survey questions

10 Questions for Your Guest Evaluation

Survey Tips

Sending a survey after someone stays at your hotel or bed and breakfast is a fairly commonplace marketing tool.

If you aren’t currently sending a guest evaluation, or if you’d like to give your survey a refresh, this article includes 10 questions for your guest evaluation.

These are questions you can use to see where you are excelling, or perhaps where you can improve your business.

Your reputation depends on what people are saying about you, and if you don’t know how they really feel, you have nothing on which to base your improvements. (tweet this) This is why a guest evaluation survey is so important for the hospitality field.

With many of the questions below, you can choose to offer open-ended questions as well as rating questions or closed-ended questions where users can choose more than one answer.

Consider what you really want to know before deciding on the question type.

#1: Why Did You Choose to Stay at This Hotel?

By asking this question, you get a good idea of whether it was an online search, price, word of mouth, reviews, repeat customer or something else.

Provide choices for your customers and let them check as many as they’d like because it could be multiple reasons.

#2: Tell Us About the Front Desk Staff?

These employees provide the first impression for your guests, and they set the tone for the entire stay.

Let respondents rate the front desk staff. If the response was negative, provide another question so they can say why.

#3: How was the Check-In Process?

This question lends itself to an initial closed-ended question.

You might ask respondents how satisfied they were with the check-in process with choices like: very satisfied, satisfied, neutral, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied.

Yet, you could employ conditional logic to gather more information in the form of an open-ended question.

For example, if they answered satisfied or very satisfied, you would send them to a question asking them why.

If they answered on the opposite end, you certainly want to know what happened, so you’d ask for details.

#4: Was Your Room Clean Upon Arrival?

This is a simple question and usually, a yes or no answer is just fine.

But, again, you want to employ conditional logic if survey respondents answer with a no response.

Push further to find out what wasn’t up to par. This helps you better train your housekeeping staff to meet the needs of your guests.

With regard to clean rooms, it’s worth noting that this is one of the most important items to your hotel guests when it comes to choosing accommodations.

#5: How Did the Housekeeping Staff Do During Your Stay?

With this question, you would use a rating scale.

For example, your question might look like this:

The housekeeping staff did an excellent job cleaning my room.

o Strongly agree

o Agree

o Neutral/Not sure

o Disagree

o Strongly disagree

If they answer that they disagree, move them on to another question so you can learn about the problems they encountered.

#6: Did You Use Any of the Amenities? If so, which ones?

This is an important question because you really want to know if they used your business center, swimming pool, hot tub, exercise room, restaurant, etc.

So, the best way to do this question is to provide a list of all of your amenities so they can check the boxes of all that apply.

You could follow this question up with a “Why didn’t you use X amenity,” if you want to learn how important individual ones are to your hotel guests.

#7: Was Your Bed Comfortable?

This is another important item for your hotel guests. While it might not be what makes them make the initial reservation, you can bet that it is a determining factor when they decide the following:

Whether or not to return to your property.
What kind of online review they’ll write.
If they recommend you to others.

So, ask this question. Then, take a look at your results over a few months. If the answer is most often a no, then you want to work new beds into your next budget.

#8: Did You Enjoy Breakfast?

If you serve breakfast, this is an important question to ask because it’s vital to the overall impression your guests have of your property.

While this can be a yes or no question, you certainly want to follow it up with conditional logic.

The end goal is to find what they enjoyed about the breakfast. You might find no one likes oatmeal, so you can remove it from your offerings.

You also want to know what they like to ensure it stays on your menu.

#9: How was the Check-Out Process?

Just like the question you asked about the check-in process, you want to know about the check-out process.

This includes things like:

Was your bill accurate?
Did you check out online?
Did you go to the front desk to check out?
How was the front desk staff?
Were there enough luggage racks for you?
Did you find the parking adequate for ease of getting your bags to the car?

#10: How Likely Are You to Recommend Our Hotel to Others?

Finally, this is the ultimate question on your list. This is the meat of your guest evaluation.

Why? Because when all is said and done, you want to know if you succeeded in making your guest’s stay so wonderful that they will recommend you to others.

This question is what makes up your Net Promotor Score. It’s what lets you gauge the loyalty of your customer.

Did you go far enough to build a great relationship?

If the answer to this question is less than satisfactory, you have a problem on your hands and one that must be solved quickly.

Final Thoughts

The hospitality business is based on reputation, digital reviews and even word of mouth.

