To succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to know what your customers truly want or need. The best way to better understand your customers is to simply ask them. In fact, using surveys is one of the most effective ways to keep an open dialogue with customers. This will give them opportunity to provide the feedback you need to understand what’s important to them. Data from these surveys must be properly entered, managed and organized. As survey data entry and processing takes significant time and resources, most companies prefer to outsource the task to professional data entry service providers. This will ensure efficient entry and processing of survey information, while saving resources and manpower. It will also allow the business to focus on its core operations and streamline workflow.
Besides surveying your existing customer base, you should consider surveying prospects in other markets as well. The proper survey sample size depends on budget and the time available to analyze the results. Larger sample sizes deliver more accurate results. Creating a successful online survey can be a challenge. The following tips can help ensure your efforts are fruitful:
- Identify your target audience and keep them in mind when preparing the survey questions – You should always keep your target audience in mind when preparing the survey questions. It is necessary to word the questions carefully and clearly. The respondent should know exactly what you are asking them.
- Allow participants to remain anonymous – Privacy is important for survey respondents. To get them to answer all the questions, they must be allowed to remain anonymous. People are likely to be honest and talk more freely if they do not have to attach their name or disclose personal information. Anonymity is highly useful for employee satisfaction surveys and medical research.
- Determine what you find out with the survey – Irrelevant questions will reduce the response rate. Always ask questions that will help you evaluate the responses and provide actionable results. You should have a clear idea about what you want to find out and create questions related to your goals and objectives. Survey goals to guide question-making could include:
- To learn if customers are satisfied with your services
- To know which products your customers like the most
- To know what attendees thought of an event
- To know what your customers’ satisfaction levels are by segment
- To know whether people will recommend your company to others
- To measure in what format and how often customers prefer to receive marketing communications
- To measure customer attitudes or perceptions
You must provide an option that will allows a recipient to say, “I don’t know” or skip a question entirely. Never ask more questions than necessary. Shorter surveys increase your chances of success. Studies say that the best performing surveys are those that take only 5 minutes or less to complete. Surveys that require more time and details from a respondent should be under ten minutes.
- Communicate the survey’s purpose – You need to communicate to your customers why they are being surveyed, how you would appreciate their support, and what you are going to do with the information that you collected. You should also explain them why the survey is relevant to the recipient, how it will help your company create better products and services, improve customer service, offer competitive pricing, etc. You can send an email announcing the survey to your existing customer base asking for assistance and highlighting a direct link to the survey within the message. Providing incentives will help greatly increase response rates, especially from your top customer segments.
- Avoid vague or poorly worded questions – People may not like answering long, time-consuming questionnaires, however, they will be more responsive to ones that are easy to answer and give them the opportunity to expand on their responses. You should never ask vague or poorly worded questions, as it may confuse respondents and make your data less useful. Always strive for clear and precise language that will make your questions easy to answer. You should ask one question at a time. For instance, take a question like “Which of these cell phone service providers has the best customer support and reliability”. A respondent may feel that one service is more reliable, but another has better customer support. If you use only multiple-choice questions, it may prevent respondents from explaining their choices or adding more information to their answers. You should offer a larger text box that can be written in, if the participant feels it is necessary.
- Test the survey on as many different PC platforms, operating systems, and various web browsers – Before hitting “Send” and broadcasting the survey to your selected audience, test it thoroughly on many different PC platforms, operating systems, various web browsers, etc. Issuing the survey to a sample of trusted employees or customers to test it can help catch and correct problems before the survey is distributed to a larger audience. This will also give you a good idea of the response time.
- Compare the results of your survey to your original objectives – After getting the response, you can begin analyzing the data. Once it is in your database, it can be divided into many small parts and analyzed as needed in spreadsheets, presentation programs and statistical software. For useful analysis, you should report geographic location, the gender of the participants, or which of your products they have purchased. After generating the survey report, compare the results to your original objectives.
Many large corporations and even small organizations frequently use online surveys to gain business insight. There is a distinct process of data entry, analysis and processing required in online surveys. This can consume a lot of time and resources if done in-house. Partnering with an experienced survey data entry company is a feasible option to overcome these challenges.
