Are you worried about respondents getting confused or dropping out of your survey?
Use Question and Option Display Logic. By using Question and Option Display Logic you can make sure that your respondents stay interested and only see questions that are relevant to them. With less clutter, you’ll be rewarded with higher quality responses and data for your business. But what exactly is display logic? And how does it work?
Display Logic allows you to customise your survey to dynamically react on the fly to specific answers provided by your respondents. When your respondent chooses a certain answer for a question, the survey will react by showing questions the survey deems relevant, based on previous answers they’ve chosen.
Basically, the display logic forms a ‘pathway’ for your respondent to follow, and keeps them on-track with only the most relevant questions.
Randomizing questions and options
Randomization, the act of making something random is an important tool used in scientific research.
By randomizing the order of questions, answers and blocks of questions, the survey removes any element of bias that may influence the accuracy of the answers.
With bravoSURVEYS, you can instantly randomize your questions, answers and blocks of questions. In this article, we’re going to explain how to take advantage of bravoSURVEYS’s powerful features.
Custom question orders
Need to randomize the order of questions on a page? No problem. Use Question Randomization to automatically change the order… and do so much more!
Here are the most common ways to randomize your options:
Display all questions in a random order
Display a certain number of questions from a large group
Lock certain questions into a specific position
Hide certain questions
Supports: In order, randomized, rotated and flipped order
Supports: In order, randomized, rotated and flipped order
Lock selected options into a certain position
Present a certain number of total choices: Randomly display selected choices from the complete list of choices
Supports: Alphabetic order, in order, randomized, rotated and flipped order
Pipe in existing data
Want to avoid the hassle of writing out the same answers again? Use Question and Answer Piping to insert answers from a previous question. It’s the easiest and most efficient way to get more insight on a previous answer.
By taking advantage of bravoSURVEYS’s easy-to-use display logic features, you can create a survey that delivers a tailored experience for your respondents.
This is some basic, sample markdown. Picture yourself at the supermarket. You’re in the confectionary isle and standing before is the selection of chocolates. Dark chocolate, 70% cacao, unsweetened, gluten free, strawberry flavoured, caramel, unsalted, vegan friendly, paleo friendly, white chocolate; the list goes on. After a few minutes of pondering over the range of choices available, you decide to choose the chocolate with strawberry filling. As you place the item and head to the checkout, you start to think:
Was that really the best choice? I kind of feel like dark chocolate, but I had that last week. I’ve been dying to try the new cookies ‘n cream flavour though. And the new commercial they aired for it was hilarious! With the panda and everything! Gosh, I wish I chose that. I bet that’s what the panda would have chosen, he always has good ideas.
The paradox of choice explained
What you’re witnessing here is an interesting case of buyer’s remorse. Not because they bought something overly lavish or expensive, but because they wish they had bought something else instead. It’s the overwhelming sensation of having too many options and then contemplating your decision afterwards.
Popularized by American psychologist Barry Schwartz, but conceptualized by Polish psychiatrist Zbigniew J. Lipowski in 1970 (and then revived by psychologist Sheena Iyengar decades later), this is what has become known as the Paradox of Choice. Schwartz’s analysis on consumer attitude towards choice brought mainstream attention to the dangers of information overload, citing the anxiety inducing effects of deciding between multitudes of different products on the market.
Without getting into too much detail behind this theory (and some of counter-studies that have begun to arise ), there is sufficient evidence to suggest that giving people too many choices can have a negative effect on their decision-making, resulting in increased anxiety and greater dissatisfaction afterwards.
Now think back to the supermarket scenario and imagine what would happen if it was one of your surveys. However, instead of simply moving on with their decision, imagine they had several questions left and decided to quit the survey altogether! This is the danger of giving people too many choices and it’s important to understand how to avoid it.
Putting choices into your survey
When creating a survey, you will understandably have a range of business goals you wish to achieve, along with certain information that you want to acquire. With so much data that needs to be collected, it’s always important to have a firm grasp on the business goals and decide whether each question is relevant to those goals. This also relates to how many choices you give with each question; give too many and people may feel overwhelmed, offer too little and it may not cut-off segments of your audience. Finding the right balance between the two can be difficult to achieve, but with enough pilot testing and feedback, it can be done.