To make sure that your hotel or bed and breakfast is getting a five-star rating and reputation online, you want to know what your guests think. The best way to do this is through a guest evaluation survey.

The 10 questions included here will help you determine whether or not your property is making the grade. You will get insight on where you excel and where you can improve.

In the hospitality business, anything under a four-star rating will give your guests pause, so it pays to conduct a guest evaluation so you can make quick, positive corrections to ensure five stars show up for you each time.

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

Image: Paul Bence and rawpixel.com on Unsplash

How to Achieve Balance in A Survey

Survey Tips

The purpose of a good survey is to dig deep to learn what your customers really think about your products or services and your customer service.

You want to provide a survey to your customers that not only meets their usability needs, but one that meets yours.

The results you are looking for are in-depth and reliable. To do this, you must create a balanced survey that asks the right questions.

In this article, we look at how to achieve balance in a survey.

Watch for Bias

Your first step in achieving balance in a survey is writing open-ended survey questions that avoid bias.

This means staying away from questions that bias respondents towards one answer.

Biased questions ruin your survey’s reliability because the answers you receive aren’t accurate.

What does a biased question look like? Here’s an example:

We love our new cleaning solution. How wonderful do you think it is?

While this may be an extreme example of bias, you can see how this pressures respondents to come up with a positive answer.

This is not only off-putting to respondents, but it skews your data.

One way to fix this question is to write one like this: How does our new cleaning solution work for you?

This puts the focus on the cleaning solution, and leaves respondents able to answer positively or negatively.

By eliminating any biased wording, you take out your own opinions and leave the answer wide open for respondents.

Your other option would be to re-frame the question, while adding another option so your survey remains balanced. Consider these two questions:

How helpful is our new cleaning solution?

What about our new cleaning solution hasn’t met your needs?

On their own, these questions are biased. When set side-by-side, they provide balance.

Provide a Balanced Scale

Your next step is using a balanced scale when creating your closed-ended survey questions.

When posing questions on a balanced scale, you ask respondents to answer a question based on a balanced ratings system. For example, your question might be:

Rate your experience with our new cleaning solution:

The choices you provide are very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, neither satisfied or dissatisfied, satisfied, very satisfied.

This is a balanced scale because there are two options on each side of neutral – one moving in the positive direction and one moving in the negative direction.

In a balanced scale, both the negative and positive categories must be equal. If they aren’t, you might end up with survey bias because you are leading respondents to a particular answer.

The mid-point must be between to equal sides to avoid “forcing” respondents to answer in a way they don’t really feel. This can create a sub-conscious bias.

Keep your scale balanced so you don’t get inaccurate results or misleading data that ruins the accuracy of your survey. (tweet this)

How do you know what kind of scale to use? First, more categories aren’t always the best scenario. Give respondents too many choices, and you again run the risk of unreliable data because the choices are so overwhelming, the respondent just picks an answer.

When it comes to balanced scales, less is often better as long as there is enough difference between the choices, and the positives and negatives are balanced.

Your categories need to be distinctive to avoid data problems, but not so far apart that respondents wished there was another choice.

Final Thoughts

For the most reliable and usable data, keep your survey balanced.

Whether you take all bias out of your questions, or you offer two alternatives, one positive and one negative, you allow your respondents the freedom to answer truthfully about how they really feel.

To achieve balance in a survey, keep all of your own thoughts and opinions out of your questions so you can get true and accurate responses.

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: Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

9 Of The Most Common Survey Questions

Survey Tips

Wondering what your customers think of your business, your staff, and your product and services? The best way to find out is through a survey.

Surveys help you gather data and analyze it so you can take action if necessary. They have the ability to help you increase your business while strengthening your relationship with your customers.

To help you make the most out of your next survey, we look at nine of the most common survey questions and review their effectiveness.

#1: The Open-Ended Survey Question

The open-ended survey question is perhaps the most effective survey question because it provides you with the most information. (tweet this)

With this question, the sky’s the limit when it comes to answers.

You use the open-ended survey question when you really want to dig deep into how your respondents feel about your company, your brand, your products and services, and your customer service and staff.

This question allows respondents to answer the question in as much detail as they want.

#2: The Dichotomous Question

Generally speaking, this is the common yes or no question.

For example, you might ask, “Have you used our products in the last year?”

Respondents are then given the option to simply answer yes or no.

As for the effectiveness of this type of question, it’s beneficial if the only answer you want is yes or no. If you want to screen respondents out and send them on or dump them out of your survey, this question works.

Many people use this type of question to make sure only “qualified” people are taking their survey.

