Guidelines for Survey Questions
The first step in creating a survey is to determine the method in which you will conduct the survey. For example, use phone, Internet, mail or in-person surveys, depending on which method works best for you. Subsequently, you will need to create a questionnaire for your survey. Write the survey in a logical manner, allowing questions to flow from one topic to the next. Choose your target audience from among current customers and non-customer consumers.
Other People Are Reading
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Qualify Your Respondents
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Qualify your survey respondents or participants early in your questionnaire. Make sure you are talking to the right person. For example, ask the respondent if she does the grocery shopping if you are calling about product purchases. Talk to the buyer or decision-maker at various businesses, as well. Your survey responses will not be accurate otherwise. Phrase your qualifying question so you receive a "yes/no" response from the survey participant. Instruct the person doing the surveys to hang up if the main decision-maker is unavailable.
Use Simple Questions and Wording
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Keep your survey questions simple, according to entrepreneur.com. Keep the words and language simple, as well, so the average grade-school child could understand. Big words and abstract phrases may confuse your respondents and skew your results. Include mostly closed-ended, multiple-choice questions. Allow the survey-taker to choose from among a list of responses. Read the list carefully if you are using a phone survey. Add a few open-ended or "fill-in-the-blank" questions, which will allow respondents to further expand on their responses.
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Response and Rating Scales
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Using response and rating scales will help you better gauge your customers' responses. For example, use scales such as "very satisfied," "somewhat satisfied," "neither," "somewhat dissatisfied" and "very dissatisfied." Response scales give a better read of the magnitude of a customer's satisfaction. A "very satisfied" response is much more positive than a "somewhat satisfied" answer. Rating scales also allow you to gauge your customer's responses. Ask customers to rate the quality of your product on a scale of 1 to 10, for example, with 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest.
Limit Your Questionnaire
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Limit your phone survey to five minutes or less. People tend to grow bored quickly when answering survey questions. Moreover, they may also start giving less accurate responses just to get your survey caller off the phone. People may even hang up, which gives you an incomplete survey. Mail surveys should also be limited to a page or two. Keep your Internet survey limited to one page, as well.
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References
- Photo Credit woman with headset image by TAlex from Fotolia.com