Below are some useful tips on how to avoid placing too many choices in your survey.
The Open Text Option: Often seen as ‘Other’ in a survey, this gives participants the opportunity to write in a custom response that isn’t available in the prescribed list of choices. This is a common placeholder for when too many options are possible, so this removes the hassle of listing every single one of them.
Impose a Limit on Multiple Choice Questions: This greatly depends on the context of the question (eg people are expected to see a lot of possible options for basic questions like language and location), but with most questions, it’s important to focus on less rather than more. There is no definitive number for deciding what’s reasonable, however, a choice of 3 -5 possible options is a good rule of thumb to follow. If that’s not enough, then the previously mentioned ‘Other’ text box can solve this problem.
Offer Multiple Answer Choices: If your survey participants find certain questions difficult to answer, it may be because there’s too much pressure on choosing one option. In a scenario where similarly valued options are available to people, the pressure on choosing the right one greatly increases . To alleviate this, consider the possibility of allowing multiple responses within one question, in order to reduce this burden. This of course should only be executed if there’s a problem in the first place (your feedback will tell you this), and if it doesn’t tamper with the data results.
Overview
There is strong evidence to suggest that too many choices can have a negative impact on people’s choices, resulting in decisions being made in anxiety-inducing situations, which may not accurately represent the data you receive. By removing irrelevant information and offering a system that reinforces positive decision making, it’s possible to achieve results that clearly reflects the thoughts and ideas of your target audience.
With the advent of digital surveys quickly replacing the traditional pen and paper approach, it is becoming increasingly important to make surveys more accessible, engaging and personalized for participants. In conjunction with this, a wealth of online survey providers have flooded the market, each with their own approach to making the survey creation process more streamlined and fluid. With the influx of online-based survey providers on the market, many common techniques of the pen and paper era have been adopted for the digital age. One of the many techniques that have been adopted during this transition is Display Logic.
The basics of display logic and skip logic
Display logic is an advancement on the traditional skip, or branch logic that is typical among paper surveys. In paper-based surveys, you will often be asked to skip certain questions based on a previous response you gave. Another example is providing a follow-up response to an answer, often to give further insight into why that answer was chosen.
Display logic takes this approach further, by hiding or removing irrelevant questions from a respondents view entirely. This is a fairly new approach that has only recently been adopted into the digital era, and has proved to be incredibly convenient for survey participants. Whereas previously, people used to have to manually skip through pages in order to continue from the right question, this can now be done automatically by filtering out irrelevant information from the respondent’s view. This helps speed up the time it takes to complete a survey and makes it more accessible for people, since there’s no need to wade through unnecessary text in order to continue
How to implement display logic into your survey
Most online survey providers have a simple setup process for incorporating display logic into a survey. While each provider may have a slightly different approach to doing this, the process is usually the same.
The benefit of display logic is that it can be applied to almost any type of question, including radio buttons, dropdown menu, checkboxes, Likert scale ratings and checkbox grid answers, to name a few. This means that any question can have logic applied to it, in order to produce a follow-up question based on a person’s response.
It is generally recommended that all your survey questions be uploaded and arranged in order before applying logic to any of them, since it is more difficult to re-arrange and change questions after logic branches have already been established.
To apply a display logic, simply choose the question you wish to branch out from, and find the ‘Apply Logic’ option (or ‘Logic’ tab, ‘Display Logic’ tab etc). You should then be presented with a page that outlines an available list of conditions to be met, in order for a follow-up question to be presented. Below are some common conditions that you may come across:
Follow-Up Logic: This will display or forego presenting a question, depending on the answer that the respondent chose. You can choose either a single answer or multiple answers, in order for the follow-up logic to be applied.
