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How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Writing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following are twenty tips that if followed will help you write more effective surveys.

1. What is the purpose of the survey?

There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.

2. Give the survey a good title

The title of the survey is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so you need to encourage them that their investment will be worthwhile.

3. Do not make the survey any longer than it needs to be

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize asking questions that will provide you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on ‘need to know’ questions.

4. Use plain English, avoid terminology and acronyms, be consistent and ensure that the questions you ask will not result in ambiguous answers

Word the question carefully. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a real risk that any analysis of the resulting survey data will be worthless or at the very least suspect.

5. Avoid long questions

Where practical use concise sentences. Long questions can cause a respondent to lose concentration and can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.

6. Ask one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like golf and football?’

7. Don’t influence the answer

Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.

8. Ensure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be inclined to abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Can’t say” or similar response option.

9. When you are compiling your survey consider how you will analyse the results once the survey has been published

When asking questions that allow for a free text open ended response appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how answers can be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” – ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

Group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.

11. Target your respondents carefully

Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t match your target profile.

12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer or make comments

Allowing respondents to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember though for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyze free text open ended responses.

13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that your pledge is upheld

If you have made guarantees to the respondents that the survey is confidential you need to ensure that the individual data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed after the survey is complete.

14. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Give careful consideration to the best response format

Being consistent with the format used for responses is good practice. When creating your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyze than multiple selection check boxes. Do not use a check box if a radio response would do.

16. Advise the respondent as to the approximate time it will take to complete the survey

If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop can increase. It is a good idea to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.

17. Inform respondents of the survey end date

Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Pilot the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish a pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey carefully

Check and check again that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.

20. Thank the respondent

To complete surveys respondents need to invest their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a reward of some sort.

For further information please visit Survey Galaxy

Why should you bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although you should try and attract new customers good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business will secure many more customers through word of mouth and you should always keep in mind that if you are not taking proper care of your customers there is always a competitor that will.

A customer satisfaction survey will help by not only identifying problem areas but show that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

 

Where to start?

Objective – As a first step decide what the main objectives of the survey are, in that way you will be able to retain focus and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis – When the survey is complete consider how you will analyse the answers.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where a respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are much easier to analyze than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

A great deal will depend on the volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity – Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

After you have drafted your survey read through the survey from a market research view point and check that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that with the feedback information you will be able to make informed decisions.

Then, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

• Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
• Marketing – promote aspects of your business
• Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

In asking this question the store will hopefully not only receive useful feedback on the baby changing facility but they will also promote the store as being child-friendly even beyond the customers who actually require the facility.

Warts and all – to maximise the benefit from a customer survey you must be prepared to take criticism.

A well designed customer satisfaction survey will enable you to identify problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and give you early warning on where you might be losing out to your competitors initiatives.

 

What questions should you ask?

Depending on their own particular size and makeup each business is likely to have unique factors in relation to providing good customer services however there are common areas relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online store or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication – Do you make it easy for the customer to contact you?

When a customer telephones is their call answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.

If a problem cannot be resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to confirm that your customers find all your staff to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Are you doing everything you can to ensure that your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, does it have good access and is it conveniently located?

Making it pleasant, making it easy – For an online business it is important to ensure that your website is easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.

Physical store or online website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – Not only should you measure the quality of the service that you provide but you should check that the products and services that you market are what the customer wants and closely match their expectations.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.

Is your business associated with value for money by your customers, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Customers want their enquiries or queries to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid delays?

A good business will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is one thing but this has to be hand- in-hand with a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example where do they live and what is their age group?

Understanding your customers more will allow you to properly target your business.

Within the survey encourage customers to highlight their problems and provide contact details.

 

What is next?

Analyze the results once the survey has been completed.

Trends – Identify specific and common areas where the customer service is failing.

Ask yourself if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?

Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

Where customer service training programs have been implemented have they had the desired effect and improved the customer experience?

Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue do all you can to ensure that their complaint is addressed.

Do not lose the opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor – Make changes based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing follow up surveys.

If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and would like to see a sample survey for a store that demonstrates some of the above advice please view the Sample Customer Survey