Traditionally surveys were conducted either in-person, by telephone, or mailed to respondents. Each of these survey delivery methods has its drawbacks. Often the in-person surveys were done in the office or at the retail location for which the survey was designed to obtain feedback. A problem with face-to-face surveys is that often the time of the survey is not convenient for the respondent. Maybe when the potential respondent is visiting your office or store they are in the middle of a busy day or at the end of a long day and when asked to complete a survey they decline or they rush through the answers. There is also the concern that the responses in face-to-face interviews are not confidential and could easily be tied back to the respondent which, especially with employee surveys, could compromise the honesty of the answers.

Telephone surveys are a popular way to conduct customer surveys. Often however the call comes at an inconvenient time and once again the respondent would either decline to answer or would rush though the answers.

Mailed surveys are either thrown away or stuck in the corner to be answered at a later date and often are forgotten and never responded to.

Today the web and email has revolutionized survey distribution.  Companies can easily and in a timely manner distribute surveys to employees and customers through emails or web pages. The internet makes the survey distribution process painless and inexpensive. The respondents can easily complete the surveys at a time and place convenient to them and easily return the survey with the click on their computer.

There are many survey software and web survey tools that allow you to easily design professional email or web surveys which meet your unique needs even if you have limited technical expertise. These tools allow you to send the survey via email or put a link to the survey on your webpage or in an email invitation. You can choose to have the responses sent by email or entered directly on your website. You can design reminder emails and automatic acknowledgements of responses received. Some of the companies offering survey software or web based survey tools will also distribute surveys for you.

Many of these tools include filers and cross tabulation features to help you easily analyze the responses without reentering the data. Some of the web based tools allow real time data analysis as the responses are sent the data is organized according to your specified criteria. Many include the capability to portray the data in charts and graphs or allow you to download the data into your own spreadsheet.

These are lean times and there have been changes in virtually every department in your office as your company seeks to improve its bottom line.  As a professional however you have  a job to carry out.   Can you do your job effectively when the point of your survey is to come up with changes and you don’t want anything to change?  You can’t if you let your personal feelings get in the way.

The survey is a vehicle that’s driven by your customer’s likes and dislikes.   This isn’t a two way conversation and if you approach it that way then you’ve already failed.  In fact,  far too many surveys or questionnaires fail to the point where many people don’t take them seriously anymore.  That’s a shame because when used properly its a powerful tool.   Furthermore,  there’s no other way to carry out certain jobs and this makes them essential in nearly every walk of life.  Its unfortunate that surveys have been misused.   So how do you create a survey that people will take seriously?  I usually know after the first couple of questions whether or not the survey I’m taking is a waste of my time.

Think stupid Facebook quiz. They tend to ask you a series of vague questions so you can be categorized into the same category that nearly everyone that has nothing in common with you is also placed into.  The questions lack objectivity and while some people find them entertaining almost no one takes them seriously.   If you’re using surveys in professional setting you want to get as far away from Facebook quizes as possible.  That starts with eliminating preconceived notions of how the survey respondent is suppose to respond or how the data you get is interpreted.

You are here to impartially gather information.  Your respondent should not know you or what you think.   Stay away from provocative or emotionally charged questions.   They may be entertaining but your job is not to entertain.  Also, keep your questions simple and to the point.   If your questions are vague or mentally taxing to your survey respondents then you’re going to jeopardize the quality of the data you are collecting. In most cases its better to create a series of short questionnaires with simple questions.   Be careful of leading your respondent on.   If you were to mix your questions up would they answer them the same way?   Are you inserting your opinions into the conversation?

We’ve all been around with people that try to dominate questions and the only opinions that are heard are theirs.   In a survey the only one who should be dominating the conversation is your respondent.  Finally, remember that the survey isn’t about you its about the respondent.  The survey is an instrument for gathering information. It will only be taken seriously if its used as such.

It’s very very easy to get all tangled up in products and services and policies and marketing, and to forget the most important part of the whole process: the information. If you develop and market and offer a product that no one wants, people are just not going to buy it no matter how great a job you’ve done every step of the way. Then again, maybe you’re offering exactly what people want, only they don’t know it because your marketing materials phrase it in a way they wouldn’t have thought of. Or maybe it would be great if you had just thought of this one critical thing.

So how do you gather information about what people want, what they need, what they like, dislike, hope for, dread, are excited about, will leave and never come back over? It couldn’t be simpler. You just ask them.

That’s why web based surveys are so powerful. They allow you to tap this type of information directly at the source, a little bit at a time. A lot of people aren’t sure exactly where web surveys fit into their business model, so I’ll break it down for you real simple. Are you ready? Here are 4 outstanding reasons to have your web surveys up and running yesterday:

1. People will tell you exactly what they want.
2. You will give it to them and become extremely wealthy.
3. Other people will want to know what you know.
4. You will give it to them and become extremely wealthy.

Okay, okay, I know. This all sounds a little extravagant. But the truth is, the best way to sell more is to know your market better. And if you just ask your existing customers what they really want, they’ll be happy to tell you, because they’ll understand that you’re ready to give them exactly what they want. It’s a beautiful thing, because everybody wins. Especially you

So what kinds of successes and failures have you had in your information-gathering efforts so far? And how do you think you could use web surveys to improve your business?