Respondent’s Details: This is becoming increasingly common among online surveys as logic and processes become more sophisticated, in order to cater towards a person’s characteristics. By storing basic information about a respondent (eg age, location, interests etc), you can decide what questions will or won’t be shown based on their specifications. An example of this could be only displaying a certain question to people over the age of 25, or presenting questions based on someone’s location.
Quota Specific Logic: In your survey, you may have certain goals you wish to achieve in order to meet your business requirements. This may include, having a 25% response rate from people under the age of 21 or a 10% response rate from people living in a certain region. In most tabs related to Logic, it should be possible to apply certain conditions that will enable the quota to be met.
Device Logic: In an attempt to streamline the survey process for mobile devices, some survey providers are implementing device-specific logic into their range of features. This option is useful for finding out what devices your respondents are using to participate in your survey, which enables you to ask questions related to their technological habits and what brands or devices they regularly interact with.
These are just some of the many possibilities that are available for incorporating display logic into your survey.
Advanced features
On top of the basic display logic functions, there are several expansions upon existing logics that can be used to your advantage. It is important to familiarize yourself with the basics first, in order to understand how each function works and how these advanced features build upon those initial concepts. Some example of advanced features include:
Multiple Branches: It is possible to create an entire branch of follow-up questions as opposed to just one question. This can result in a stream of questions entirely dedicated to one logic condition, which can allow you to really personalize the survey experience for participants.
Question Randomization: There is significant evidence to suggest that the order in which questions are asked can significantly impact how they’re answered . Without getting into too much detail, it is possible to randomize your questions (or generate new ones) in order to avoid potential bias. Understandably, this process can produce unintended problems of its own, so it should be carefully tested and monitored, in order to avoid damaging the reliability of the survey itself.
Summary
With more and more survey providers appearing on the online market, each one is competing to produce new and original ways for participants to interact with their surveys. Display logic is just one of the many functions that continues to become more sophisticated with each new iteration. Regardless of how you wish to implement them into your survey, display logic offers a wealth of possibilities that previously weren’t available several years ago. As technology improves, research continues and mobile devices become more accessible, we can expect new and exciting ways to make surveys a unique experience for the individual.
What Do your Customers Really Think of You? The Basics of the Net Promoter Score
In 2003, business strategist and employee of consulting firm Bain and Company, Fred Reichheld, in conjunction with Satmetrix, proposed an ingenious method to analyze and measure customer loyalty. His idea? Just ask one simple question:
‘How likely would you be to recommend this company to your family and friends?’
Reichheld’s theory (which continues to be upheld today) was that there lied a missing link between customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and a company’s ability to grow. While this may seem obvious to some, prior to Reichheld’s unique approach, there was no way quantifiable method to tell how loyal a satisfied customer was or not. This meant that while customers may have been happy with an existing product or service, their likelihood of being converted to another competitor was never properly recognized before.
This idea of measuring customer loyalty was revolutionary, because it bridged the gap between those who would recommend a product or service to their peers, and those who, while satisfied, would be less likely to sing their praises from the rooftops.
What is a net promoter score and how does it work?
The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is the result of this theory being put into practice and given a measurable value. That value is measured against how people respond to the above question, which they answer on a scale from 0-10.
According to the NPS method, customers can be categorized into three different entities: Detractors, Passives and Promoters.
Those who respond between 0-6 are ranked as dissatisfied customers, therefore they’re Detractors. Detractors are a powerful threat to a brand’s reputation and integrity, not only because they will choose not to use your product or service again, but they will also tell other people not to do so either. Through negative word-of-mouth, this can result in affecting a company’s growth and create a negative impact on one’s brand or image.
Respondents who answer either 7-8 are Passives. Passives are typically satisfied customers, although they’re also not overwhelmingly enthusiastic about it either, and are therefore more likely to convert to a similar competitor. From a company’s perspective, this places them in a vulnerable position. Passives are also less likely to partake in positive word-of-mouth. This means that action should be taken to address any issues a Passive customer may have, in order to increase the likelihood of turning them into a Promoter.
