Survey tips

6 things to consider for better feedback forms

As we all know, customer feedback is essential to improving your product and to understand your users. However, every day,…

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As we all know, customer feedback is essential to improving your product and to understand your users. However, every day, organizations struggle to collect valuable feedback, that’s why we want to talk about feedback forms.

Feedback forms, when done correctly, are an excellent tool to understand user experience. They’re easy to digest and fill in, which also makes them easy to build and design. Here are 6 things to considering when designing and distributing a feedback form.

→ Check out a simple feedback form

1. Images are powerful feedback

Allowing respondents to upload screenshots straight from their mobiles, tablets, and desktops is a need to have. Not only will it be easier for them to explain themselves but you will also understand their feedback better. With Enalyzer, you’ll get an easy-to-understand overview of the uploaded images in your reports and raw data files.

2. Don’t force them to provide information

If someone is giving you feedback, they should provide you with all the relevant information, right? Yes, but the one deciding what qualifies as “relevant” information is the customer. Remember they’re using their time to help you out, in other words, they’re doing you a favor. If they don’t want to answer all your questions or simply don’t have the time, don’t force them. Nevertheless, if you need more information from them, just contact them and ask, this approach is better and will guarantee a higher response rate.

3. Ensure it works on all devices

Your users can come across your brand anywhere, which means they might be on their phone or tablet. Make your form accessible to them by ensuring its responsive and it resizes to any device it’s viewed on. Enalyzer is 100% responsive, not only for your respondents but for you as the survey administrator and whoever you share your report with, so you and your team can keep up with your feedback anytime and anywhere.

4. Update your form

Your product, service and/or website will always be developing and moving forward, so make sure your form adapts to these changes. Every once in a while, make sure that what you’re asking is still relevant and will provide you with an understanding of your user’s experience.

5. Less will give you more

Users that are going to report a bug, feature request or just general feedback don’t want to use too much time. They’re willing to share their experience with you but it has to be easy. Cluttered forms will turn people away since they look time-consuming, which makes everything worse if the user is filing a bug report. So what do you do? Keep it simple, uncluttered and easy on the eye – this goes for the design and content – and watch the feedback tick in!

6. Location, location, location

Feedback forms are like real estate, location is all that matters. Well, not exactly, but you get where we’re going with this one. Users are not going to spend their time trying to find your form, so make sure it’s in logical places within your app and website.

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Unleash the power of your Net Promoter Score® with time series

Net Promoter Score®, we’ve talked about it before, and you know what? We’re doing again! Why? Because NPS, when used…

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Net Promoter Score®, we’ve talked about it before, and you know what? We’re doing again! Why? Because NPS, when used right, is a powerful tool for any business and organization. But first, let’s recap.

What is it? NPS is a metric developed in 1993 by Fred Reichheld as a way to measure customer loyalty.

How does it work? NPS is based on a single and simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend this [company/product/service] to a friend or colleague?” However, we recommend you add an open answer question. This way you allow respondents to elaborate on whatever score they’ve given you and it helps you take action!

How is the score calculated? The NPS ranges from -100 to 100 and it can be seen as a report card for your company, product or service, grading the overall customer experience. Respondents are segmented into three groups according to the rating they gave:

Promoters (score 9 – 10) are loyal and will recommend you to their networks. They are your ambassadors and are therefore more likely to remain customers and increase their purchases over time.

Passives (score 7 – 8) are satisfied for now but your company, product and/or service didn’t leave a lasting or permanent impact. They won’t vouch for you but may mention you within the right context.

Detractors (score 0- 6) are not happy! They will actively spread negative word-of-mouth and tend to be louder (and scarier) than promoters.

What does the score mean?

We find that people often wonder what their score means and how to deal with it. Well, the NPS is the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of detractors, therefore a positive score means you have more promoters than detractors and vice versa. To increase your NPS, you have to boost the percentage of Promoters by reducing Passives and Detractors. This gives you a straightforward metric that you can share with your employees and use as a motivation tool to provide the best customer experience possible.

