Today you can find a huge number of ways to promote a site, product or service, so it's getting harder to stop at just one. There is a way out - to use many tools in one way or another and then evaluate how effectively they worked. We will look at an important mode of sociological research on the Web. This is a customer satisfaction survey survey.
What is an Internet survey?
Surely many of you have at least once seen questionnaires on the site devoted to the quality of service or goods, questions about the relevance of content, site design, or your attitude to any problem. Perhaps some of you received a similar online survey by e-mail? Did you answer the questions in the questionnaires or was it a waste of time for you?
In fact, customer surveys are a very effective way to get feedback from all over the world. Particularly advanced companies organize Skype conferences and focus groups to get to know their customer base better. Not convincing? Then here are some of the most important advantages of this research method.
Benefits of online surveys
- You can evaluate customer satisfaction in a short time, without waiting for him to contact you again for a purchase.
- You can evaluate several respondents at the same time using one questionnaire, which will greatly facilitate the work and save the interviewer's time.
- An online survey is much cheaper than a printed one and requires almost no financial investment.
- It is possible to show various materials and presentations (videos, cards, photos).
- You can answer questions anonymously without contacting the interviewer.
- Of course, like any research method, assessing customer satisfaction through a questionnaire has a number of disadvantages.
Disadvantages of online surveys
- In some cases, you can meet a low level of representativeness of the sample, i.e. sometimes it is not clear what status and financial position the interviewed person is in, and for this you will have to ask questions that cannot always be answered honestly.
- The problem of polling older people, because few of them use Internet technologies.
- Difficulties in conducting in-depth research, since there is no opportunity to ask clarifying questions.
But despite the prevailing conditions, the assessment of customer satisfaction using a questionnaire will be used quite often. The most important thing is to make the questionnaire correctly so that the respondent does not have questions during the filling process and wants to answerhonestly to the end. Let's take a look at the main steps to help you do this.
Step One – Motivate Survey Participants
Of course, your audience may be busy with many other things and will not want to solve your problems. Therefore, an effective means of motivation is needed. Offer some sort of prize or rebate for filling, depending on what you're implementing.
Step two - simplicity of wording
Questionnaire questions should be simple, clear and easy to understand. Do not use complex formulations and complex sentences. It is unlikely that someone will reread the questions several times, and the meaning of what is written may be distorted by the respondent, which means that the assessment of customer satisfaction will be erroneous.
It is much easier to answer simple questions with multiple choices or yes or no answers. Direct the interviewees in the direction you want. Offer opposite options, let's evaluate this or that side of the activity on a ten-point scale.
Include open-ended questions that require the respondent to answer for themselves, but do not overuse them.
Third step - building a questionnaire
The survey you submit, especially if it is a customer satisfaction survey, should begin with a greeting. It is better if it is targeted. Next, there should be a block of social issues, clarification of gender and age, if necessary. Then there is a survey on the topic, starting with closed ones (with proposedanswer options), ending with open-ended questions. At the end, be sure to thank the participant for the answer.
What should I avoid?
First of all, these are things you can figure out for yourself. For example, how often the user visits the site or what he has already purchased in the store. Based on his purchase data, you can even form an opinion about what new items he will be interested in and what emails to send him.
Secondly, avoid questions about earnings and income, any personal issues (illness, intimacy, participation in anti-political activities), in other words, those topics that a person is unlikely to answer frankly.
Thirdly, do not overload the questionnaire with questions, at the 15th point your respondent will get bored, and at the 20th point he will stop answering at all. The optimal number is 10.
Fourthly, do not forget about the targeting of your survey. The respondent must understand what he is being asked about, otherwise the meaning of the survey is lost.
Finally, don't ask obvious questions that a person will answer yes for his own benefit. For example, would you like to receive a discount or a gift?
In conclusion, I would like to note that customer satisfaction largely depends on your understanding of what he needs and what to offer him. Ignorance of needs leads to the fact that you produce an unclaimed product, which means that you have no chance of getting a satisfied satisfied customer. The second point is to be adequately aware of your own strengths and weaknesses, andthis can only be done with the help of an opinion poll, i.e. survey.