As you guessed it, Promoters reply with either a 9-10 to the question, “How likely would you be to recommend this company to your family and friends?”Promoters are customers who simply love what you do, the product or service you provide, and the experience they get from interacting with your brand. Promoters will climb to the highest mountaintop to sing your praises, they will tell stories to their grandchildren about your company and possibly even put you in their will. These are the people who have the power to help your brand grow, and it is absolutely vital that you keep it that way.
The final NPS score is a percentile value, which is calculated by subtracting the Detractors % from the Promoters %. The equation can be more easily observed this way:
This result can be as low as -100% (which is obviously bad) to +100% (which is extremely positive). Generally speaking, a score of anywhere between +25% to +50% is generally pretty good, although a lot of complex factors can influence the final score. So, how do you incorporate the NPS method into your survey?
How to put the NPS into your next survey
The NPS approach can be seamlessly incorporated into any online survey. Most online survey providers offer you a basic template that contains the question, along with a separate calculation that automatically provides you with yours NPS score. The NPS calculator is its own distinctive process that’s performed irrespectively of other calculations within your survey, which allows you to accurately analyze and interpret the results it gives.
The follow-up question
Once you put in your NPS question, you can also add in a follow-up question, which will allow respondents to elaborate on why they chose their answer. This section will provide a valuable source of information, because not only will it tell you what your company is doing wrong, but it will also tell you what you’re doing right. This is important, because sometimes it’s not always obvious what the positive aspects are about your product or service, so you will often receive answers that may surprise you.
Where the NPS question should be placed
Where you decide to place the NPS question in your survey is entirely up to you. It depends on how new your brand or entity is, and how you wish to present yourself to respondents. Given the breadth of information your survey seeks, you will likely have a whole range of questions that you’re desperate to have answered. This will require experimenting with different formats, layouts and question orders, in order to accurately gauge where the NPS question belongs. The feedback given by your test respondents will also allow you to make necessary adjustments, in order to have the question placed in a suitable section of the survey.
Acting on your NPS results
Having a neatly organized set of results is nice to look at, but they won’t do you any good if you don’t act upon them. Most major companies take their NPS results very seriously, even going as far as contacting participants in order to receive more information about their responses (this usually applies to Detractors and Passives, as they’re the ones who pose a threat to the business). Depending on how in-depth you wish to go with this process, it is hard to deny the value of honest feedback, so it may be worth investing the time and resources to pursue this kind of avenue.
Overview
By taking advantage of the NPS approach, it will provide you with a better understanding on how your customers perceive your brand and company. While it is not a full-proof effective solution to gauging customer satisfaction, it is one of many tools that can be utilized in order to improve the customer service experience, along with the benefits and features of your existing product or service. Get to know your customers better and use the NPS method in your next survey.
After spending weeks upon weeks of creating a survey, it’s understandable to be enthusiastic about showing off your work to other people. Soak in the glamor for sure, just remember that the reward of its results is when you truly should be celebrating.
A good survey speaks for itself when you have sufficient data to justify the hard work. But what makes for good results? Having 100 people complete your survey? Having a completion rate over 75%? Surveying X amount of people in a certain industry?
There are a range of definitions for success when compiling your data. If you’ve clarified what your business goals are and the survey achieves those objectives, then you’re already well on your way. The tricky part is putting numbers to those goals. Figures that are realistic, achievable and can easily be measured or analyzed.
The type of survey you’re conducting and what is purpose is, will heavily dictate the overall response rate you’ll receive. Let’s take a look at some common survey types, the average response rates they receive and what can be done to boost those figures:
Internal surveys
Typically speaking, a survey conducted within an internal company, organization or community, will yield a higher response rate than one conducted externally. For obvious reasons, company related surveys are very relevant to staff and employees, so if employees have any issues or feedback they’d like to express, then a survey is the perfect way to do so. Most company surveys are conducted anonymously too, so the potential for truthful and constructive answers can easily be achieved.
It’s not all good news though. Based on the widespread range of statistics currently available, the average participation rate for internal surveys sits between 30-40% . This applies to both small and large enterprises, where sometimes entire departments exist solely for the purpose of producing these surveys. So what chance does a new entity have in achieving good figures?
