How to create a successful survey

Surveys gain more and more popularity these days so that you are tended to take them for temporary fashion. However, one hundred years ago, it was important for a shop owner as well to recognize what customers like and prefer. This was even more difficult as there was no TV advertisement at that time. The only thing he could do was posing questions to his customers, employees and suppliers.

Today things have changed. Companies employ up to 1,000 employees and products or services are offered by phone, fax, mail and Internet, resulting in an enormous number of customers.

Today as in former times you cannot do without interviewing your target group. The question, however, is how companies manage to keep up to date with the needs of their numerous customers.

Conduct surveys to get to know more about your target group

Today in our anonymous and fast moving times, the intimate atmospere which existed between shop owners and customers one hundred years ago, got lost. However, using surveys you can recreate this intimacy.

Forget everything you have heard about market research and take some time to ask questions. You could easily learn what customers think about your products and your services. Customers could tell you which products they need and which they would buy. Employees could explain to you what they really think about certain policies.

The answers you will get could help you and your company. You could develop or enhance products or offer the required services. You could also make your customers and employees happier. So do not think any longer, do it!

With WinSurvey you can easily design, distribute and analyze surveys without needing much knowledge about statistics and market research. All this is possible within short time and at a reasonable price.

Conduct surveys quickly and time-saving with the help of the Internet

One of the greatest problems of surveys are the arising costs, as for example staff is required to ask people on the phone or in person. Another way is to conduct surveys by mail resulting in additional expenses for printing and sending the questionnaires. After the survey has been conducted you need to type in the results manually, which takes lots of time.

Electronic commerce and the Internet provide another medium for distributing surveys. Millions of people all over the world have access to the Internet and that is why surveys by email are time-saving as you do not need to type in the answers manually when it comes to analyzing the result.

In the following paragraphs you get to know how to prepare and conduct a successful survey, without having much knowledge in statistics or market research studies.

How to prepare a survey

To conduct a successful survey you cannot do without detailed planning. Of course you can start your survey without thinking, the result, however, would be respectively.

Before you start creating questions, think about what your goals are. Your goals will have a great influence on the questions you pose. Try to explain why you wish to conduct this survey.

After having defined your goals and knowing what your want to learn, have the following aspects in mind:

1. What will you do with the answers? If you want to write a report afterwards, the questions may be more detailed. However, if you wish to publish live results on your website, use questions that can only be answered by choosing YES or NO.
2. Set a due date for finishing your survey.
3. Set a budget and take into consideration how much money, time and people are required.

Four steps that lead to a successful survey:

1. Selecting the right target group
2. Selecting the right survey type
3. Asking the right questions
4. Analyzing the questions and presenting the result

Selecting the right target group

For a successful survey it is important to choose the right target group. Have your defined goals in mind and think about the people you want to ask: all customers, certain groups of customers, vendors or investors. Think about how to reach your target group. Speaking about web based surveys, it would be a good idea to find out email addresses of the corresponding persons or to publish a survey on the Internet.

To conduct surveys also means to get in touch with people. No matter what your target group looks like, start early enough to look for address lists, so that there will be no delay with your survey. To keep the survey manageable, define how many people you wish to interview.

Selecting the right survey type

Your personal goal definition helps you to define the type of survey. There are many types of information which could be of interest for you: attitude, way of thinking, lifestyle etc.

The success of a survey depends on the way the questions are posed. For example you can pose a question which can be answered by a text. The advantage of this question type is, that the respondents can say exactly what is on their mind without being limited to a choice of answers. However, a great disadvantage is that you cannot compare different text answers directly when it comes to analysis.

To quickly and easily analyze survey results, provide some answers or select questions that can be answered with YES or NO. The advantage is, that you can compare the results directly.

Not only the type of survey and the right selection of the target group are important for the success of a survey but also the way the survey is designed. Keep to these rules:

• Be polite and ask the questions in an appropriate way, otherwise nobody will answer your survey.
• Pay attention to the size of the survey. Do not waste other people’s time, as they are doing you a favor and not the other way round.

Asking the right questions

Not only the selection of the right target group and the type of survey are important for a successful survey but also asking the right questions. Ask clear and comprehensible questions and provide clear and comprehensible answers as well. Pay attention to using the same language as your target group. For example do not use technical terms in a technical survey if the subjects are no technical experts. Avoid asking questions that do not make sense for your target group or allow your target group to skip these questions. For example, it does not make sense to ask an unmarried person about separation of property.

The four most important criteria for good questions:

• Pointed
• As short as possible
• Non-ambiguous
• Well-structured

When designing the questionnaire you should pay attention to the question order. Do not mix questions, so that they will appear incoherently. Let someone else test your survey before publishing it, to make sure that your questions are clear and make sense.

After following all these steps, you can now start to distribute your survey. You can do so by Internet, email, phone or in person. Today it is easier and faster to conduct surveys on the Internet or by email. Please note that surveys that are sent by email can be easily considered to be spam. Try to write the invitation for the survey respectively. The advantage of surveys on the Internet (e.g. on your website) is that you have better control over the people taking part in your survey. On the other hand, every visitor of your website has the chance to fill in the survey, which means that you do not know for certain, if your target group is still addressed. To avoid this problem hide the survey page in order not to make it accessible to everyone. If you send the corresponding link to your target group you can be sure that only your target group is addressed. In any case we recommend to set a due date for the survey.

Analyzing the questions and presenting the result

Surveys are meaningless if they are not analyzed correctly. The best analysis is possible for numerical values, for example you can determine the median, average or deviation value.

To perform exact statistic analyses you do not need to be an expert. WinSurvey helps you to determine complicated statistic values.

After analyzing the answers, it is important to present the result graphically, as you probably won’t be the only person who is interested in the result. With WinSurvey you can create different types of charts: line, bar or pie. You can also publish the created presentation with only few mouse-clicks.

After having conducted the survey and having analyzed the result it is important to take action.Try to learn from the answers and to change your products or services respectively otherwise your survey has been without use.