In the above example, you’d respond to survey takers who answered no, they haven’t used your products, with a thank you message and the end of the survey.

Those who answered yes, they have used your products, would continue on.

#3: The Multiple-Choice Question

Another common survey question is the multiple-choice question that consists of three or more answer choices.

With this question, you might ask respondents which products or services they’ve used. For example, the question might be “What is your favorite product of ours that you’ve used in the last year?”

You would then give them three-ten choices and they choose one.

We recommend adding in an “other” category for certain questions to make sure you cover all your bases.

Like the dichotomous question, this is also a good question for which you can use conditional logic. Depending on their answer, you can send them off into various directions to answer different survey trains.

#4: The Rating Scale Question

A very common type of survey question, the rating scale asks survey respondents to rate their experiences.

It might be a product, a service or how the customer felt about something. The key to this question is a scale, usually from something that was very bad to very good.

This question is effective if you just want to know how your customer perceives your product or service.

The most common form of ratings question uses the Likert Scale. When responding to this question, your survey participants specify their level of agreement or disagreement.

#5: The Rank Order Question

You’ve probably answered this type of question many times.

With the rank order question, you might list five of the services you offer and ask respondents to rank them in order of their usefulness.

This question is effective in that it allows you to prioritize your marketing dollars into the services that people find the most valuable.

#6: The Demographic Question

Common and important, most surveys include the demographic questions.

Why do you want to ask these questions? They’re vital to the data you collect.

With the demographic survey questions, you learn the age, gender, income, race, geographical location, number of children, education level and much more of your respondents.

This helps you filter your results by demographic items.

For example, you might find that most of your respondents with children feel differently about your products than those without. Or, you might learn that people at a certain income level had a different experience with your service than others.

You have a more accurate view of your respondents once you have demographic data. This helps you understand your customer and in turn market to them more effectively.

#7: The Single Select Question

This type of question allows you to ask your respondents to choose from preconfigured options. In this instance, they only choose one.

For example, you ask, “What is your favorite food?” They can choose from pizza, burgers, steak and chicken fingers, but they are only allowed to select one.

Based on this answer, if you own a restaurant, you might add more of this type of food to your menu.

This is a closed or forced-choice question. It’s effective when you want very specific data.

#8: The Multi Select Question

This is just like the single select question, except your respondents can choose as many options as they’d like.

In the previous example, if you made it multi select, respondents could choose each one of your food items.

This question can be effective if a broad amount of data is acceptable.

#9: The Semantic Differential Scale Question

Another type of ratings question, this common survey question asks respondents to rate your company, service or product using a seven-point scale. At each opposing end is a completely opposite description.

For example, one choice would be very likely, while the other choice would be very unlikely. Respondents would choose on the scale of seven, from 1 being very unlikely to seven being very likely.

This question is perhaps not the most effective because the middle ground is very vague.

To Conclude

Now that you know nine of the most common survey questions and their level of effectiveness, you’re ready to start building your survey.

Before you do, though, here are a few more tips to building the perfect and most successful survey.

Know your objective. Narrow down what you want to know from your customers and what you’re willing and able to take action on. Then, tailor your survey around this topic only.
Keep your survey short. For the best data, keep your survey to no more than five minutes. This generally means asking fewer than 10 questions.
Include a balance of closed-ended and open-ended questions and make sure the question style fits your query.
Ask only one thing per question. If you ask two things in one question, you end up with skewed data, and you confuse your respondents.
Be careful of question bias. Have others proof your survey before sending it out to avoid leading and biased questions.

Finally, do take action on your survey results and let your respondents know what you learned from the survey and what you intend to do about it.

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: Ken Treloar on Unsplash

The Art Of Asking The Right Questions

Survey Tips

Interestingly, to get the answers you seek, you first have to ask the right questions. In fact, this is the goal of effective communicators and data collectors.

To help you get the best survey responses, we look at the art of asking the right questions.

Ask Open-Ended Questions

One of the best ways to ask the right question is to pose an open-ended question to your survey respondents.

If you really want an honest answer to your question, you want to ask a what or a how question. For example:

What do you think of product x after you’ve used it for several weeks?
How do you feel our team met your service needs?
How can we change the product to better meet your needs?
What do you think of your interaction with our sales team member?

You don’t want to ask leading questions that prompt a respondent to answer in a specific way. Instead, use the open-ended question to elicit the most honest, thoughtful answers.

Ask Purposeful Questions

Another trick to asking the right questions is to be purposeful in your survey.

