How to Use Surveys for Your Business: 5 Tips

Surveys are good for business image

Surveys are a great way to improve your business processes and practices, generate loyal customers, and boost your overall sales revenue. Without surveys, you can’t really know what’s working for your brand and even if your customers are satisfied.

Take an example of McDonalds Survey. It has a special website dedicated to gathering customer feedback in return for special prizes. Since customers are mostly lazy to fill out surveys, it’s better to entice them with offers. Furthermore, your surveys should be effective enough to be actually worthwhile.

Therefore, we’ll discuss 5 tips on how to use surveys for your business in this article. Keep reading to learn!

Tip #1: Have Clear Goals

You should only have one goal when creating surveys for your business. If you have multiple goals, it’s better to create relevant surveys for them later and focus only on one at a time. Goals may be different from business to business.

For instance, you may want to collect insights from your customers about launching a new product or get feedback on your customer service. It’s essential to take time and clearly think about what is most important to you now, so you can create the right survey.

Tip #2: Keep Your Surveys Short

Would you be interested in filling out a long survey with 20 to 30 questions? Of course, not. If you want to make it easier for your customers to submit surveys, you must keep it short. Only add questions that you think are really important as of now.

In addition, when adding options in questions, ensure they aren’t more than 5. You can always add the 5th option as “other” to keep the focus and interest of customers when filling out surveys.  

Tip #3: Keep It Timely

You can’t expect your customers to remember their experience with one of your product launches 6 months ago. This can not only lead to wrong answers but can also majorly turn off the customers since they won’t be able to recall the information.

Therefore, you must keep your surveys timely. For instance, if you launched a product a month ago, you can send out surveys to customers who tried it and ask them for feedback.

Tip #4: Decide the Distribution Platform for Your Survey

You can create a survey webpage on your website, or use third-party survey platforms and send survey links via text messages, social media channels, or emails. The distribution channel you use for your surveys will directly influence the response rate and the number of submitted surveys.

Of course, you want a maximum number of customers to answer your surveys for added effectiveness. Hence, you should consider where the majority of your customers are active. If it’s one of your social media channels, you can send a survey there.

Email surveys are also effective, whereas SMS is an incredible channel to engage customers and quickly collect feedback. A brick-and-mortar store can add a link or QR code on the receipt to gather feedback conveniently.  

Tip #5: Test Your Survey First

Before sending out your surveys to customers, you should first always check them yourself. Is the wording clear and concise? Does the survey engage customers?

You will be the best judge for your survey. Afterward, it’s better to send the survey to a small group of people, such as your colleague or friends, and get their feedback on your survey, so you can improve it. 


Interesting Related Article: “8 Reasons To Try Online Surveys