Even worse, employees often have little faith in the opinion’s they express, and don’t believe that the ideas they express will actually be taken into consideration. This responsibility falls on the employers and shouldn’t dissuade any organization from getting the feedback they need, it’s simply a matter of acting upon the suggestions that are in the best interests of the company, including the general wellbeing of your staff.
External surveys
Surveys conducted outside of a community or organization typically fair worse compared to their internal counterparts, with completion statistics ranging between 15-20% . Many factors come into play when reaching out to potential customers, and how you present yourself doing it can mean the difference between success and failure.
Brand loyalty is an important aspect to consider. If you’re a new entity into the market, then you benefit from being able to create a fresh face for the brand. However, you’re also competing with existing products and services on the market, so you need to analyze the landscape and come up with an approach that stands out from the rest.
Your target demographic will also influence the response rate of an external survey. If your survey is designed to attract a certain niche or interest, then you need to utilize the appropriate distribution channels in order to gauge the people’s interest. Depending on how specific or far-reaching you want your survey to be, you need to establish a reasonable figure based on the desired quality and quantity of your responses. Simply having more answers than someone else doesn’t always result in useful data.
What Can Be Done to Increase Response Rates?
A more visually appealing experience
Research indicates that poorly designed surveys are a considerable factor in affecting the quality and quantity of responses received. Such surveys can be frustrating to navigate through and come across as bland, due to their poor presentation or repetitive nature. Unfortunately, most surveys suffer from these problems and it’s the reason why the process has such a stigma attached to it in the first place.
A visually impressive survey that introduces new methods of approach and interactive elements, has a much higher chance of being well-received by your participants. A good survey can be memorable and enjoyable to complete without compromising on the intended business goals, if the process is executed properly.
Incentives
As previously discussed in relation to internal surveys, respondents need a good incentive in order to proceed with completing a survey. Ideas such as gifts, discounts or special offers, are a good way to entice people to contribute, especially if you’re a brand they’re not readily familiar with. It’s a useful stepping stone in establishing a trustworthy brand and will result in more genuine answers being given.
In saying this, avoid giving too much away (eg. 80% discount on your first purchase!) and make sure your incentives are related to the business. Incentives also increase the risk of appearing desperate and can also be taken advantage of, without any consideration towards providing quality feedback about the brand or business. Be smart about what incentives you may offer.
Choosing the right distribution channels
Understanding your target market is incredibly important when reaching out to people. For example, a survey designed for young people can prove very successful when distributed through social media, while this same strategy may not work when approaching the elderly or middle-aged demographic.
This also applies to what niche or interest you’re approaching. If your goal is to survey fans of hip-hop music, then your survey could be guest featured on popular music blogs, podcasts or publications to help spread the word around.
Overview
The limitations for executing a good survey relies heavily on understanding the market, including your audience, competitors and how they reach out to their consumers on a regular basis. By creating an original and engaging experience for participants, your survey has the potential to collect data that would have gone unheard, had the presentation and process been subpar. Don’t be boring, try something different with your online survey.
In the world of market research, there is always potential for the right survey to land into the wrong person’s hands. But how do you know who that is? That depends on your business goals and how well you’ve analyzed your target market. What are their interests? What brands, products or services do they currently use? Are they happy with those products? Etc. There is no telling how deep the rabbit hole can go.
The truth is, you’re not going to hit a home run with every person who participates, but you can minimize the risk of collective unnecessary data. This can be achieved by categorizing the type of survey you’re presenting and understanding the purpose of your data collection (ie. your business goals).
Here, we will explore different purposes for various surveys and how to approach them in a manner that can help get the results you need.
Internal surveys: no two departments are alike
An internal survey is typically done to analyze team members within a company, organization or a community. Most often these surveys are intended for all team members and can cover areas including, employee satisfaction with the company, thoughts on their leaders or team members, areas for improvement and the opportunity to express any other thoughts.
