Survey-savvy Managing Director of Tribe Research Kate Tribe believes an effective survey should be like a story, taking your participants on a journey rather than through a series of questions. Creating your survey not only requires a mix of question types, but three main components:
- An inviting beginning
- Brand-oriented middle
- End questions that require your trust
Beginning A non-confrontational start to your survey is essential. Immediately asking questions like “What is your name?” or “How old are you?” are more confronting than a fluid and engaging query like “How satisfied are you with our store?” It is also important not to ask for information that you already know about, particularly when surveying customers, as it suggests you don’t know them as well as you probably claim to in many of your marketing practices.
Middle The second section of your constructed survey journey can delve into the branding aspect of your business. You can provoke participants to think a little about your brand—their experiences with you, their engagement with you, and purchasing from you.
Open questions are great for gauging brand responses. Asking your participants to describe your business in three words, for example, will provide a descriptive list that you can analyse to find a potential disconnect between you and your customers. Testimonials are also a particularly useful type of open question. Closed questions, on the other hand, are essentially numerical. Net promoter score questions that involve the participant ranking an aspect of your business from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) are something you can monitor and track over time. Indeed, as you want these scores to increase, you can incorporate that desired increase into your KPIs every year. The advantage of these rating questions is that you can analyse certain aspects of your business. If you have always thought you were great at responding to customer questions, you can make sure that feeling is reciprocated.
End At the survey’s conclusion, you can include those questions that require some trust from you. At this point, if you do need to know someone’s age, or their income, or anything that requires a little confiding, it is better to ask at the end once some trust has been established. This trust will provide more honest answers to those questions that are inherently useful for your research. By including a mix of questions, the survey becomes far more interesting and engaging, but it is important to maintain a story-like flow. Trying to use every question option available to you in the online survey software can seem muddled and disorderly, and detracts from the thinking process you are trying to create.
This article is based on an extract from the Designing Effective Feedback Surveys webinar, which was presented by Kate Tribe. This article was co-authored by Elizabeth Rowe. Elizabeth graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) at the ANU and a Masters of Media Practice at the University of Sydney. She is currently completing an internship with the Australian Businesswomen’s Network.