Nevertheless, if you want to turn your insights into action you should start digging deeper into your NPS. The real value of your NPS is revealed when you start tracking it over time, therefore it’s imperative that you send out NPS surveys after critical touch points, allowing you to identify trends and figuring out what works and what doesn’t.

Identify trends

The trend of your NPS is more important than the score itself. Customer attitudes change constantly and they may depend on various factors, you want to be able to understand and identify NPS trends and make strategies accordingly. For example, a healthy trend would be to see an increase in Promoters among those customers that have been with you the longest. If this is not the case, you might be running the risk of losing long-term customers, meaning that you need to pay close attention to the open-ended feedback and identify the factors that are causing this trend.

Pro tip: Send your NPS survey immediately after the customer has been in contact with your company, product or service. For example, right after customer support solves their query.

Quantify effects of changes to your product or service

By tracking your NPS over time, you can quantify whether changes you make to your product or service affect the customer experience. This enables you to figure out what works and what doesn’t and allows you to address concerns immediately. For example, if your customers are experiencing bugs related to a recent feature release, this might reflect negatively on your customer’s support NPS. Tracking your NPS will reflect this and show that the problem is not necessarily related to your support agents but to the unexpected bugs. Consequently, your strategy will be focused on improving feature releases instead of wasting resources in adding support agents.

With Enalyzer, you can use time series charts to track your NPS over time and get a clear overview of your customer segments. Enalyzer reports show real-time updated data, allowing you to act immediately to your customer’s feedback and therefore improve the customer experience you provide.

→ Start tracking!

Find your respondents

After putting time and effort into creating a great survey, we find surveyors asking, “where do I find people to…

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After putting time and effort into creating a great survey, we find surveyors asking, “where do I find people to take my survey?”

Today, there are multiple ways to reach your respondents, however, this doesn’t mean they’re all applicable to your survey. For example, your customer service feedback survey should be sent to customers that interact with your customer support. Therefore, the best way to reach them will most likely be sending a follow-up email after customer support has solved their query. That’s why you should start by identifying your target audience and then figuring out the best collection method(s) to reach them.

But don’t worry, we’re not leaving you alone on this one. Here are some collection methods we recommend:

Email
If you have an existing list of contacts that have agreed to receive emails from you, e.g. newsletter list, then you can send your survey to them. Email as a collection method is often used for employee and customer surveys and it’s a great way to add existing background variables, such as department and industry, for a better report.
Social media
You can share your survey to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or any other social platform that your audience uses. As a bonus, Enalyzer allows you to add social media icons to your survey so your respondents can share your survey with their networks. To weed out respondents outside of your targeting audience, add screening questions to your survey. For example, if your survey seeks to find out attitudes about trust in politicians among voters, make sure that your respondents are 18 years old by adding a question: “How old are you?” If the respondent is 17 or younger, set up a condition so that the respondent is directed to an end page thanking them for their willingness to participate in your survey but unfortunately, they don’t fit the adequate target group.
In-Person
Sometimes you have to go to where your respondents are, for example, if you’re conducting a survey about your hair salon and its facilities, it might be a good idea to ask people as they’re leaving. Set up a tablet in your store to make it easier for your respondents.
Panel
Panel companies can match your survey with online respondents for a fee. There are plenty of online survey panel companies out there, all you have to do is find one that specializes in what you’re looking for, describe your project to them and they’ll find a solution that fits your needs. If you’re interested in this, you’re welcome to contact one of our consultants and hear more. They can do the whole survey for you or you can create your own survey and they will match you with the right panel.

Collection methods are not mutually exclusive, which means you can, and should, combine the necessary methods that will help you reach your target audience. Whatever you decide, remember that it all starts with your target audience.

→ Create a free account and try it yourself!

