How to Capture Business Intelligence with Surveys

10 tips for being more successful with surveys.

Define Specific Objectives. Understand what you hope to learn from each survey and how you’d like to use the information. From this exercise, you can establish clear, achievable goals. Note: It’s often best to focus on one or two precise objectives, like learning what clients think about your customer service and pricing, or what your employees think about annual reviews.

Be Succinct. SurveyMonkey, a cloud-based online platform, has found surveys receive the best response rates and lower abandonment when they take five minutes or less to finish. Six to 10 minutes can work too, but abandonment rates accelerate substantially starting around 11 minutes.

Ask Only What’s Necessary. Fluff questions unnecessarily elongate surveys. Pare down questions so you’re only asking the essentials.

Stick to One Question at a Time. Asking multiple questions at once can be confusing and contributes to survey abandonment or vague answers.

Avoid Jargon. Populating your survey with acronyms and corporate buzzwords can confuse survey takers. Formulate questions in plain, direct language that makes what you’re asking clear.

Start Simple and Build. After an introduction, begin with simple questions and advance toward the more specific/challenging ones. Typically, demographic and contact information questions should be at the end.

Leverage Response Scales. They allow for a more nuanced understanding of subject matter. Instead of “Do you believe promotional products are effective in helping your company achieve its marketing objectives? A. Yes. B. No,” try using a response scale question that asks, “To what degree do you believe promotional products are effective in helping your company achieve its marketing objectives? A. Very Effective. B. Effective C. Not Really Effective. D. Not Effective At All.”

Get the Timing Right. In a study of 100,000 surveys, SurveyMonkey found both customer and internal surveys received the highest response rates on Monday. Customer surveys sent Monday received 10% more responses than average, while customer surveys sent Friday received 13% fewer responses than average. Tuesday was the second best day to send. Meanwhile, internal surveys distributed Monday received 13% more responses than the average. Friday finished second. Remember, though, the ideal time could vary depending on your particular target audience, so experiment.

Do a Test Run. Get a handful of people, preferably those representative of the audience you want to engage, to take the survey. See how long it takes them to finish to make sure the survey’s not too long. Review answers to learn if your questions are getting the kind of feedback you want. Refine as needed.

Consider Incentivizing. Even simple incentives, like a discount or gift card, can help compel more people to complete surveys.