How to Create a Survey Questionnaire

Produce a quality questionnaire and respondents will need no enticements to participate.

If you want to create a consumer survey questionnaire for business market research, you need to have intelligent questions that target a specific market segment. Producing an effective survey requires an intentional approach so you wind up with dependable, useful results that will benefit both your business and respondents.

Instructions

1. Identify your goal and target market segment. A consumer survey is useful for market research analysis if you receive relevant responses that help you understand your customers. Before creating your questionnaire, decide your goal for creating the survey and which market segment you want to target. You should be asking yourself, "What specific useful information am I trying to collect? From whom do I want to collect it?" To get specific information, narrow your target audience and your goal.

2. Create quantitative multiple choice questions. Create specific questions relevant to your consumer with a set of possible answers. To prevent information overload, limit your answer options to less than six. Make sure you provide the "Other" choice with a drop down box for respondents to elaborate, in case they elect not to choose one of the answer options. Keep the questions brief and clear and make sure the survey takes no more than 10 to 15 minutes to complete. This is especially necessary if you are not providing incentives.

3. Add a "benchmark" question. If you plan on sending multiple consumer surveys to the same audience, always add a benchmark question such as, "Are you satisfied with this service or product?" so you can ensure that satisfaction levels are being maintained over time as you test other metrics.

4. Use survey logic to create branches. If you know your users will fall into different categories, you can create different branches. Thus, respondents can answer a subset of questions based on a couple of initial questions that determine their category. For example, you can ask if your target consumer drives cars. If so, she can answer the next six questions; if not, she can move on to question seven. This will help you to further filter your data.

5. Add weed-out questions. Many respondents go into auto pilot when completing surveys, not paying close attention to every question. When you are going through a data cleaning process based on consumer survey results, you need to be able to eliminate "faulty" data. Thus, be sure to add in weed-out questions with obvious answers. If the respondent gets the weed-out question wrong, you know the remainder of their survey may not have been filled out with a lot of thought, allowing you to eliminate that particular data point.

6. Work on the overall look of your questionnaire. Use professional, clean, simple formatting, preferably with no advertising, so you can establish credibility. Incorporate your business or personal logo so it is clear the survey is coming from you.

7. Send a test survey to a sample of your target audience. If the results indicate you are not getting the information you need, tweak the questionnaire.

8. Frame the context. When you are ready with the final version of your survey, frame its context with an introductory paragraph. Let the consumers know how the survey will benefit them and add value to your customer base. If people know they will benefit more than just your business or bottom line, they may be more open to responding. Creating a thoughtful survey questionnaire will provide you with consumer insights and market research at a relatively low cost.

References

• InfoPoll: How To Write A Good Survey
• MarketingProf: How to Write an Effective Survey Questionnaire (Part 1)