In the context of a medium to large scale company, your survey may be intended for a particular department or unit. This is common if your company or organization handles multiple duties, which are branched out into different sectors. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to survey every team member if a particular department is the main focus. Be sure your survey is targeting the right people and decide whether your business goals are relevant to all team members, or just a select few.
On the other hand, a company who wishes to survey all their employees, may take advantage of an online survey provider to help optimize the same survey for different departments. By using skip logics, a survey can be created that satisfies the general employee satisfaction quota, but then present department-specific questions based on information they provided at the beginning of the survey.
Customer surveys
Depending on the status of your company, brand or organization, you may already have a database of existing customers eagerly awaiting to take your survey. This information may have been collected through customers subscribing to email listings, social media followers or in the context of a retail shop, customers you see on a regular basis. If you have this information, then you already have a potential pool of respondents to distribute your survey to. Whether you make a random selection of a few participants who distribute it on a wide scale, is entirely up to you.
If your company or brand is a new entity into the market, then you will probably want to start learning about the kind of people who may wish to buy from you. You can achieve this by analyzing companies similar to yours and understanding the type of demographic they’re attracting.
Be realistic though, as brand loyalty is a complex topic that cannot be fully covered during the early stages of developing your own brand. People who like company X (them), may have completely different reasons for why they may like or dislike company Y (yours), which is something you simply cannot anticipate every single time. So, you’ll eventually have to get your hands dirty and start asking them personally (with a survey, of course).
Even if you’re new, there are avenues to explore. Perhaps reach out to people who have recently visited your website, or, try using distribution methods that have worked for your competition, in order to engage with a certain collective or community.
Research surveys and finding the right sample audience
Depending on the topic of research, finding respondents can either be really easy or extremely difficult. An industry-specific survey could yield a far more accessible pool of participants, if you use the right distribution methods. While a survey designed to cover a broad range of people could be challenging.
Company panels exist to help solve this problem, by taking the legwork out of scoping your audience and selecting participants for you. They will select suitable candidates based on their database of individuals, which they can match according to your desired target market. For a company or organization that is willing to invest in this option, it can greatly reduce the time needed to have the survey process completed.
Some may view this as cheating, but the reality is, finding a selective pool of respondents is very difficult. It is more wasteful to have your survey completed by people that don’t accurately represent your demographic, as opposed to spending money in order to get the right people talking to you. Having an outside organization can help you find the right sample size for your survey, along with establishing a representative sample that reflects the entire demographic of your target audience.
Having a great survey is one thing, but convincing other people that it’s great is another story. Deciding how you approach distributing your survey can greatly influence the way people perceive it, along with affecting the quantity and quality of the answers.
In fact, a poor distribution channel can often undermine all the other positive factors about your survey. No amount of incentives, nicely balanced question types or pretty colors, are enough to convince the mother of 3 screaming children that your survey on different brands of ice cream is worth their time (unless it’s something to keep the kids busy with).
The same rings true for the online world. A small business owner who’s running a tight schedule and dealing with multiple clients, is most likely going to give your email the flick straight to the spam folder.
And that’s okay, because your survey is not going to have a 100% response rate. The sooner you realize that, the more you can focus on getting the most out of the people that do end up participating in your survey. This is achieved by having an engaging and presentable survey that doesn’t fatigue the participant. But how do you get them there in the first place?
This article will discuss the different distribution channels that are available to survey creators and managers, along with how they relate to the business activity it applies to.
Internal surveys
An internal survey is typically conducted within the domain of a company, organization, team or community. They may be used to assess company morale and employee satisfaction, or another topic related to the business or industry.
Most large companies or organizations will perform an employee satisfaction survey every 6 months or annually, which gives employees a chance to (usually anonymously) express their opinions and thoughts on the working environment, and how improvements can be made. These can often be mandatory, so offering an incentive is slightly moot in this scenario (besides the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas).
