How do I create a good survey?

When it comes to surveys, the most important factor is the response rate. We at iP.1 have worked hard to create a survey tool that gives you a higher than average response rate. We thought we'd share our experience in creating and sending surveys, so we've created a list of things to keep in mind to get the most out of your survey.

1. Motivate recipients to respond
Offer your recipients some kind of reward. The reward does not necessarily have to be something material. For example, it may be sufficient to mention that participation leads to improved services, increased user-friendliness or that some kind of discount is applied.

2. Too many questions create reluctance
Surveys have a tendency to feel overpowered. Remember that it is you who wants to receive information. As the recipient of a survey with 100s of questions, you get easily tired, which leads to them not being able to answer all the questions, or declining from the start. Do not ask more questions than necessary, it is better to do continuous surveys with 4 – 5 questions on each occasion. If you have difficulty coming up with good questions that fulfill the purpose of your survey, we at iP.1 have developed survey templates that are industry-specific. The survey templates have been developed together with researchers and behavioral scientists.

3. How do you ask a question?
Another reason why your surveys are not answered may be that your questions are too complicated. Remember to ask concrete and short questions, with the right type and amount of answer options. simple questions with a plain text answer, for example, can mean many smart and interesting ideas from your recipients. Questions with text answers should preferably be at the end of your survey.

4. Test
Test your survey! It is easy to send out a survey a little too quickly. Instead, send it out to a few employees, or a small segment of the group you want feedback from. In this way, you can find out about difficulties in the survey before you send it out sharply, for example complicated answer options, the wrong type of question, etc.

5. Don't forget to remind those who haven't answered
There can be many reasons why your recipients did not respond to the survey. One of the reasons may be that there was no opportunity. Therefore, it is good to create more opportunities to answer the survey. In AnalySMS, you will find a reminder function that resends the survey to those who have not yet responded.