Some surveys focus on opinion and attitudes while others are more concerned with collecting factual information. Many surveys combine questions of both types.   A respondent could be asked what they heard or read about an issue, what they know about it, their opinion, how strongly they feel and why, interest in the issue, past experiences with it, and also certain demographic information which will help the survey analyst classify the responses (such as age, sex, marital status, occupation, and place of residence).  Questions can be open ended (”What does that make you think of?”) or closed (”Do you agree or disagree?”); they may ask the respondent to rate a product or a service on some kind of scale; they may ask for a ranking of various alternatives.  The questionnaire could be very brief – a few questions taking no longer than five minutes, or it could take a demanding hour or more of a respondent’s time.  A survey is usually rooted in situations where an individual or institution is confronted with an information need and no existing data will suffice. Once the information need has been identified and a determination made that existing data is inadequate, objectives are laid out for the investigation. These objectives should remain as specific, clear cut and unambiguous as possible.

Designing the questionnaire is a critical stage of the survey development process.  The questionnaire links the information need to the realized measurement.  Scaling techniques used for measurement can be comparative or non comparative.  If proper care and attention is not placed on clearly defining concepts and unambiguously phrasing questions, the resulting data is apt to contain serious biases.  Questions used in surveys must be refined to minimize interpretation problems and thus reduce measurement error.  If the respondent is unable to understand a question or fails to comprehend the question the way it was intended then the data is neither valid nor reliable.  A question must use language in a way that makes the intended observer’s meaning behind that question obvious.   In order to do this a survey must reflect an understanding of the population being sampled. For example, many people do not distinguish between robbery which requires the theft to be in the immediate presence of the victim and burglary which can involve breaking and entering without any confrontation.  The National Crime Survey, done by the Bureau of the Census, does not even mention the word “robbery” when it asks questions about robbery victimization.  Rather they ask several questions that use universally understood phrases, consistent with the operational definition of robbery, that when used together are able to capture the desired responses.

Keeping response errors and biases to a minimum factor heavily in designing a survey. How questions are interpreted by respondents must be carefully considered.  Also, you need to consider the length of the survey. If a questionnaire is too long than it can be burdensome to the respondent, inducing respondent fatigue that leads to response errors, refusals, incomplete questionnaires, and can contribute to higher non-response rates in subsequent surveys involving the same respondent.  Memory plays an important role when surveys deal with past events.  For most people the greater the demand a question places on memory, such as being asked to recall trivial details occurring on any given random date, the less accurate the responses and therefore the less reliable the survey data that is collected.  An appropriate choice of reference period should be made so that a respondent is not forced to report on events that happened too long ago.  Grouping similar questions together can reduce the cognitive burden a survey places on a respondent.  The validity of a survey can be put in jeopardy if questions are too sensitive, if they may prejudice the respondent, if they unduly invade a respondent’s privacy, and if the information that is sought is too difficult for a willing respondent to provide.

A web survey is one of five general ways research is typically conducted using surveys.  Surveys are also given using mail (the kind that requires postage), telephone, in-person interviews, and intercept surveys (respondents are “intercepted” as they pass through a heavily trafficked area).  The web survey most closely resembles the type of surveys which were traditionally mailed out.  Only this time you’re using email to send a link that takes you to an HTML form that is designed for completion and submission through the computer.   Information is collected quickly because as soon as your respondent has finished taking the survey, their responses are immediately submitted.  Web surveys can also be embedded on your web site using what is known as an Iframe.  An IFrame is an HTML element that makes it possible to embed an HTML document inside of another HTML document.   You can also create a Pop-Up survey on your web site so that when a site visitor visits a page the HTML form pops up from their web site.   If they have pop-up blockers enabled then this method will prevent them from taking your survey so you can also create a link to the survey which you can display on your web site.

The web survey is a cost effective way of administering a survey that allows you to collect large amounts of information without having to pay for interviewers, paper supplies or postage, and does not require separate data entry for responses to be processed.  The rise in web based surveys is due in no small measure to the increasingly widespread availability of computers.   Particularly in organizational or professional settings, the ability to receive a questionnaire and complete it at home or in the office on a computer is very convenient for most people.  You can expect to wait at least a few weeks for a questionnaire that is mailed out to a respondent to be returned.  A web survey allows you to rapidly collect data in a timely manner.   Information can be collected and processed in just a few days.    It also allows respondents ample time to carefully consider response selection and to enter in text for open ended questions.  If factual information is required then the respondent has enough time to consult their records.

You can increase response rate to web surveys by sending respondents a pre-notification of the intent of the survey.   This lets your respondents know what the survey is about before they invest any of their time into taking it.  You can also send follow-up reminders to respondents that have not completed the survey. This can be used in a situation where a respondent must complete the survey within a given date range.  Web surveys assume a minimal level of computer literacy so keeping your surveys simple can also help your response rate.  The technical nature of online surveys make them ideal for specialized or well defined populations that have access to an email account and/or a computer.  Coverage bias may result when targeting populations where computers or internet access are not widespread.  Determining an appropriate type of survey to administer to your respondents must take the population that is being measured into consideration.