Just Ask: How to Build Web Surveys That Get Results

How well do you know your customers? Would they buy from you again? Would they recommend your product or service to a colleague? Web surveys are essential tools to help you answer questions like these to better understand your customers and strengthen your customer relationships.

Although inexpensive and able to produce results quickly, web surveys still require proper project planning to maximize their effectiveness. The six simple steps for conducting web surveys that get results are outlined below:

1. Identify Your Objective
   Clearly identify your research objective up front. The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. To define your objective, ask yourself, "what problem am I trying to solve?" The ideal objective has a narrow scope and can be clearly stated. The wider the scope, the more complex your survey will become and the less meaningful the results will be.

2. Decide What Information You need
   Once you have defined your objective, identify the information you need to reach your objective. Be specific and avoid the temptation to gather additional, "nice to know" information that does not help to solve your problem.

3. Develop a Questionnaire
   The beginning of your survey should include an introduction that is enticing and clearly states the purpose of your research. Because web surveys are self-selecting (i.e. you have no control over who decides to participate), it is important that your introduction grabs the attention of potential respondents and encourages their participation. Also include instructions on how to complete the survey and an estimate of how much time it will take to complete.
   After the introduction, it is time to ask questions. Like their traditional counterparts, web surveys allow you to use many different formats for asking questions. In addition, online surveys add new formats such as drop-down lists that enhance the look of questions with long lists of alternative answers, support for skip patterns, and they provide automated branching and data validation.
   As in any survey, the way you phrase questions will have a major influence on the answers you receive. Biased, unclear, or ambiguous questions will lead to misleading responses. To maximize results, questions should be asked with the following in mind:
   • Ask questions that provide the information you need to solve your problem
   • Use plain, easy to understand language
   • Avoid technical terms, jargon, and acronyms
   • Organize your questions in logical groups
   • Ask important questions first - demographic questions last
   • Be sensitive to the feelings of the respondent
   As a general rule, keep your survey short, simple and to the point. Finish your survey by thanking participants for their assistance.

4. Conduct the survey
   Once you have built your questionnaire, test it to determine that is clearly written and can be understood by your target audience. The two primary methods for distributing a web survey are form a web site or as a link in an email message. If you send the survey out as an email attachment, or you use an email message to invite people to your web site to take the survey, make sure your message is clear and compelling. In addition, you should also:
   • Address messages to a single person when possible
   • Never list more than one address in the "TO" or "CC" fields since all recipients will see the entire list
   • Include a valid email address in the "FROM" field or recipients will consider your message "spam"
   • Provide the URL that will take people directly to your survey
   • Tell recipients how to contact you if they have a problem or concern
   • Identify the source of purchased email addresses so recipients know whom to contact if they want to be removed from the list

   Once you have sent out notifications, responses will begin to come in immediately. Most responses will arrive within 72 hours of receiving your invitation.

5. Analyze the responses
   You can begin to analyze results as soon as responses are received. Results are received in electronic format and are graphed automatically. Most online survey tools allow you to review, filter and cross-tab the data in real time, or exported when detailed statistical analysis is required. Remember to always relate your analysis back to your objective.

6. Recommend a course of action
   With the results in hand, you are armed and ready to recommend specific actions. Your recommendations can vary widely depending on the nature of the problem you are trying to solve. If you cannot identify any actions as a result of your survey, then it is likely that your objective was too broad, your information needs were not clearly defined, or your questionnaire should have been refined. In this case, your recommended action should be to conduct further study.

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