10 Tips to Improve Your Online Surveys
06 February 2012
A great online survey provides you actionable, clear information for your business decisions. Great surveys have higher response rates, higher quality data and are easy to fill out.Follow these 10 tips to create great surveys, improve the response rate of your survey, and the quality of the data you gather, by following these basic rules of good surveying.1. Clearly define the purpose of your online surveyFuzzy goals lead to fuzzy results and the last thing you want to end up with is a set of results that provide no real decision–enhancing value. Good surveys have focused objectives that are easily understood. Spend time up front to identify, in writing:- What is the goal of this survey?- Why are you creating this survey?- What do you hope to accomplish with this survey?- How will you use the data you are collecting?- What decisions do you hope to impact with the results of this survey? (This will later help you identify what data you need to collect in order to make these decisions.)2. Keep the survey short and focusedShort and focused helps with both quality and quantity of response. It is generally better to focus on a single objective than try to create a master survey that covers multiple objectives.Shorter surveys generally have higher response rates and lower abandonment among survey respondents. It’s human nature to want things to be quick and easy – once a survey taker loses interest they simply abandon the task – leaving you to determine how to interpret that partial data set (or whether to use it all).3. Keep the questions simpleMake sure your questions get to the point and avoid the use of jargon. Try to make your questions as specific and direct as possible. Compare: What has your experience been working with our HR team? To: How satisfied are you with the response time of our HR team?4. Use closed ended questions whenever possibleClosed ended survey questions give respondents specific choices (e.g. Yes or No), making it easier to analyze results. Closed ended questions can take the form of yes/no, multiple choice or rating scale. Open ended survey questions allow people to answer a question in their own words.5. Keep rating scale questions consistent through the surveyRating scales are a great way to measure and compare sets of variables. If you elect to use rating scales (e.g. from 1 – 5) keep it consistent throughout the survey. Use the same number of points on the scale and make sure meanings of high and low stay consistent throughout the survey. Also, use an odd number in your rating scale to make data analysis easier. Switching your rating scales around will confuse survey takers, which will lead to untrustworthy responses.6. Logical orderingMake sure your survey flows in a logical order. Begin with a brief introduction that motivates survey takers to complete the survey (e.g. “Help us improve our service to you. Please answer the following short survey.”). Next, it is a good idea to start from broader–based questions and then move to those narrower in scope. It is usually better to collect demographic data and ask any sensitive questions at the end (unless you are using this information to screen out survey participants). If you are asking for contact information, place that information last.7. Pre–test your surveyMake sure you pre–test your survey with a few members of your target audience and/or co–workers to find glitches and unexpected question interpretations.8. Consider your audience when sending survey invitationsRecent statistics show the highest open and click rates take place on Monday, Friday and Sunday. In addition, our research shows that the quality of survey responses does not vary from weekday to weekend. That being said, it is most important to consider your audience. For instance, for employee surveys, you should send during the business week and at a time that is suitable for your business. i.e. if you are a sales driven business avoid sending to employees at month end when they are trying to close business.9. Consider sending several remindersWhile not appropriate for all surveys, sending out reminders to those who haven’t previously responded can often provide a significant boost in response rates.10. Consider offering an incentiveDepending upon the type of survey and survey audience, offering an incentive is usually very effective at improving response rates.
Read some survey software reviews to learn about the features of online survey tools.