Creating optimal customer experiences requires a robust understanding of customer needs across the life cycle. Far from a one-time endeavor, there is always more to learn, and selecting the appropriate research tool is key.
Is a survey right for you?
Customer surveys go much deeper than handing out a questionnaire. Creating one requires time and careful planning to design, analyze, and produce valid results. That’s why ensuring a survey is the right research tool – and that the process is done correctly – is important.
There are many techniques available for marketers to conduct customer research on an audience, whether your goal is understanding interests, identifying pain points, or studying purchase behaviors.
A survey can be the right tool if you’re looking to validate a hypothesis with a large target audience, as surveys allow marketers to collect information from larger samples and with greater statistical significance than other methods. Surveys can be used at a certain point in time to collect feedback on a specific touchpoint in the customer journey, or on an ongoing basis to measure trends with a CX strategy such as Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) or Customer Effort Score (CES).
Your team should establish a list of expected answers to all survey questions before launch. If that’s too big a challenge, it is recommended to start with exploratory qualitative research to develop a deeper understanding of target audiences before implementing a quantitative exercise like a survey.
Let’s explore a few survey best practices.
Once you’ve determined that a survey is the right customer research tool, here are four best practices to help you create a survey that yields actionable – and valid – results.
1. Establish a clear survey objective and sample.
The first order of business is to get clear on what you are trying to learn and who you are trying to learn it from. You can define your survey objective with some key questions:
- What is your goal with this specific survey?
- What data do you hope to capture?
- How will you use the data?
- What decisions do you hope to impact with the survey results?
After establishing your objective, determine who will receive your survey. This sample group is the source of your collected data so the sample must be large enough to be representative of your population size and account for a margin of error. Response rates vary by industry, audience, and many other factors, so setting a target upfront helps you set expectations and plan for success.
When building your sample, keep these key points in mind to ensure your sample includes your target population:
- Make sure your screening criteria don’t unintentionally exclude people.
- Make sure the method of data collection can reach the population.
2. Structure your survey for success.
Run your survey on the channel that is most likely to yield a high response rate and capture the data you need. Surveys can be sent via email, SMS, social media, or with a QR code in a physical location. Consider your specific audience and your goals when deciding on a channel.
Keep in mind that short, specific, targeted surveys generally have a higher response rate. Be clear and direct in your questions and use a logical flow by grouping questions that cover similar topics.
To further maximize your response rate, communicate relevance to your audience by sharing how results will be used, and consider offering an incentive.
Before launching, test your survey with multiple people to make sure everything is working as desired and that your questions are easy to understand.
3. Align on your survey timeline.
Survey development and testing can take three or more weeks and should begin with a stakeholder kickoff to align on goals, target audience identification, and budget (if needed). When deciding on a launch date, be sure to avoid weekends or major holidays.
Once the survey is live, give at least two weeks for the survey to run, with weekly updates to stakeholders. Remember to schedule and send email reminders to encourage participation — an ideal timeline is midpoint and one day before the survey closes. If possible, exclude those who have already completed the survey. While the survey is live, monitor the designated inbox for questions and triage, responding as needed.
Survey close and analysis can take some time. You may be able to see initial results immediately within your survey tool, but custom reporting or dashboard builds will take longer, as you’ll need to pull, clean, and analyze the raw data. Combing the data for the insights and learnings takes the most time so ensure you have allocated enough in your timeline and have appropriate analyst resources on hand for report creation.
Once the findings are shared with stakeholders, your company can determine how to apply them to business decisions moving forward.
4. Take your survey to the next level.
Based on your time and resources, there are additional survey elements you can consider implementing for richer analysis. These include:
- Employing A/B testing to get feedback on variables like survey introductions, calls to action, question format or wording, and more. A/B testing involves giving a similar survey to two audiences but changing up one key element to determine which survey strategy is more successful. For example, changing up the subject line or delivery method can help you maximize your response rate with the audience. Make sure you have the bandwidth to both set up and analyze the results.
- Applying skip logic that automatically directs participants to the next appropriate question based on specific responses; so instead of saying “If you answered 'no’ to question 3, skip to question 7,” instruct the survey tool to send the respondent directly to question 7.
A strong setup leads to big wins.
Surveys can be a powerful tool for gaining customer insights, especially when used in conjunction with other forms of voice of customer research, like interviews, focus groups, and online reviews. Taking the time to align on the survey’s purpose and being thoughtful on its implementation will create a strong foundation for valid learnings. By giving yourself time to extract insights from the data, you’ll ensure your survey yields comprehensive results that will successfully inform your business decisions moving forward.
What you do with the results is just as important as creating and implementing a survey. It’s important to use the information gathered to make better business decisions, from following up with unhappy customers to improving a journey touchpoint for prospects.
Need help designing and implementing your next survey?
The OneMagnify team offers comprehensive services that guide the development of effective marketing campaigns and optimal user experiences. Learn more about our customer research expertise, or contact our experts to take the first step.
Stay tuned for our follow-up post, “Getting the best data out of every survey.”
