you can count on your customers to be brand advocates, which is important to your overall marketing and growth strategy.

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.

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How to Know If You Have “Good Survey Questions”

Survey Tips

You’ve done your research. You’ve drafted your questions, and you think you’re ready to send your survey.

But, how do you know it’s good enough to elicit the kinds of responses you need?

While online survey tools make it easy to send surveys, you still need to do the legwork and create a survey that actually works. This requires careful planning.

Without it, you may not get the meaningful data you’re looking for.

To help you evaluate your survey, in this article, we look at how to know if you have “good survey questions.”

Take a look at the following and then look at your survey questions. If they meet these qualifications, you have good survey questions.

Have a Goal

Do you have a goal for your survey? It’s best practice to have a goal in mind before you start crafting your survey questions.

For example, ask yourself about the objective of your survey. What’s the most important thing you want to know? What else are you looking for?

Once you have your goal, you can craft questions to go with it.

Keep It Simple

We can almost promise you that your customers won’t answer long surveys (unless the reward is overly beneficial).

Because of this, you want to keep your survey as simple as possible. If your survey is simple, and short, you’re more likely to have a larger pool or respondents.

People are busy, and you want to provide them easy access to your survey. Make sure they can complete your survey in under 10 minutes. (tweet this)

If you want to ensure the best results, keep your survey well under five minutes. Show your respondents you care and respect their time, otherwise your abandonment rate will skyrocket.

Stay Away from Yes/No Questions

Otherwise known as a polar question, the yes/no question in most instances isn’t going to provide you much data.

With this question there are only two possible answers, and that is all you’re going to get.

You leave your respondents without a voice. They can’t tell you what they think, and they have no other choice by yes or no. It may be they are somewhere in between.

What’s more, this question is leading. If your respondent isn’t squarely in the yes or no corner, they are forced to pick one of those answers, creating bias.

You’re after real, authentic data, and the polar question isn’t the way to get it.

If you are really set on a closed-ended type of question like this, at least give your respondents multiple items to choose from. The multiple choice question is certainly a better option because you are giving them more choices.

In addition, you may also want to include a line for “other,” so they can add their own answer. After all, you may not have thought of all possible answers.

Use the Right Type of Question

When working with surveys, you’ll note there are many different types of questions.

In order to get the best data, you want to use the right type of question.

Qualitative questions are open-ended. Use these types of questions when you want a written answer.

Quantitative questions are closed-ended, and you offer options for respondents. These may include:

Check boxes
Drop down menus
Radio buttons
Rating scales
Ranking scales

Often, you’ll find that a mix of questions is ideal for your needs. You might even follow up with an open-ended question after a respondent answers a closed-ended question in a particular way.

Use Open-Ended Questions

This type of question can be very valuable because your respondents provide a comment. It can be one sentence or many and often gives you insight into how your survey respondents really feel about your business or your products.

The open-ended question allows you to really dig deep for data.

As we just mentioned, not all of your questions have to be open-ended nor should they be. Consider one or two open-ended questions so as not to overly tax your respondents.

Do be careful when wording this question. You want to ensure you aren’t leading respondents to a particular answer.

Ask One Thing in Each Question

This is a problem that derails many survey writers.

It happens when someone writes a question that actually includes more than one question. For example:

Do you like product x? What is your favorite thing about it? How is it beneficial?

Not only are you asking too many similar questions, but you’re confusing your respondents.

If it was open-ended, you might expect to only get one of your questions answered. If it was closed-ended, your respondents wouldn’t know what to answer, so your data will be skewed.

Each question should pose only one thing. Don’t make it hard for respondents to answer you accurately and precisely.

You might reword the above example like this: “What do you find most beneficial about product x?”

Don’t Use Leading Words

Great writers know that words can have very different meanings depending on their context.

Good survey writers are aware of the same nuances.

In order to get the most precise data from your survey, be very careful with your wording. Make sure your questions aren’t leading and that they say exactly what you mean.

Have others look over your questions to see if they interpret them differently than you meant them.

Avoid Double-Barreled Questions

Similar to the leading question, this one shows great bias.

For example, if you own a hotel, a double-barreled question might look like this: “Is our hotel your favorite place to stay?” Or, “What is the most economical hotel for you to stay at?”

Not only are these questions leading, but in the case of the last question, one person’s economical isn’t always the same as another.

Final Thoughts

Some sources attribute the following to Albert Einstein, “If I had an hour to solve a problem, and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask… for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

As you craft your survey and look for good survey questions that produce the best data, consider this quote.

If you ask the right questions and in the right manner, you’re sure to get the data you’re looking for to meet your overall goals.

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.

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Understanding Your Survey Results

Survey Tips

You’ve done your due diligence and created a simple, data-rich survey, and the results are pouring in.

Now what?

It’s time to review your survey responses. In this article, we look at understanding your survey results and how to move forward with them.

Display Your Results Visually

The human brain processes visual images 60,000 times faster than it does text.

So, take your data and put it into an image-based format. Think tables and graphs. This makes it easier not only for you, but for the rest of your team, to interpret the results.

Consider tables when looking at precise numbers or when you have just a few comparisons. Use graphs and other imagery when you have more to compare.

Ignore the Outliers

Once you have your survey data in a visually appealing format, you can concentrate on the high points. This means look at the biggest trends and for the initial discussion, ignore the outliers.

At first glance, you’re after the big picture of the data. For example, 15 respondents answered a question the same way, while two people didn’t. Save those outliers for a later discussion because they might even be mistakes.

You don’t want to miss the big picture because you focused on the smallest survey responses. (tweet this)

Use the Data Wisely

Let’s say you conducted a survey, and you wanted 100 responses, but you only got 10.

If your survey was about something as important as a major product change, you might want to send out a few more surveys a respectable time apart to be sure the data is correct.

If you do this, consider revising your survey and asking the question in a new way to elicit more responses.

Once you find your survey data correlates with one another, you can feel safe moving forward with your business change.

Final Thoughts

The best surveys are simple and specific with data that you can take action on. They begin with a well-crafted survey and end with a thorough examination of your survey results.

Finally, before you create your survey, write down its purpose along with what you think you’ll find. Then, you’ll have better results and something to compare them to.

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: Helena Lopes on Unsplash