Survey Planning Tips
The most important step in the Survey Building and Deployment process is survey planning and preparation. Survey Planning is the foundation for a successful and meaningful survey. Once the survey is prepared and planned well, it takes only a few minutes to design, build and deploy the survey using the Survey Builder software program. Here is a brief discussion on the survey preparation and planning practices and strategies.
1. Objective of the Survey – WHY: The fundamental requirement to implement and execute a survey is to define the objective (or goal) of the proposed survey. Unless the objective is clearly spelled out, the survey questionnaire and outcome of the survey will not meet the requirements. Hence make sure that the objective is laid out and understood fully by all stakeholders.
2. Survey Audience – WHO: The survey audience has to be finalized in tune with the objective of the survey. For example, if the website has to made more productive (i.e. convert more visitors), then the visitors of the respective website will be the audience. If finding out online shopping experience, then new customers went through the online shopping process will be the target audience of the survey.
3. Survey Sample Size – How many: In this step, you need to figure out the size of the target audience and the process to select the sample. Keep in mind that the response rate is a factor in this decision making process. For example, if you email 1000 members, 40% may be email open rate, 30% may be click through rate and 15% may be the survey completion rate. There is no cookie cutter formula to determine the audience size and response rate. It varies with the industry, audience segment, your survey practices, etc.
4. Survey Time / Number of Questions: This is critical factor that determines the survey completion rate. If the survey is too long, the abandonment rate will increase and response rate (or survey completion rate) will decrease. If you include too few questions in the survey, you may get all the information required to come to a meaningful conclusion. Generally, a survey should not take more than 10 minutes.
5. Questions – WHAT: This is the most difficult step in the process. What are the questions to be asked? The questions should bring out the right answers from the respondents without confusing them. The questions should also meaningful from the business perspective. Misleading questions will bring misleading or wrong answers.
6. Question Types – HOW: Once you figure out the questions to be included in the survey questionnaire, you need to determine and choose the right question type for each question. For instance, LeadPro 24|7 Survey Builder includes more than 15 survey question types. Again, complex question types (such as matrix or grid type questions) will increase the abandonment rate. Make sure that some open ended (text) questions are included in order to get the qualitative answers from the respondents.
7. Question Design – Should be Simple: Survey questions should be simple and easy to understand. Well defined, concise and precise questions elicit clear responses from the survey respondents. The terminology used should be consistent across the survey.
8. How to Reach the Respondents: This is more closely associated with the Objective and Target Audience. Depending on the reach, survey medium should be selected. For example, online shoppers could be reached via email based survey invitations. Employees could be reached via internal / corporate web sites. Patients could be reached through telephone or paper based mailers.
9. Inform the Audience: It is essential to inform the audience about the intent of the survey and how the survey results will be useful for you / respondents. Also, the target audience should be told clearly about how the responses and results will be shared and used. Use the Custom Pages option of the Survey Builder software to customize the Introduction / Welcome page of the survey to clearly spell out the objective of the survey, time required for completion and sharing process. The Survey Invitation Email messages should also be leveraged to inform the above the message in order to encourage the recipients to take time to complete the survey.
10. Thanks the Respondents: Once the respondents fully complete the survey, use the Thank You page of the survey builder system to thank them for their time and valuable inputs / feedback. Reiterate the usefulness of their responses and how it will be shared and used.
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