Article contents:
- The importance of customer feedback
- What are survey tools?
- Why are survey tools important?
- What you should consider in your survey software
- Important features in your survey tools
- Types of survey questions
- Choosing the best online tools
- Creating your own survey
The importance of customer feedback
If you want to increase customer retention, your first step is evaluating customer satisfaction. When you’re able to come up with immediate solutions for your customers, you’ll be well on your way to building a loyal client base and a sustainable company. You need to look at your customer as more than just a number on a sales report. When you think about it, you have unlimited opportunities to improve the customer experience and uncover even more success for your business, you just need to utilize survey results and feedback in the right way.
Customer feedback is an essential part of implementing the changes you need to grow and flourish. In order to gather the information you need, you can utilize different survey tools and take advantage of the features that best apply to your organization.
What are survey tools?
Survey tools have been rising in popularity as businesses start to attribute more and more value to customer feedback and employee satisfaction. Regardless of the nature of your business, you can use survey tools.
Why are survey tools important?
Customer analysis leads to more informed business decisions, improved efficiency, and overall better operations. Businesses have always placed high importance on customer service and account management. However, for some reason, the use of customer analytics is much farther behind.
Research by McKinsey illustrates just how low customer analysis is on the list of marketing priorities.
The sooner you start to implement survey tools, the closer you get to solving customer problems, and even if your survey design doesn’t get you the responses or data you were hoping for, you can always create a new one.
What should you consider in your survey software?
On the surface, most online survey tools might look the same, but many features make them different from one another. From free online survey tools to paid survey creation software, you should always use something with a thoughtful mix of features as part of your customer experience management toolkit. Consider the following when choosing your survey software.
Value of money
If you’re going to pay for survey software, you should expect to gain access to unlimited surveys, among other benefits and tools. Remember, if you’re spending money on something, it should be creating some kind of return for you. When you are creating surveys for your customers, you need to make sure you’re getting what you pay for. Many users will opt for free online survey tools because of the cost, but try to remember that things are usually free for a reason. Whether it comes in the form of a watermark or limited templates, free online survey tools might seem great at first, but you’ll need to start from scratch as soon as it’s time to upgrade.
Reviews of users
Considering that you’re already on the road to customer feedback, you might as well get some opinions from the users of the survey software you are considering. If there are any limitations, you’ll be able to discern whether or not you can manage with them, or if they’re dealbreakers.
Infrastructure
Any kind of business software that you use for your company should make your job easier, not more complicated. The whole point of working with survey creation software is to take the complicated aspects out of the process.
Important survey tool features
When you first start to look into survey creation tools you might not have a need for all the features available to you. However, as you grow, you will start to find use cases for more targeted and advanced features. From traditional questionnaire and drag-and-drop formats to skip logic functionalities, there are several components you’ll want to consider. Think about your survey needs before you invest in any kind of survey software. Below you’ll find a comprehensive list of features available in the best online survey tools. You’ll find a lot of these missing from the free version of most survey software, so make sure you take note of which ones might make the biggest impact on your market research.
😅 Skip logic
Sometimes referred to as survey logic or question branching, skip logic is one of those essential features you just can’t afford to miss. Basically, it presents new questions to users based on their last answer. This is a more adaptable format that allows you to get more detailed insights based on how the questions are answered. You can include important follow-up questions that you wouldn’t usually be able to get to with other question types.
📲 Multiple question types
Make sure that whatever survey tool you use has the option to include multiple question types. The last thing you need is to choose something with limitations and then find yourself back at square one because the survey maker you chose doesn’t have forms, checkboxes, or Linkert scale surveys. Multiple-choice and open-ended question types are great, but they can’t be the only forms you use. The more custom options you have, the more detailed your customers’ feedback will be. Making it much more valuable to you and your team.
🎯 Advanced targeting options
If you want to get the most valuable responses, you need to make a concerted effort to reach your target customers for each survey you send out. The best online survey tool will allow you to pinpoint precisely which users see which surveys and when. If you don’t use advanced targeting options in your surveys, you aren’t making the most of your resources. In fact, you might be wasting them. Whether you use a paid service or not, you should always be able to know if you’re reaching the right customers.
You could spend days or weeks developing a custom survey, only for it to wind up in the hands of customers that don’t really fit the demographic the survey was designed for. Of course, all feedback is useful in one way or another, but you miss out on insights every time your survey makes it to a less-than-ideal user demographic.
🎰 You can target your custom surveys to:
- Specific traffic sources (search engine traffic, direct visits, referrals, UTM codes, etc.)
- User browsing behavior on your website (time spent on each page, visited pages, returning or new customers, scrolling behavior, etc.)
- Other identifying traits (languages used, device info, cookies, location, etc.)
🎲 The creative range of survey templates
Your chosen survey software should offer a wide range of themes and survey templates to choose from. When you have an assortment of templates and customization options at your disposal, you have the power to create unlimited surveys and questionnaire forms. You can focus more on the question types you want to include and the target market you want to connect with when all you need to do for the design is simply to pick which one you like best.
