Businesses thrive by understanding their niche and taking continuous feedback from their consumers. It is always best to ask consumers rather than make assumptions. Customer and prospects survey thus plays a critical role in market research.
Researchers use these surveys to derive many insights, such as:
- Customer satisfaction rating.
- Product launch time calculation.
- Supporting content for marketing strategy.
- Goal alignment.
- New product design.
The critical design component for any survey is its questionnaire. Base your questionnaire design on known facts that can benefit your study. Key elements to consider while designing are:
- Choose the right tool – Knowing your means of communication lets you format your questionnaire for ease of customer e.g., paper, email, online.
- Define the scope ahead – Clear goal and scope of the survey let you decide what and which type of data(quantitative or qualitative) you need to make decisions.
- Order them right – Keep customers engaged by keeping the flow of questions and avoid incomplete surveys. It results in wrong insights due to disengagement. Question order also helps to prime responders for the next question, e.g., if we ask ‘ what is your favorite cereal?’ the person answering will think about the cereal while answering the next question. So, if we ask ‘what do think we should do to improve our cereal so that you buy it next time,’ he/she will answer the question with respect to the attributes they like in their favorite cereal. Whether we need them to think about their favorite cereal should dictate our flow of items.
- Biased questions– personal biases of the researcher may taint the result. Questions should be formatted, avoiding personal preferences, and should be rechecked by someone else in the team to assure clarity and fairness.
- Determine the composition of questions.
- Close-ended questions. (structured and most preferred)
- Open-ended questions. (unstructured)
Also, be mindful-
- Know who your audience is and the platform you are presenting on.
- Form a layout and format based on past learnings.
- Run pilot/A-B testing before the launch
- Document the learning for future campaigns.
Having a character of your questionnaire helps you keep your customers engaged and help you by providing the right, truthful, and honest answers.
When you don’t have a strong gut feeling, the survey and its analysis will surely help you.
Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable – Mark Twain.