Quiz Better

Quizzes are meant to test a person’s knowledge in a quick way and they can be formal or informal. The…

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Quizzes are meant to test a person’s knowledge in a quick way and they can be formal or informal. The internet is full of entertainment quizzes that question people’s knowledge of pop culture or political awareness. Quizzes, however, can also be used in formal settings, e.g. pop quizzes in US schools. Quiz results are often graded and shared with the respondent a while after they’ve taken the quiz.

But what if your respondents could see the results when they reach the end of your quiz? This will transform your quiz into an interactive experience and can serve as an incentive for people to answer and reshare your quiz.

Example

→ Check it out!

To say goodbye to 2016 and hello to 2017, we launched a New Year’s quiz where we tested people’s knowledge of some of the things that occurred in 2016.

As soon as respondents finished the quiz, they were redirected to a report showing the correct answers and how people had answered. This allowed respondents to test their own knowledge and measure it against others.

A quiz like this can be made more interactive by, for example, adding some demographic questions such as age. This will allow you to compare results based on respondents’ age and inciting a bit of competition.

→ Create a free account and try it yourself!

Fun fact

The word ‘quiz’ is only 250 years old, give or take, and it has had several meanings. In 1782  Fanny Burney used the word to refer to ‘an odd or eccentric person’. Also, around 1790, ‘quiz’ was the name for a toy. Today’s use of them term refers to ‘a test of knowledge’, this meaning emerged in the mid-19th century and the origin is hard to account for.

Making better estimates: how to deal with sample uncertainty

Every measurement is subject to some uncertainty but sometimes researchers tend to forget this. A common mistake researchers usually make…

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Every measurement is subject to some uncertainty but sometimes researchers tend to forget this. A common mistake researchers usually make when interpreting results is ignoring the uncertainty of samples, which leads to decisions based on wrong data interpretations. To make sure we’re all on the same page, let’s start with the basics.

What are samples and what do we use them for?

Market researchers and analysts are usually interested in obtaining knowledge from a certain population, e.g. all employees in an organization. Getting data from the entire population would be ideal, however, this might be impossible to obtain for various reasons, the most common ones being time and money. Instead, researchers use a sample of that specific population. The common approach is to run statistics on the specific sample and use the results as “estimates” for the entire population.

Now that we got that covered, let’s move on to an example

Pure Digital is a marketing agency and they have a customer base of 10.000 customers. They want their customers to rate their satisfaction of the marketing services Pure Digital provides. To do so, they create a one question survey and send it to a subset of 300 customers on a yearly basis.

→ Check it out 

Based on the data collected from these 300 customers, Pure Digital calculates an average satisfaction score for each year:

Here’s where the common mistake happens. Researchers and analysts tend to look at the above and conclude that customer satisfaction is deteriorating. But is it? No, it’s not.

The problem

This conclusion is based on the assumption that 3.8 in the sample represents 3.8 in the total population (and in the previous years, the same is true for the average satisfaction of 4.2). This is not correct! If a different sample had been taken, the average satisfaction might have been the same or entirely different. In the above example, Pure Digital got, entirely by chance, some more or less dissatisfied customers into the sample that influenced the average rating. Thus, concluding that the satisfaction score, based on the sample, is a good indication of how satisfied the 300 customers are. What the market researcher didn’t do, is take into account the inherent uncertainty with regard to the satisfaction scores.

The consequences

If you don’t consider this uncertainty, you might end up overreacting or under-reacting. For example, let’s assume that all 10.000 customers are satisfied on average at 4.2 (while the sample tells us 3.8). What would the conclusion then be? Well, here, we mistakenly conclude that our company is not performing successfully when in fact we are doing well. However, if all customers have an average satisfaction level of 3.6 (and the sample still says 3.8) then we might think that we’re not doing as bad as we actually are.

In short, if we assume that a statistic such as an average from a sample is the same in the total population, we make mistakes. Mistakes that can potentially be costly and time-consuming.

The solution

In statistics, the average of a sample would be referred to as a point estimate. A point estimate by itself might be a good start but it doesn’t provide any information about how “good” this estimate is – it doesn’t take into account the uncertainty.