In the case of a community or a team survey, a less formal approach may be taken and they might not always be mandatory. In this scenario, the prospect of inputting ideas might be enough incentive for some, but it should not be assumed that everyone will want to contribute. Communicating the benefits of a survey to your community or team members can help them understand why it’s important. For example, if a community expressed dissatisfaction with the behaviour of certain members, a community leader can input measures to prevent poor behaviour from persisting. Therefore, this would improve the overall quality and atmosphere of a group, without resorting to harmful or judgemental confrontations.
Whether you’re conducting a company or community survey, it is important to clearly communicate all aspects of the survey. This includes outlining how personal information is handled, whether the survey is anonymous or not, along with basic formalities such as number of questions and estimated amount of time for completion.
The more that respondents know about a survey and what the benefits are, the more likely they are to participate and trust the survey provider.
Customer surveys
Creating context out of a customer survey is far more challenging than from a company or organization, because you’re not dealing with people you are already familiar with, and your participants may not be familiar with you either.
A customer survey will typically be presented to either a potential customer, or one who has already purchased your product or service. There are many creative ways to introduce your survey to people, here are some examples that can be used for inspiration:
Sending a follow-up email requesting feedback after a customer has purchased your product or service. This idea can be very effective, because a customer will most likely have your product or service still fresh in their mind, so they’ll be more likely to provide quality insight into their purchase.
Distributing a survey out to subscribers of an email listing or newsletter. Large companies regularly do this and is often very effective. In the case of an e-newsletter or email subscription, the request for a survey will conveniently tie-in with the regular stream of content they already receive from you. If a customer resonates with your brand and enjoys the flow of content you provide, then they may feel privileged to ‘give back’ to a provider who has served them well for so long. In saying this, developing trust is a huge aspect of this approach and should not be attempted in the early stages of signing people up to an email listing. This indicates you’re only interested in getting information from them and not providing good content.
Social Media. Distributing a survey through social media, in some ways, is quite similar to the newsletter idea. People will follow or ‘Like’ your company/community page on the basis of receiving quality content on a regular basis, much like a newsletter or subscription. Therefore, it’s important not to bombard a survey upon your followers during the early stages of developing your brand’s equity.
Followers who enjoy your presence or have criticism to share, will find this method of distribution very easy to follow through with, particularly since people often check their social media pages on a daily basis (as opposed to emails, which are prone to being forgotten about).
Research surveys
These surveys are designed to collect information on a broad range of topics, either for scientific purposes, market research or public opinion. Depending on the topic itself, a research survey can have a very precise target audience or (for example, an opinion poll featured in the newspaper) it may be desirable to have a broad range of people to take the survey.
For scientific research, having your survey shared by reputable figures in your field of study (eg shared on their social media pages), can be an enticing way to have people participate in the process. You can also reach out to specific journals or websites, who may be willing to host the survey on their own platforms, which can result in branching out to new audiences.
Panel companies
To present a different approach to surveys, there exist companies who can seek out desirable respondents for your service, in exchange for a fee depending on the quantity of participants needed.
Panel companies thrive on receiving repeat clients, so most of them rely on getting high quality responses from whom they choose to participate. Nonetheless, because the participants are involved based on an incentive (usually money), there is never a 100 percent guarantee that the answers you receive will be honest or valuable to you. However, this is true for any incentive you offer with a survey, and a company that dedicates their time to finding the right participants are worth the investment, if it means getting results.
Overview
Irrespective of how you approach distributing your survey and what incentives you offer, be clear on what the business goals are and how you can best achieve them. An open and honest survey provider who can explain the benefits of a survey to their participants, will almost certainly succeed over a provider who is simply trying to ‘reach the numbers.’ Understand who your audience is and what methods will best resonate with them.
The abundance of online survey providers has provided a massive shift from paper based surveys, to digital means of collecting data. What once required printing thousands of paper surveys, can now be achieved through digital distribution. Whether it be through email, a special app or in-person with data recorded on a tablet device, online surveys can be much more convenient to spread around.
There are many reasons why online surveys have become so popular over the past decade, thanks to their accessibility, cost-effective means of collecting data, algorithms for analyzing results and the ability to personalize how your findings are presented. We’ll take a look now at some of the traditional methods used for surveys and see how their online counterparts compare.
