How you design your survey will impact the response rate from the audience. A well-designed collection form will look aesthetically pleasing to your audience, while being simple to understand and easy to follow on a screen. This will increase the amount of data you can collect from your target group, which will give you a better understanding of the environment you’re testing.
Here are some do’s and don’ts on how you can compose your survey to ensure you maximize responses and improve the uptake.
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1. Don’t Stick To One Question Type In The Questionnaire
There are many different types of questions you can use in an online survey. Sticking to one might sound that you’re going to make it easier for your audience to complete the form, but the problem is, that your questionnaire could be completed by lazy respondents.
One classic example is when companies use just scoring sliders where audiences answer a query by marking their agreement on a score basis, normally 1-5 or 1-10. In most cases, people will give you realistic responses. However, you will at times have people who give the same score for every answer. This is more true when you have a longer form with too many questions.
You could prevent this by reducing the length of the form. Or you could mix and match question types to ensure that you’re keeping the audience thinking of the question.
2. Do Keep Questions Grouped Based On Topic
One major problem is when audiences are made to respond to questions that seem to jump in topic. Each question in your survey should progress naturally in a topic or a series of topics. When you jump topics, audiences can get confused, give bad answers and sometimes abandon the questionnaire altogether.
This is why sometimes it can be a great idea to write down all the questions you want to ask on paper and organise them first. Then you can ensure that you aren’t jumping backwards and forwards on topics.
3. Do Use Questions That Have Already Been Used
Don’t make it hard on yourself. There are lots of people who have worked hard on creating the perfect surveys in the past. Use these as an example and start to adapt questions already formulated to your needs. This will make it quicker for you to complete your survey design and using the knowledge of others, you can be assured that your survey will be better at getting responses.
In addition, you can use the questions that we have on our drag-and-drop survey creation tool. We have lots of typical survey questions in our question database. These can be adapted to your own needs. It will save you time, and you know that because we’re survey experts, these questions will be easy to understand for your audience and they will improve the response rate as a result.
4. Do Consider Answer Options For Audiences
Not all surveys are the same and sometimes you might have different answer requirements to questionnaires in the past. So, make sure that you identify in a survey which questions need to have a response, can have several different answers, or any set which might have conditions where an answer will skip or add questions in as necessary.
You might also need to add in better descriptions into certain questions like when you have a scoring matrix. Or you might want to add in description options should respondents place a certain score on a matrix.
By ensuring you have set your answer options right, you’re creating streamlined surveys that offer powerful data without wasting your time, or that of your audience.
5. Don’t Forget To Test Your Survey Before Making It Go Live
One of the biggest mistakes brands make when creating a survey is that people forget to test their surveys to ensure that they are fit for purpose. There are many things that can go wrong when creating a questionnaire, including: unclear instructions, spelling mistakes, improper order of questions, respondents unable to give answers, etc..
By testing your survey before sending it to your target audience, you are improving the professional image of your brand. It will also help you to increase the uptake of your survey as when you have mistakes in surveys, audiences will switch off and possibly abandon your survey.
There are many people who can test your survey for you. Colleagues in your business might be the best option, but try not to use those that helped to develop the questionnaire. Another option is a small test audience of people not connected with your brand; however, they might not offer the best advice.
6. Add Branding To Your Survey
Finally, you want to ensure that you’re adding branding to your survey. This lets people know who is asking the questions and might help them remember their experiences. There are several ways you can add branding to your survey, this can include:
- Adjusting the color of the survey so it matches your brand’s core colors.
- Add your logo to the questionnaire.
- Attach videos and images of your brand that help to identify what you’re asking them.
Conclusion
Your brand’s questionnaire deserves the best chances of success. Use the tips above to tailor all of your surveys so audiences feel more compelled to respond. The more information you can collect, the better your data will be and the more accurate the results are for your business.
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