How to Conduct an Online Customer Survey

Getting an honest opinion from a customer can sometimes be very difficult. Phone surveys can elicit faulty information. People often will not answer honestly when talking to an actual person for fear of offending the person. Online surveys offer anonymity--which frees the person to answer honestly--and are more convenient for the user and the survey administrator.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

Identify the Goals of the Survey

1. Identify the precision needed for the survey. An error rate of 5 percent or less on a survey size of 1,000 customers or more might necessitate hiring a professional company to conduct the survey. However, in most cases extreme precision is not required.
2. Decide what is to be achieved by the survey: faster delivery time, improvement of a product line or the favorite/least favorite aspect of the company.
3. Choose the priority of the content of the survey. Some surveys are not mission critical and are more of checkup on customer satisfaction. However, some surveys, when not conducted properly, can adversely affect a business.

Choose the Survey Tools

4. Decide if the online customer survey can be created in-house or be provided by a vendor.
5. Calculate the survey budget. Creating a survey in-house can be time-consuming and very expensive. An online customer survey vendor is the most cost effective; however, if information security is a priority, then an in-house survey may be the correct option.
6. Make sure the vendor has all the necessary tools. Make sure the online customer survey fits for the types of questions the survey needs. For instance, does the vendor allow branching questions? Branching questions allow a user to skip unnecessary questions if they do not apply to the user.

Compose the Online Survey Questions

7. Decide what types of questions will compose the survey. Survey questions are either open or closed. Closed questions allow the composer to give the response, whereas open ones allow the customer the freedom to choose the response. There are really two types of closed questions. Multiple-choice questions allow a customer to choose one option to answer the question. Matrix questions ask a user to rate the given question on a rating scale--for example, 1 to 5, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
8. Choose the wording of the questions. Steer clear of using double negatives, abbreviations and acronyms, and loosen up the sentence structure as necessary. Phrase the questions as neutral as possible.
9. Order the questions. The hardest question should never be placed as the first of the survey. Place the most interesting questions first to keep the customer's interest.

Test the Survey

10. Use a small group of customers to test your survey--typically 5 to 10 customers from a wide variety of sources.
11. Distribute the survey for testing inside the company. Sometimes employees from different areas of the company can give very valuable insights.
12. Evaluate whether or not to reward customers if they complete the survey. A discount is a good way to reward customers and increase business at the same time.

Distribute the Online Survey

13. Take the survey yourself at least once before sending it out to customers. That way any technical issues can be detected.
14. Determine the time of day or week the survey is to be deployed. If businesses are the target, then Monday and Friday are probably the worst days.
15. Publicize your survey. Let customers know about the survey in emails or on the company website. It is also very effective to invite the customers in person to participate.

Calculate the Outcome

16. Define the outcome of the survey. Online survey vendors will offer tools that compile results automatically.
17. Identify how the results of the survey relate to the goal of the survey. Are the questions relevant to what the company was trying to achieve?
18. Assess the validity of the results. If all questions were answered with the best or highest grade, then the survey may not be a valid measurement of performance.

Tips & Warnings

• Remember the overall goal of the survey when the questions are written.
• Do not ask two question in one. For example: Did you enjoy the service AND prices during your visit?
• Make certain that at the end of the survey, the customer is redirected to a thank-you page or the company website.