Online surveys are used in many different facets as it is a great market research methodology to answer major business challenges. Are you looking for customer feedback? Or interested in measuring employee engagement? Perhaps you are developing a new product and need to better define the market area you are entering.
Regardless of the objective, online surveys are an easy and cost effective tool to drive business decisions with fact-based data to back you up. With that being said, an online survey is only as strong as how well it is programmed. Programming or coding a survey takes careful consideration and time.
Our online survey company near Syracuse follows these four tips when programming our surveys.
The survey programming process can be a tedious task. But! It is an important factor in collecting reliable survey results. Our online survey company has found these coding survey tips to be helpful.
Programming Tip #1: Test in Real-Time
A common mistake made when using online surveys to collect data or feedback, is waiting days or weeks until reviewing the survey responses. It is important to use a test link to catch any programming errors early on.
Reviewing the data of an online survey in real-time, especially in the beginning of launching the survey, shows researchers what kind of responses they will receive and if the survey design needs to be reworked for better results.
For example, if most respondents are leaving the survey after the 7th question, think a little bit more about why this is. Is the wording of the question confusing? Is the format of the question too difficult for respondents to easily answer on their mobile devices? Is the survey taking respondents too long to complete at this point?
This will allow you to reprogram the survey to format it in a way that is more conducive for future survey takers.
Programming Tip #2: Use Anchors
When creating an online survey, there are a variety of question styles to choose from. More popular online survey question types include:
- Open-ended questions
- Closed-ended questions
- Rating questions
- Likert scale questions
- Multiple choice questions
- Picture choice questions
- Demographic questions
Regardless of the type of survey question layout used, many researchers like to randomize the answer options so it is different for each respondent. For example when asked, "What is your favorite fruit?" one respondent may see "Apple" as the first listed response, and another survey taker may see "Banana" as the first listed response. In general this helps with eliminating sequence bias in your market research.
However, there are times when listed responses will include "All of the above," or "None of the above." Here, you will want to anchor these responses to always be displayed as the last two answer options.
Keep in mind, when using anchors, this might take an extra step of programming to be displayed correctly.
Programming Tip #3: Piping
A great programming tip used by our national online survey firm is, piping. What exactly is piping? This is when a survey programmer inserts answers from a previous questions into future questions moving forward.
For example the first question may ask respondents, "What is your favorite ice cream?" A respondent selects strawberry. The next question could then be programmed to ask, "What do you like most about strawberry flavored ice cream?"
Here, you want to make sure the wording makes sense in both contexts such as using the correct grammar and tenses.
Learn more about how routing and piping in surveys can improve user experience.
Programming Tip #4: Redirection
Lastly, consider where you want to redirect survey respondents after they have completed the questionnaire. This could be some sort of thank you page, contact us page, or another spot on your site you'd like to promote for this audience such as a blog post, e-book, or whitepaper.
If you are offering an incentive for respondents, this is also a great opportunity to give more detail and information about how you are distributing this prize.
Contact Our Online Survey Company
Drive Research is a market research company located in Syracuse, NY. Our team has the knowledge and tools to program a robust survey utilizing more tricks and tips like these.
Interested in learning more about our online survey services? Reach out through any of the four ways below.
Message us on our website
Email us at [email protected]
Call us at 888-725-DATA
Text us at 315-303-2040