To get an idea of the error that we might have because we have a sample and not the total population, we can use confidence intervals, aka, range estimates. Contrary to point estimates, a range estimate provides a whole range of potential population estimates that are likely to be true.

The correct interpretation of data

For the example above, instead of assuming that the 3.8 average of the sample can be generalized to the total population, Pure Digital should compute the confidence interval and base their decision-making on a statement that says “we can be 95% confident that the true population average ranges between 3.8 and 4.2.”

We started with a simple point estimate (satisfaction of all customers is 3.8) to a range estimate (it is quite likely – 95% – that satisfaction ranges between 3.8 and 4.2). The difference here is vital because it directly affects decisions. In this case, we could conclude that the difference between 4.2 and the quite likely 4.0 of this year is not big enough for Pure Digital to engage into redesigning the marketing services they offer.

In conclusion, by taking random samples and computing range estimates instead of point estimates, we acknowledge that our estimate of the population is to some degree uncertain and we are better equipped to avoid costly under- or overreactions.

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6+ ways to enalyze

1. Improve customer relationships Whether it’s friends or customers, relationships are important and they need work and attention, but who…

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1. Improve customer relationships
Whether it’s friends or customers, relationships are important and they need work and attention, but who said it has to be hard? That’s a rhetorical question since apparently everyone thinks it’s hard. Well, we don’t think so and that’s why our experts created the customer loyalty template. It’ll help you understand your customers’ experience with your organization and allow you to identify where you need to work harder and where you’re succeeding.

2. Ask customers why they left
Nobody likes rejection but it happens. We understand the urge to grab a glass of wine and sulk the day away after losing a customer. As appealing as that sounds, we have a more productive option; ask the customer why they left. Use their feedback to make improvements for your current and future customers. You can quickly get started with our customer exit template and when you’re done, reward yourself with a glass of wine.

3. Take care of employees
As employers, you want to make sure your employees are happy, motivated and engaged but let’s face it, people would rather share pictures of their recent trip to Bali with the world than their honest opinion with their bosses. So, what can you do? We already talked about this, but the gist is that we recommend anonymous surveys to gather honest employee feedback. You can use our employee engagement template, it’ll only take a few clicks!

6-ways-to-enalyze

4. Listen to work newbies
Starting a new job can be scary and daunting, maybe even slightly awkward. That’s why employers should do whatever they can to ensure new employees are properly and professionally welcomed to the organization. However, have you considered the fact that we all have blind spots and you could be overlooking something? Instead of wondering what it could be, you can ask the new employees! We recommend our employee entry templates that focus on the first 30 and the first 100 days of the new job.

5. Plan your next party
All work and no play makes for a boring life, isn’t that how the line goes? It’s important to blow off some steam once in a while. With that in mind, we refuse the idea that party planning should feel like work, which led us to create two templates for you; event planning and summer party. Combine them or use them individually, they’ll cover RSVP, dietary preferences, who brings what, and loads more.

6. Put hypotheses to the test
Surveys are a great way to test hypotheses about attitudes and behaviors in regards to anything; education, markets, politics, you name it! When used correctly, online surveys can be a powerful tool for academic research. You might not need them since research is topic specific, nevertheless, our experts did the reading for you and created several survey templates based on academic articles on branding, service quality, product design and more!

+ Don’t limit yourself
The Enalyzer research team has created more templates just for you and no matter the template you choose, you can use it as is or customize it to fit your needs. We also invite you to create your own survey from scratch and believe it or not, you can share your survey as a template to your friends!

Happy enalyzing!

Employee feedback, should it be anonymous?

Well, that’s a loaded question for a Monday. But sure, let me grab some coffee and let’s get right into…

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Well, that’s a loaded question for a Monday. But sure, let me grab some coffee and let’s get right into it!