Don’t just ask questions for the purpose of asking questions or filling your survey. Sometimes asking one-three questions is enough, especially if you’re asking the right ones.

You should only ask questions that provide you more information and a better understanding of how your products, systems and team are doing.

It’s imperative that you only post questions that you intend to take action on.

Final Thoughts

To master the art of asking the right question, simplicity is a good rule of thumb.

This helps you communicate effectively and gather the most useful data.

Ask only what you really need to know and explain your question in the most succinct way possible.

This ensures you end up with actionable data so you can use your survey responses 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.

Image: Ashes Sitoula on Unsplash

Top 8 Challenges With Designing Accurate Surveys

Survey Tips

Surveys are an effective way to collect data from your customers. They are helpful in evaluating your offerings and finding ways to make changes for the better.

Yet, some people struggle with survey design and creation and create surveys that aren’t giving them the most accurate results.

To help you learn how to generate the best surveys, we look at the top eight challenges with designing accurate surveys and provide you the solutions you need.

Challenge #1: Missing the Purpose

One of the biggest challenges with designing accurate surveys is knowing the purpose behind it or narrowing it down.

A poor survey will have questions that aren’t related and seemingly have no purpose.

The Solution:

The problem is solved by knowing the purpose of your survey. Before you start creating your survey, you want to ask yourself a few vital questions:

What do I need to know?
Why do I need to know it?
What will I do with my results?

Once you can answer these questions, the purpose of your survey will be clear, and with a clear purpose, more people are likely to complete your survey.

Challenge #2: Using Question Bias

The next thing we look at is the problem of question bias. This means that you are asking questions in such a way that you’ll get the answers you’re looking for.

In other words, you are “prompting” respondents.

For example, a political organization conducts a survey. To influence their results, they ask their questions in carefully crafted ways to elicit the answers they want.

The Solution:

Leading questions not only hurt your survey/poll results, but they also ruin your trustworthiness factor. (tweet this)

The best way to avoid question bias is to take your emotions out of the survey. If you need, have someone else help you craft the questions so they aren’t leading respondents to a specific answer. Or, have others review your survey.

Challenge #3: Measuring Too Many Things

Along with the purpose of your survey, you have to know what you’re measuring and how.

If you don’t know this, you’ll end up measuring too many things or the wrong things, and it will be hard to analyze your data.

The Solution:

Deciding what to measure is in direct correlation to the objectives of your survey.

For example, if you want to learn about how respondents feel about your company and your customer service, you measure the net promoter score.

Know the purpose of your survey, and then decide what you want to measure. Don’t measure too many things at one time. This also helps you manage your data and helps ensure you can take action on your results.

Challenge #4: Using a Biased Selection

Why is selection bias a challenge when designing accurate surveys?

Selection bias is a problem because it shows responses that don’t reflect a representative sample of your population.

While you want a statistically valid sample size, you don’t want one that is too large and irrelevant. If your sample size is too large, the responses you get may not accurately reflect your targeted population.

For example, let’s say you try to survey people in a rural area by sending them an online survey. Your selection is biased because many of those people won’t have an Internet connection.

Or, you want to survey people with children, but you include singles and those without children.

The Solution:

To design an accurate survey and avoid selection bias, you must target a population that fits the goals of your survey.

You don’t want to include, or exclude, the wrong participants, or your data will be skewed.

Define your target population and stick with it. Make sure you have a clearly defined idea of what you want in a respondent. This helps you frame your survey in a more accurate way.

The source of your target group is much more important than the size of your group. A small group of 100 people who match your target will give you better data than 1000 random people who may have no frame of reference for your survey.

A final note – don’t forget to use disqualifying logic to filter out respondents who really aren’t part of your targeted sample population.

Challenge #5: Getting Duplicate Responses

Some people run into the issue of getting duplicate responses.

This skews your survey data because you have the same person completing your survey more than once.

How does this happen? It’s a common occurrence when surveys come with an incentive, and your respondents want more than one of what you’re offering.

Or, they may want to take your survey multiple times to increase their chances of winning your drawing or getting other benefits.

The Solution:

Solve the issue of duplicate responses by using vote protection so respondents can only take your survey one time.

Challenge #6: Creating a Lengthy Survey

When you create a survey that is too long, you have higher dropout rates, and this affects your response rates.

People are more likely to abandon a long, involved survey than one with just a few questions.

The Solution:

The best solution to this problem is to know your purpose and what you want to measure and then craft your questions.