Direct mail surveys
Traditionally, paper surveys were distributed either by mail, through the phone or in-person. If you were sending out paper surveys through direct mail, this would require printing out a large amount of copies for your respondents to fill out. This approach can be costly and result in a waste of resources, due to surveys being improperly filled out or not being returned at all. Surveys distributed by mail also require a long waiting period between sending them out and receiving the results, which can take weeks or even months. This doesn’t even cover the expenses related to mailing out the surveys themselves.
In comparison, online surveys do not have these issues, as there’s no need for printing and the response time is generally much faster when distributed through the internet. Using an online survey provider is also cheaper and has no fee for delivering them.
Phone surveys
Paper surveys conducted over the phone suffer from similar problems to direct mail distribution, as the need for printing numerous copies is still there. Phone surveys that record data using paper are also less lenient towards mistakes or changes, since it takes longer to rub out an error than it does to press ‘Backspace’ on a keyboard. Phone surveys that are conducted using software means are far more convenient to navigate through, along with them being easier to make corrections to a respondent’s answers. Typing is also generally faster than writing down too, which is greatly beneficial when filling out long or short answer questions.
In-Person
Having a face-to-face meeting with someone conducting a survey offers a personal touch that hasn’t yet been matched by online methods. However, with the rise of mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets, more and more companies are using online survey providers to optimize the survey process for mobile users. This includes creating an interface that’s easily accessible to respondents and survey conductors, while being able to maintain the ‘human’ element of face-to-face interaction during the process.
This means that more survey results can be recorded through a mobile device and then digitally stored for later analysis, without having to manually assess every respondent’s answers. This brings us to the cost of analyzing data.
Cost of data analysis
The cost of collecting and analyzing all of your information goes deeper than money spent. The time required to manually record each individual findings, then categorizing them into presentable data, is simply an enormous task to undertake. These days, companies don’t want to delegate manual tasks to people, if it can be performed just as well by a computer. This allows survey creators to spend more time on other avenues related to their survey, such as fine tuning problem areas, assessing long and short answer questions and deciding how they wish to present their findings.
Presentation
Online survey providers allow creators to customize the look of their survey, through a choice of colors and themes. If you’re representing a brand, your survey can be tailored to display that brand’s image, or it can be personalized depending on the demographic of your target audience. An online survey service also gives you an array of ways to present questions. This includes implementing a good balance of multiple choice, scaled-based, short and long answer questions, which can be achieved much more quickly than through paper means.
Other criteria’s such as word length, dropdown lists and correct formatting, can also be done quickly through the aid of an online service provider.
Web based surveys and paper surveys: From a respondent’s perspective
With the advent of online survey providers, there has been much research into the psychological effects behind how people respond to different surveys. In 2011, a study was conducted to compare the responses between 4 different methods of survey distribution, which ranged from paper to online services.
The results uncovered that the response rate between digital and paper means of distribution was minimal, with paper surveys only having a 4% difference between their digital counterpart. The slightly lower response rate between paper and digital could be attested to inbox clutter in many consumer email accounts, along with a lack of online accessibility among certain respondents.
In today’s world where information is thrown at us at an increasing rate, the comparable response rate between paper and digitally distributed surveys is very impressive. Studies have also shown that the quality of responses between traditional and online surveys is minimal, thus, providing increasing evidence to support the online approach to survey distribution.
Distribution channels
Understanding your target market and distribution channels remains an important aspect of creating your survey, along with creating an experience that’s accessible to all participants. Through the low-cost approach of digital distribution, online surveys have the potential to reach audiences from almost anywhere around the world. Online surveys can also be easily completed without heavily interfering with a person’s current activities, as it simply requires opening a new tab in their browser and does not need to be mailed back.
Overview
Learning about the differences between paper and online surveys is beneficial in understanding your target audience and why online methods have prevailed over the last decade. As we continue to make more connections over the internet, online survey providers will keep creating new ways for participants to engage with them. Unbound by the limitations of paper, online surveys are continually becoming more advanced with each passing year.