Ok, so before we start, we need to recognize that employee feedback is vital for personal and professional growth. Think about it, your employees spend a lot of time on the job, according to Happiness at Work it’s about 90,000 hours… that’s a lot of hours. Understanding how they are doing and making sure to provide an environment where they can thrive ensures they grow as people and they engage in company goals and objectives.

With that settled, it is now important for you to identify what systems and solutions to use in order to collect employee feedback. There are different methods, such as suggestion boxes, feedback coaches, and surveys. You want to look for a combination of methods that are understood and accepted by your employees since this will get you as much feedback as possible, but most importantly you need a system that ensures honest feedback.

Which brings us to your original question… should employee feedback be anonymous?

We live in an age of sharing, which means people are comfortable with sharing pictures of their pets, opinions on movies and selfies upon selfies. Some people might even call this oversharing but at Enalyzer we don’t judge – you do you! Nevertheless, for some reason which most of us can relate to, being open and honest with your boss still feels risky, which is why anonymity is important.

There are many that disagree and believe that fostering a culture of honesty and openness is the best way to go since you can ask employees to expand on answers, reach solutions together and award employees for constructive feedback. This is all true, but the most popular and effective tool to gather employee feedback is surveys, and realistically speaking, you will not get honest answers (or any at all) if you can’t guarantee anonymity.

Anonymous surveys can help you get started in creating a culture of honesty and they are a powerful tool when used properly. Employees will share their true thoughts and suggestions when they don’t fear retaliation, and by constantly acting upon the feedback you receive they will feel heard. Yes, it’s one of those win-win situations we all love.

Anonymity with Enalyzer

We are big advocates of anonymous employee surveys (if you couldn’t already tell), so we’ve designed a tool that ensures complete anonymity. As with many other tools, you can make your survey anonymous which means personal information on the respondents won’t be gathered or stored, but anonymous surveys are more than that.

Your respondents need to be confident that your survey will be conducted and processed in a manner that guarantees their absolute anonymity and this can be tricky with online surveys. Why is that? Well, sharing a report based on a survey with a low level of responses can compromise your respondents’ anonymity – but we took care of that.

anonymous-survey-1

With Enalyzer you can apply an anonymity level to your reports and charts, which will hide data until that level is reached. So, if you set your level to 5, all those your share your charts and reports with will not be able to see the responses until more than 5 respondents have answered the survey.

anonymous-survey-2

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Pareto principle in survey analysis and reports

  The Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule, is named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (the dude in the picture)…

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The Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule, is named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (the dude in the picture) who in 1906 found that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of its people. Ok, but why is it called a principle? Well, he carried out surveys in other countries and found that the 80/20 distribution occurs frequently. Nowadays in business, this principle is a common rule of thumb, for example, in general, 20% of customers represent 80% of sales, 20% of time spent produces 80% of results… you get the gist.

 

If you apply the Pareto principle to a bar chart, the result will be values plotted in decreasing order of occurrence, organized from left to right. As a result, the chart clearly illustrates which factors have the greatest impact and what problems need the most attention, making them extremely useful in a variety of situations.

When to use the Pareto principle in a chart?

  • When analyzing survey frequency data.
  • When there are many items, and you want to focus on the most significant one.
  • When analyzing broad issues by looking at their specific components.
  • When sharing your survey data with others.

The Pareto principle is without a doubt a necessary tool for you to know better. That’s why we’ve made it very simple for you to create your own. Want to learn how? Click here.

Transform objectives into survey questions

To get relevant insights from your survey, your questions need to directly address your survey’s goals and objectives. But how…

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To get relevant insights from your survey, your questions need to directly address your survey’s goals and objectives. But how do we turn survey objectives into survey questions?

Today, we are going to break down survey objectives into themes and sub-themes that will make up our survey questions. Interested? Keep reading.

 

The Goal

  1. “Assess the Enalyzer’s staff attitudes towards this year’s summer party”

The Objectives:

  1. “Assess the employees’ satisfaction with this year’s summer party”
  2. “Explore employees’ opinions on the different aspects of the party to see if there is room for improvement”

 

Let’s start by identifying the themes and sub-themes each objective contains. Themes and sub-themes are the specific things you wish to learn and they will make up your survey questions.