Keep your survey to 10 questions or less. This usually means respondents can complete your survey in less than 10 minutes.

Challenge #7: Mixing Up Your Wording

Surveys with complicated wording are hard for people to complete. It’s also bad form to ask two questions in one.

Both of these issues don’t help you with accurate survey creation.

The Solution:

Be diligent when writing your questions.

For example, don’t ask two questions in one like this: “Do you like our tacos and our fajitas?” Regardless of the answer, you have no idea what they really like.

You also want to write clear, concise and simple questions. If respondents can’t understand your question, they can’t accurately answer it.

Bottom line – stick to one topic per sentence, use short sentences and don’t use technical jargon.

Challenge #8: Using Irrelevant Questions

If you ask irrelevant questions, you can count on an inaccurate survey.

Don’t ask respondents questions you don’t really care about or that have nothing to do with the purpose of your survey.

In addition, don’t include questions that don’t pertain to the respondent.

The Solution:

Avoid asking irrelevant questions by using the following as your guide:

Use question logic for consecutive questions. For example, if you ask a question, and the respondent answers “no,” don’t send them to the question for people who answered “yes.”
Don’t ask questions that move away from your purpose.
You also don’t want to include questions that you don’t intend to take action on.

To Conclude

We’ve looked at the top eight challenges with designing accurate surveys, and now you have our top solutions.

You’ll find that when you put these solutions to practice you end up with more accurate surveys and clean data. This helps you draw accurate conclusions that you can then act on for the betterment of 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.

Image: Rohit Tandon

How Long Is Too Long? – Keeping Your Survey to A Reasonable Length

Survey Tips

Is there a perfect survey length? How long is too long?

What is the point where respondents drop off? Is less really more?

We look at all of these questions in this article as we discuss keeping your survey to a reasonable length. Here’s how to use the right length to get the most responses.

Only Ask What You Need

Let’s say you want to ask your customers questions about several of your products, how they feel about your customer service and if they’re interested in a new product you’re thinking about launching.

Before you start creating a survey with all of these questions, ask yourself which one of these questions you are prepared to act on in the next few months.

Then, ask about just this one. That’s right, create your survey around one goal.

While you may have several questions in your survey, you want to keep it goal-centered and stick to one topic.

Then, in the future, you can send out a survey about one of your other topics.

By keeping your survey to a reasonable length, you’ll have more responses.

Be Brief

Brevity is a good thing not only in the number of survey questions, but in question length. (tweet this)

People today have a short attention span. If they have to read your question that spans two long sentences, they are more apt to drop out than if the question was one short sentence.

Short and simple is the way to go when crafting your questions.

Watch Out for Repeats

Read and re-read your survey before you send it out. Enlist family and friends to look it over, too.

Make sure you aren’t repeating yourself or asking the same question in different ways. Repeat-questions just increase your length.

Complete the Survey Before Sending

It’s a good idea to test drive your survey before sending.

Create your survey, sit down in front of your computer and pretend you are the respondent. Carefully read and answer each question, thinking about whether it’s really necessary.

Time the survey so you know how long it takes start to finish. Notice if you feel like dropping out before finishing. If so, ask yourself if the survey is too long, or if the question is wordy and confusing.

Be Upfront with People

Since you’ve taken your own survey, you know how long it takes to complete.

If it takes two minutes, tell them. If it takes 15 minutes, you want to let them know. It’s not a good idea to surprise respondents as they begin taking the test.

You can bet that people who think they’re taking a short survey are likely to drop out at the five-minute mark.

Set the expectations upfront. Then watch your response rates. If you find your customers are more likely to complete a four-minute survey than they are a seven-minute survey, plan accordingly in the future.

To Conclude

Short, focused surveys with just one objective tend to get the best response rates.

As you create your questions, do it with the customer in mind. You really want to know what they think, so respect their time and only send specific surveys. After all, you can always send another one at a later date.

Bottom line, your survey should take no longer than five minutes to complete. Time is a precious commodity, and you don’t want to take advantage of it.

This means you want to include less than 10 questions as a general guideline to improve your response rates.

Your customers will appreciate a shorter survey that’s quick to complete, and you’ll experience fewer drop outs.

Another benefit is that when you send additional surveys in the future, your customers know you appreciate their time, so they’ll be more apt to answer surveys down the road as well.

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: William Iven

How To Use Uploads As Part Of Your Surveys And Forms

Survey Tips

You’ll find there are many different types of questions to ask in a survey, and they each serve their purpose.

