Until recently, surveys were available only to professional sociologists and government agencies. But then online services appeared, and today, almost everyone can conduct research, collect feedback from respondents, and, most importantly, qualitatively analyze the data obtained. Let’s figure out what tasks, routine and non-trivial, the tool helps startup managers and heads of large corporations solve.
Understanding Customers
Reviews are essential for businesses to understand how well a particular service works — what consumers are happy with and what needs to be changed. Surveys also help you correct mistakes if something goes wrong and change course in time.
Here’s a practical example. American developer and IT entrepreneur (formerly one of the first Facebook employees) Noah Kagan shared his experience creating online surveys: it all started when he announced the launch of a new business course. To do this, Kagan sent a mailing to a database of 30 thousand people, but only 30 people bought the product. The entrepreneur was not satisfied with the result, and he decided to survey to find out how to improve the situation.
People who opened the previous email but didn’t make a purchase received a form with a few simple questions about whether they were even interested in participating in the course, why they were interested (or not interested), and what was holding them back from starting their own business.
Noah got the answers, identified common reasons why people didn’t buy the course, and set about reworking the product. He used language from respondents’ responses, redesigned the course structure to address respondents’ fears, added more tools to support hesitant customers, and improved the product significantly.
Online surveys allow you to understand customers and find out what worries them, what they expect from a business, and what motivates them to make purchases.
NPS and CSI Analysis
Surveys are the key to customer loyalty. The degree of customer loyalty to a brand is reflected by the NPS (Net Promoter Score) and CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) indices. A graph based on the research results shows the ratio of negative and neutral customers and what percentage of users are ready to recommend the product to their friends.
Such surveys are suitable not only at the start of a project. Sometimes, they allow you to establish and maintain communication with existing clients. For example, Online Surveys in Germany are very popular, therefore bringing the audience of the platform together with a high probability of being your clients.
Launch of New Products and Features
The founder and team of a startup may understand their product perfectly (or think they do). However, for a successful launch to the market, they still need a crucial component: the opinion of potential customers. A survey can be a great help in this regard. It can give an idea of the genuine attitude of the market towards the product. However, you should not be afraid that you will not find respondents. Many people love to earn from online surveys and are willing to share their opinions for a small reward.
As a result of such research, it may turn out that people simply do not understand the essence of the offer, or they are confused by the price. Before a product or service hits the shelf, the company will have time to finalize the product, which may save a lot of money.
Here is an illustration based on a real case. Startup Modify Watches offers affordable watches with interchangeable accessories. As part of testing new business models, the company conducted an online survey among potential customers. Among other things, they asked whether users were willing to receive new watches every month through a subscription.
The survey showed that respondents were interested in such a model, but most of them saw monthly updates as too frequent. The optimal period for consumers, as it turned out, is 3–9 months. In this case, the survey helped the founders come out of their shells. Inside the company, they decided for the client that he was ready to change accessories every month, but the actual state of affairs diverged from this idea.
Fortunately, Modify Watches listened to respondents’ opinions in time and introduced three options – sending out watches every three, seven, and fourteen months. The project has been operating under this model for several years.
Alternative to Brainstorming
Sometimes, good ideas mature within companies but are not voiced at general meetings or drown in discussions. Employee surveys can be an alternative to brainstorming sessions. One option is to send a link to a survey in the work chat after general meetings, inviting you to evaluate the forum’s results and share ideas left unattended.
Search for Internal Problems
In large teams, in addition to new ideas, employee dissatisfaction can also “mature.” There are many reasons for this, from low salaries to management behavior. It is better to identify such problems before they cause a scandal.
There is a well-known case where Nike employees, dissatisfied with their salaries, conducted an informal survey of their colleagues. Its results, demonstrating massive dissatisfaction among workers, reached the head of the company. Management took action.
It is better to solve such problems before the employees themselves take on them. To do this, it is vital to monitor the team’s mood. For companies like Nike, an online survey is the optimal solution for comprehensive coverage that can show an accurate picture.
Increasing Customer Loyalty
In 2005, a devastating post appeared on the personal blog of one of Dell’s clients about the support service of one of the largest computer equipment manufacturers in the world. The post quickly gained views and comments from other dissatisfied users. The negative experience in 2005 led Dell to create a comprehensive strategy for collecting customer feedback. One of its tools is online surveys that promptly identify consumer problems.
The media, recruiting platforms, non-profit organizations, and trade unions also conduct their research among online users. And in almost every case, there is a case of working with online surveys. New forms of interactive surveys are already emerging – for example, VR studies. Both these futuristic and more traditional scenarios have one thing in common – surveys expand our understanding of the world, the market, and the people around us.
Paid or Free?
The format and features of the survey depend on your goals. Obviously, studying the general mood in the company and receiving feedback from employees does not require payment. In this case, you just need to create an optimal list of questions and a convenient platform for collecting and processing answers.
And if you need marketing research, then paid surveys will be the best solution. People love to get paid to take surveys and willingly share their opinions about your product or service. However, remember that such users are not interested in telling their impressions, and if you offer them to answer questions for free, you simply will not get enough respondents.
How to Conduct an Online Survey
Regardless of the purpose of data collection, conducting a marketing survey of representatives of the target audience includes several mandatory steps:
- Development of a questionnaire.
- Determination of quotas and samples.
- Instructing interviewers who interact directly with respondents.
- Assessing the quality of collected information.
- Processing of data obtained during the survey and subsequent analysis.
- Drawing up a report including the results of the research.
Most of these actions are taken over by dedicated platforms conducting such research. Therefore, your task comes down to asking questions and choosing the optimal service. Typically, such platforms offer users to earn rewards for taking surveys and already have a large audience of respondents.
The procedure is straightforward: a questionnaire is created and distributed among representatives of the target audience, and the results obtained are analyzed. Working with an online service has some advantages:
- With the help of designers, an online survey questionnaire can be created using a template or according to the proposed logical rules.
- The service operates in the country you need. For example, if the Australian market is important to you, look for Online Surveys in Australia.
- It is convenient to send questionnaires to the database of respondents created on the service, using the necessary samples by gender, place of residence, age, profession, etc.
- Several distribution options are offered: email, social networks, website, and online panel.
- Prompt response from respondents. The first responses can be seen a few minutes after the questionnaire is created and distributed.
- There is no need for manual processing of results. Everything happens automatically.
Taking these criteria into account, you can easily select the best survey site for your company and its needs.
Conclusion
If there is a need to collect the necessary information quickly, paid online surveys will come to the rescue. There are no problems with their organization today; researchers can do this easily. Respondents can be found on special Internet resources. For a small fee, they will answer the proposed questions, providing marketers with the information they need to promote the product.
You can entrust the creation of an online survey to third-party marketers or develop it yourself. For this purpose, there are many paid and free services on the Internet. Knowing the criteria for choosing the most suitable one, you can end up with an exciting survey beautifully designed according to all the Internet rules.