Objectives, themes and sub-themes

Once you got your themes and sub-themes in order, start writing your questions. The table below is a simple example of how themes and sub-themes can be converted into questions:

Sub-themes and survey questions

But this is just the beginning! Survey question writing is a science in and of itself. Questions should be clear, unique, neutral, balanced, and more.

Start by identifying themes and sub-themes and come back next week! We will be going through the art of writing good survey questions.

Fun fact: The summer party was a success!

Preparation is key

There are two  types of people in this world, those who start a survey by writing down the survey questions,…

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There are two  types of people in this world, those who start a survey by writing down the survey questions, and those who start by setting survey goals and objectives.

If you fall under the former – Stop. That’s a mistake. Don’t do it. If you start a survey by writing questions down you will lose focus and your survey will become a fishing expedition leading nowhere!

That’s why today, I want to talk to you about the most important step in survey design – the preparation process.

So, what is the preparation process? It begins with writing down the goals and objectives of your survey. As the process continues, the goals become more clearly defined and the objectives become narrower. Only then can you start thinking about survey questions.

GOALS

A goal is a written general and unmeasurable statement that dictates the purpose of the survey. A survey with no purpose is unfocused and will often be unsuccessful. So start by asking yourself the following:

  • Why are you creating this survey?
  • What are you trying to prove/learn?
  • What question are you trying to answer?
  • What insights do you want to gain?
  • What will you do with the newly gained insights?

Let’s say I want to know what the Enalyzer staff thinks of our head office in Copenhagen. But why do I want to know that? Is it because we are considering moving to a new location? Or is it because we want to change the design of the office?

Disclaimer: We are not going anywhere or re-designing the office (at least not for now…)

OBJECTIVES

The objectives are the actions you need to take to achieve your goal and they should follow the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) rule. There can be more than one objective but we recommend a maximum of 3.

For example if our goal is:

“To assess the Enalyzer staff’s attitudes towards the proposed office relocation.”

Then our objectives would be:

“Determine how the relocation will affect employee transport arrangements.”

“Explore employees’ opinions about the new location and its surroundings (shops, restaurants, parks, etc.)”

Objectives will serve as guidelines for your questions, they will affect the questions you ask, the wording you use and even the survey’s visual design. If your survey questions do not align with your objectives, they will not provide you with relevant insight.

What now? Make yourself a cup of coffee, and get cracking on your survey.

See you next time!

General considerations

Surveys seem simple, you ask a question, get an answer, and make a decision based on the data collected. What…

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Surveys seem simple, you ask a question, get an answer, and make a decision based on the data collected. What if I told you it’s not as easy as it looks? Asking the wrong questions can lead to bad decisions.

That’s why it is important to know the basics of survey science. During the following weeks, we’ll bring you a series of articles on everything you need to know about survey design.

Where to start?

Preparation is crucial. Before you start writing questions down, you have to think about the purpose of the survey, its objectives and goals.

If possible involve the study’s stakeholders in the preparation stage. They can provide the study with greater insight and make it more relevant to your audience, which will lead to a high response rate.

One size does not always fit all

One-size-fits-all surveys are rarely the optimal solution, especially for surveys that are targeting large audiences. For example, an employee satisfaction survey should be tailored to the whole organization and to its respective departments, since there might be notable differences between their frameworks and conditions.

General Tips

  • 15 minutes

Take it from us, people start leaving the survey without completing it, so make it easier for your respondents and yourself and stick to the 15 minute mark.

  • Relevant, easy and inviting

Irrelevant and complicated surveys cause frustration and irritation. Respondents should use their time answering the survey, not trying to understand it.

  • Pilot test

What are friends for, if not to pilot test your surveys? Exactly! So, before launching your survey, show it to a friend and ask for feedback.

