How to Increase Online Survey Response Rates

A survey is an investigation about the characteristics of a given population using collecting data from a sample of that population and estimating their characteristics through the systematic use of the statistical methodology. Commercial companies and enterprises use it to gain a deeper understanding of their tastes and opinions. Collecting data for market research is a detailed process. In this process, the concerned authorities conduct a planned search for all relevant data. The success of marketing depends on the integrity and relevance of the data collected.
Surveys are very important for any business conducting entity that wants to make a profit.
A survey can be devised for multiple purposes. They are relatively inexpensive since they are easy to use, reuse and can be corrected after creation. They describe the characteristics of a large population, thus they have a broad reach. Customer feedback captured from surveys for efficient marketing can be used to improve business by improving customer service and customer experience. Being highly flexible, the management can change it to meet the needs of the target audience. Surveys are usually filled anonymously, therefore, data collected might be more reliable. Such surveys have more honest and unambiguous responses. Survey results are easy to use in marketing after analyses and remind the business owner to regularly check upon their customers.
But to avail of these benefits of surveys, the customer has to respond to them in the first place. Though the response rate of online surveys is higher than any other medium of conducting surveys, one still has to make sure of a lot of things while making a survey.
1. Keep it short, simple and precise: Given that it is an online survey, the respondent is already connected to the internet. This means that he or she has an array of alternatives to do at the moment, instead of filling a survey. Make sure that the survey is precise, it should not deviate from the main target, else the respondent will skip filling it and start doing something else. For ensuring that the respondent fills the survey, survey creators should also ensure that it is short and simple this is because customers skip overly complicated or excessively long surveys. The survey makers should consider the fact that they have to send them more than once and should decide the length accordingly.
2. Tell the purpose: If the respondents are told in advance the purpose of the survey and how or where the answers will be used, they might be filling it more readily or give more qualitative responses.
3. Estimate the time to be consumed: In this fast world, everyone is short of time. Filling a survey forum might take less time but its length might give a false illusion of being time taking. To avoid this mirage, tell the respondents how much time filling the survey might take. This can be done at the same time when they are told about the purpose of the survey. At the same time also attach a progress bar. This will let the respondent know what percentage of the survey they have completed and will motivate them to complete the survey, hence will help in mitigating the abandonment rate.
4. Notify them: By telling the customers that they will receive a survey shortly might facilitate in curbing abandonment rate by leaps and bounds. The customers who fill surveys diligently might take out some time to fill a survey.
5. Increase the compatibility: Not all the respondents will use a conventional PC or laptop to fill the survey. People use tablets, mobile phones, and whatnot. The survey makers should make sure that their surveys are compatible will all the possible devices so that the respondents are comfortable while filling the survey.
6. Define the target respondents: The survey makers should decide who their target population will be. For instance, the customer satisfaction survey will be filled out by the people who have had first-hand experience with the company and not any random person the distributor catches. On the other hand, to gauge company perception, the authorities should have a random set of respondents. This will make the respondents feel that the questions are tailor-made for them and they will in return respond to the survey wholeheartedly.
7. Periodicity and survey fatigue: By conducting surveys regularly, the company gauges chronological responses of the respondents. The feedback and customer reactions captured are also real time this way. But conducting surveys too many surveys too often can cause survey fatigue. So the authorities should plan out the frequency and intensity of sending the surveys, without causing the respondents to survey fatigue. The company can send full-length surveys and pulse surveys in a well-formulated pattern. Ideally, they can keep the ration of 1:4 where after sending 4 pulse surveys, they can send one full-length survey. Then again, they should not send pulse surveys so frequently that even pulse surveys cause survey fatigue.