The dichotomous question is generally a “yes/no” question.
Users are encouraged to type their own response in the open-ended question.
The multiple-choice question allows users to pick from a variety of answers.
The rank order and ranking scale questions allow users to rank items.

But, what if you need more information than this?

This is where uploads come in. You can use uploads as part of your surveys and forms.

How to Use Uploads

When you use uploads, you give respondents the ability to attach data that isn’t usually available through the above standard survey questions. (tweet this)

For example, a customer purchases your product, and you want to see it in action so you ask them to upload a photo. Or, perhaps you want respondents to upload a document like a resume. They could also do this with the file upload.

Even better, they can upload documents and photos through the survey on their phones.

Final Thoughts

With the extra feature of being able to use uploads as part of your surveys and forms, you can now collect additional information from respondents.

You make it easy for them to send you information they have in a digital format. This is especially helpful for respondents because they don’t have to type the information into your survey – they can just upload a file.

This survey question type is particularly beneficial when using mobile surveys. Your respondents can simply upload a photo or document from their mobile device to the survey.

It makes it easier for respondents to provide you with information while engaging them in the process.

You’ll find the files easy to access in Survey Town for your review. You now have access to even more data in your survey results.

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 via Visual Hunt.

5 Ways To Design A Survey That Users Will Love To Complete

3 Ways To Design A Survey That Users Will Love To Complete

Survey Tips

You’ve probably completed your fair share of surveys, and you’ve most likely ignored an equal amount.

Ask yourself why you completed some and ignored others. Perhaps some interested you while others didn’t. Or, maybe a company offered you a perk for taking the survey.

To help you get your surveys returned and not ignored, we look at five ways to design a survey that users will love to complete.

Let’s look at how to encourage users to complete your survey and not walk away frustrated.

#1: Keep It Short

The best way to design a survey that users will love to complete is to make it short and to the point. (tweet this)

Limit your survey questions, and you reduce your drop off rates.

When it comes to crafting your survey, focus on what you really want to know.

For example, do you want to know how they liked your product, what they thought of your event or how they like your customer service?

While it would be nice to know the answers to all of these questions, and more, you don’t need to know it all at once. Only ask the few questions you are prepared to take action on immediately.

Your survey respondents are doing you a favor, so do them a favor and make your survey easy to finish quickly.

Studies show that the ideal number of questions is less than 12 to prevent customers from abandoning your survey. Try and stick to 3-5 questions for the best results.

It’s also a good idea to test your survey so you know how long it takes to complete. Spell this out for your respondents so they know what to expect.

#2: Don’t Ask Leading Questions

Your customers aren’t naïve. They know when you’re trying to push your agenda, and if they encounter this, they just might abandon your survey.

Craft your questions so that they are neutral. You don’t want to lead respondents to an answer. Consider these three scenarios:

Please rate product X on a scale of one to five.
Tell us what you think about product X. (This asks them to type out why.)
Tell us the reasons why product X is the best on the market. (You provide check boxes of items that show why you think it’s great.)

Scenario number one and two are neutral. Scenario number three obviously leads the customer and just might irritate those who don’t think your product is great.

#3: Limit Your Use of Matrix Questions

Matrix questions are the ones that require respondents to fill in little circles.

Why do these questions make people crazy? Respondents can get confused with these as overdone matrices are complicated and hard to follow.

This also hurts you as your customers may abandon the survey altogether or just choose to make a pretty pattern as they mark your circles.

If you must use a matrix, limit your header options to five so it isn’t so complicated.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to design a survey that users will love to complete, let’s look at some final tips for maximizing your responses:

Let your customers know the survey is coming. Tell them why you’re sending it and how you’ll use their results. Tell them the survey is confidential.
Give your respondents time to complete the survey. If sending online, one week’s time is generally sufficient.
Design your survey so it’s easy to read. Make your sections clear and pay attention to the flow from one section or question to another.
Send a reminder during the week-long survey period. Thank those who competed the survey and remind others of the deadline. Consider offering respondents an incentive for participating. It could be an outright perk, or you could enter them in a drawing after they complete your survey.

Finally, if you plan to send more surveys in the future, you want to let your customers know their opinions matter.

Shortly after the survey, send them an email outlining the responses and the actions you are going to take. Thank the participants again.

Follow these steps, and you can bet they’ll be there for you the next time you want to survey them.

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.

Images: Brooke Cagle

Create Your Own Survey… It’s FREE!

Get set up and start building your first survey in seconds with our easy-to-use , intuitive survey builder.

Get Started Now!