 

Net Promoter Score®

Want to know what your customers really think about your brand or products? Would they recommend you to their friends…

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Want to know what your customers really think about your brand or products? Would they recommend you to their friends and/or colleagues? Are they loyal? Calculating your Net Promoter® Score (NPS) will get you closer to answering these questions.

NPS  is an effective management tool used to gauge customer loyalty by asking the ultimate question:

How likely is it that you would recommend this [company/product/service] to a friend or colleague?

According to research done by Bain & Company, achieving a high NPS makes you twice as likely to have long-term, profitable growth. In addition to this, calculating your NPS is a fast and easy way to figure out how your customers think you are doing, allowing you to react to negative feedback and keeping you on track.

The most common scale used when measuring NPS, runs from 0 to 10. Based on this, those who respond 0 to 6 are labeled as Detractors, 7 or 8 as Passively satisfied, and 9 or 10 as Promoters. However, we recommend using a 7 point scale when calculating your NPS. Net promoter scores are calculated by subtracting the Detractors from the Promoters and dividing the sum by the number of respondents. In most cases, the NPS is then visually presented in a gauge chart as illustrated below.

NPS

 

Sometimes it can be beneficial for you to see the distribution of the Detractors, Passively satisfied and Promoters comprising your NPS. This can visually be done by you choosing to show your data in a stacked bar chart as seen in the example below.

NPS

 

Learn how to create your own NPS question using Enalyzer.

 

Remember to remind

You sent your email survey invitation a week ago and you have a decent amount of responses, but you think…

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You sent your email survey invitation a week ago and you have a decent amount of responses, but you think you can do better and you’re absolutely right. Some people, when they are first invited to take a survey, have the intention to answer it, but are unable to do it right away. So, your survey gets lost in an endless list of things to do. That’s why reminders are a great way to boost your response rate. Reminders give those tho have yet to answer your survey a second chance to participate.

With Enalyzer, you can choose to only remind those respondents who haven’t participated without spamming those that have. Plus, if you send an anonymous survey, the system hides your respondents’ background data from you while still allowing you to send reminders! We recommend you send two reminders, one halfway through the survey process and another one a couple of days before the closure of your survey.

→ Create a free account and try it yourself!

 

Achieving high response rates and reliable results in employee surveys

Checklist A well-prepared data collection is to ensure a high response rate in the employee survey and thus provide a…

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Checklist

A well-prepared data collection is to ensure a high response rate in the employee survey and thus provide a more accurate picture of job satisfaction, motivation and commitment at all levels of organizations. It goes without saying that mistakes in the data collection can’t be afforded. Below we have compiled a checklist of tips for how to avoid the traditional pitfalls in relation to data collection questionnaire based employee surveys.

Is the data collection method adapted to the organization?

Typically the choice is between an Internet based survey, paper based questionnaires or a combination of the two methods. Be sure to select the method or combination of methods that provide credibility and confidence in the study to help ensure a high response rate.

Is there a plan for communication before, during and after data collection?

Be sure to inform managers and employees about the survey before it’s sent out.

– What is the purpose of the employee survey?
– Why is it important that they give their opinion?
– How will the results of the employee survey be used?

It’s important that all relevant communication is in place, from the initial briefing on the conduct of the investigation, to the sending of invitations and questionnaires to all employees and the sending of reminders to employees who haven’t responded yet.

Is it possible to continuously monitor the response rate at all levels of the organization? 

Make it possible for managers and employees in the organization to follow the response statistics for all departments/units. This ensures an atmosphere around the employee survey at all levels of the organization and will have a positive effect on the response rate for the employee survey.

Is the organizational structure mapped? 

A prerequisite for the collected responses to be used to develop meaningful and relevant reports, is that there’s a precise and detailed overview of the organizational structure.

– Who reports to whom?
– Which reports need to be prepared?
– Which employees must be included in each report?

A detailed mapping that uniquely answers these questions for managers and employees at all levels of the organization – is a prerequisite for the results to be used constructively in the subsequent reporting and follow-up process.