📈 Analytics and Reporting
Ideally, you should conduct a thorough analysis of your customers’ survey responses, in a timely fashion so you can react accordingly. However, this is often a time-consuming task, and many companies have entire teams dedicated to data analysis and reporting.
If you use survey design software with analytics and reporting built-in, you can get a summary of real-time results whenever you need. In a matter of seconds, you’ll be updated on the latest trends and user feedback. You can set up your software to send you a scheduled email with concise summary of your survey results and keep up with your customers’ responses.
🪄 Integrations with existing tools
In today’s digital world, there’s a tool for every aspect of business. It can become overwhelming fast, and before you know it your productivity is taking a hit. The best survey software always offers updated integration with other tools you might be using in your day-to-day business operations. When you integrate your CRM and/or marketing automation software with website survey tools, you get to work with more detailed customer profiles and make the most of your data.
📊 Exit-intent surveys
Exit-intent surveys function exactly as they sound, to collect feedback from users before they leave a website. If you ask the right questions, you can prevent future customers from leaving your page in the future and make improvements to the overall user experience.
🤳 Dedicated support
As with any new technology, it might take some time to get used to using your new survey software. Try to look for tools that offer direct support features like live chat. It’s also important that any non-live support materials are thorough and high-quality. You should be able to troubleshoot general problems and get through essential functions without live assistance.
👩💻 Data exporting
You can conduct your data analysis directly on your survey software dashboard, or you can download it and create spreadsheets. If you want to cover your bases, you should always export your data to a trusted and secure source. Advanced analysis using excel will help you come up with real-time solutions for your respondents. If you don’t have excel, you can open the file in Google Sheets, an excellent free alternative.
🗂 Domain and user management
If you work with a team or have a team of people under you who need access to your survey software, make sure it has the capability of multiple users. If you manage various domains, you’ll need to check the user interface to make sure everything is responsive.
Types of survey questions
There is a multitude of options to choose from when it comes to the types of questions you want to include when you create surveys. Always keep in mind the type of feedback you want to be able to receive, and make sure the forms or templates you use make room for the responses customers might have.
Open-ended
These questions are ideal if you want to get responses that you can’t necessarily measure with traditional survey questionnaire answers. Just don’t overload your form with too many open-ended questions. You’ll keep users’ attention better if you include a mix of survey questions.
Close-ended
If you want to get a sense of your net promoter score, ask the right close-ended question. Try something like: “how likely are you to refer a friend or coworker to our company?”
Nominal
This type of survey question is based on a scale and uses the closed-question format. Answers are assigned a number to make them easy to categorize and perform data analysis. This makes them faster to evaluate, but limits your responses.
Likert
The Likert scale uses a range of survey responses. Users can choose from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” or other measures like “not familiar” or “strongly familiar.”
Rating Scale
A rating scale survey lets you quantify survey responses in relation to feelings, values, and general satisfaction. They’re great for quick follow-up surveys and similar use cases.
‘Yes’ or ‘no’
Not as simple as they sound, these questions are limited due to their polarizing nature, but still have their appropriate use cases. They get you quick responses and allow you to move to the next step, whatever it may be.
Multiple choice
Most users are familiar with this format, which makes it easy to implement. They also display well on mobile devices, so consider pushing these on social media.
Picture choice
Pictures are more engaging and often attract more responses than your average survey questionnaire.
Matrix choice
Presented in a table format, matrix questions usually incorporate Likert scales or rating questions.
Dropdown
If your survey maker has an option for dropdown responses, they are a great alternative to multiple choice. The presentation is a little less overwhelming.
Ranking
No survey software is complete without rankings. If you want to get a sense of your client’s priorities, ranking questions will help discern what solutions you might need.
Choosing the best online survey tool?
It’s important that you take time to evaluate your options so you can choose the right survey maker for your brand. Regardless of your niche, there are certain elements you will eventually need that probably won’t be available in the free version of your software. So again, make sure you will get everything you need in the paid version.
Some of the most important elements you need in your survey software long term are:
- Custom survey themes
- Unlimited surveys
- Unlimited responses
If you’re not sure where you want to start, you can always try the free version of whatever tools stand out to you. From there, see if you like the user interface and think about any features you would add or change if you could.
Create your own online survey with Screver
When you’re ready to invest time in making your own surveys, it’s important that you choose a survey tool that offers survey templates and plenty of customization options. Screver offers unlimited questions, and dozens of features, and integrates with almost any marketing tool you use for your website or everyday operations.
When you have unlimited options, you open yourself up to unlimited solutions.
Incorporate your brand
Use your company logo on all custom survey templates, this way your customers know you took the time to create surveys of your own, rather than using something generic and less thoughtful.
Complement your social media and website
With a number of custom template options, you’ll be able to strengthen your brand when you create surveys that reflect your website and social platforms.
Turn survey feedback into solutions
From brainstorming survey questionnaire ideas to analyzing your results, Screver sets you up for success and supports you along the way.
If you want to see Screver in action, request a demo for your team today! We’re ready to take your customer and employee satisfaction to the next level.
