It's census night... but what do you know about your customers?
Tonight Australia will sit down to do complete the 2016 National Census. While some people will don their tin-foil hats in fear the government will (for some unknown reason) track their every move, it’s worth mentioning that most people happily give away a huge amount of data about themselves via Facebook and Google.
One great example of this is people’s propensity to complete online surveys. While many of us click the little ‘x’ button when presented with the opportunity of presenting feedback, for a part of the population this activity has become something of a hobby. So much so that a range of apps and subscription services have emerges that collect and collate surveys for willing participants to complete on their couch at home.
Still, there’s nothing like collecting a good batch of data from visitors to your website and existing customers.
1. Keep it simple
If you can promise the respondent that the survey requires only 60 seconds to complete, the uptake will be much greater. The easiest way to do this is you ask simple yes/no questions.
While this may sound too broad (compared to ‘out of ten…’ or ‘strongly/somewhat/slightly agree…’)
2. Ask meaningful questions
It may seem obvious, but too often we see questions such as ‘Do you like our product?’ instead of meaningful questions such as ‘what don’t you like about our product’. Surveys are designed to discover the opportunities you’re missing – not to make you feel better about yourself or the company.
3. Offer a worthwhile incentive
That moment you reach to click the close box is the moment you’ve confirmed that your time is not worth the effort. To prevent this happening to your survey, promise a prize or a discount that is going to be of value to the user.
It doesn’t matter if the prize is $500 or $5,000, just make sure it’s reflective of the audience. People are unlikely to enter a competition for a small prize on a website with millions of users, but the same prize might be a great incentive if the website represents their local community.
4. Be consistent
Are you looking for a rating ‘out of ten…’ for each question, or more the ‘strongly/somewhat/slightly agree…’ format? Whichever you choose, stick to it without deviation, and make sure your questions suit the format.
5. Pick the right survey
Survey Monkey is obviously the most famous, but there are a few others worth looking at:
PC Mag has a useful review of these so you can decide which most suits your needs…
Good luck!