Is employee anonymity guaranteed? 

In this process it is important to report the structure prepared, so that each employee’s anonymity under no circumstances is compromised.

Employees will only give their true views when they trust the study and the study is conducted in a manner that guarantees absolute anonymity for participants. If there is the slightest uncertainty among employees in relation to the anonymity it will influence the response rate negatively. A central point of communication with an employee survey is that it’s clear and unambiguous how the collected answers will subsequently be processed. Enalyzer Survey Solution ensures all participants in the poll absolute anonymity.

 

Create a free test account here and explore the possibilities for making employee surveys with Enalyzer.

Increasing the response rate on customer surveys

A customer survey can deliver significant value to a company, if you complete the survey in the right way. A…

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A customer survey can deliver significant value to a company, if you complete the survey in the right way. A crucial part of conducting a successful survey, is achieving a high respondent rate. Therefore, this post will lists some practical and useful advice on how to achieve a higher response rate on customer surveys.

There is obviously not a universal method to obtain a high response rate, which can be used in all contexts. Different industries are characterized by different types of customer relationships, and this must necessarily be taken into account when doing a customer survey. In general, the following simple advice can be used in most contexts.

Where to start?
Start by making clear what the purpose of the study is. This way you will be able to stay focused and find it easier to ask the right questions. It is important that the customer survey gives you action-oriented results, that you can use to generate additional sales or save customers who have turned their backs on you and are “on the way out of the store.”

The more relevant you can make the survey for the customer, the greater the chances are that they will be engaged. Also think about your timing. Customers do not enjoy spending large amounts of their time answering surveys.

Make your customers aware that there is a customer survey on the way
Involve the customer-oriented employees in your company in the customer survey and tell them to “promote” the forthcoming study, so that customers can see why it is important that they participate in the study. It should be customer-oriented employees provided with clear and concise information about the study.

  • What is the purpose of the survey?
  • What do the customers gets out of using their precious time to participate in a customer survey?
  • What methods are being used?
  • Time of data collection?

With this information the customer-oriented employees can advise customers that an investigation is under way, ensuring that the investigation is not perceived as spam.

Invitation
The invitation is your gateway to the customer and this is where it is determined whether the customer will click through to your survey. Therefore, the invitation serves as the entrance to a high response rates.

The invitation should clearly specify the purpose of the customer survey and the benefits the customer can get out of participating in the study. Messages that are short and precise tend to be more successful.

The answers you get are dictated by the questions you ask
Create a survey that is easily understood, consistent in its form, unambiguous, and not too long or short to keep customers engaged.
Avoid questions that are positively or negatively charged, as this will affect the respondent’s answer. There should also be a clear red line in the survey, for example by being thematic.
The better the survey, the better the analysis will be. It is important that the form is short and precise. We recommend that the number of questions do not exceeding 30.

Design
A professional design, the company logo, colors and layout should match your corporate identity, in order to ensure a high degree of familiarity with the customer. This will create a feeling that the company has spent a lot of time and resources on the survey and will affect the response rate positively.

Follow-Up
As e-mail tends to pile up and be forgotten, it is important to follow up on those customers who have not responded to the survey. A friendly reminder may be a good idea. Do not send too many reminders as this may have the opposite effect than desired.

Proper preparation prevents poor performance
In general it can be said that the more professional and serious a process is done, the greater the likelihood of achieving a high response rate.

Always remember the purpose of creating customer surveys – it is an opportunity to take better care of your customers. You have to identify the customers who are dissatisfied and therefore at risk of leaving to join a competitor. This can be prevented! At the same time, customer surveys help you make an educated guess on which efforts should be prioritized to improve customer loyalty. If you do not take care of your customers, you can be sure that your competitors will.

What to do about those customers who do not have the answers?
Follow up on those customers who do not have the answers. When customers do not have the answer, it’s a welcome opportunity to make contact with the customer and find out why they did not participate in the study.