In today’s data-driven research environment, collecting survey data is crucial. Survey data helps businesses and organizations make informed decisions. Although the survey is meant to collect as much information as possible, it is increasingly difficult to get pertinent data. Even if you provide your respondents with a well-defined survey, many do not have the time or the interest in completing it.
Here is a laundry list of a few things that you need to consider while collecting the information from your respondents.
- Create anonymous surveys for respondents.
While collecting the data, it usually isn’t necessary to have the information linked to specific people. If you reassure your respondents that their identities will be kept anonymous, many will feel free to express their honest opinions.
- Properly frame the questions.
Have you ever found someone responding flippantly or not responding at all to a question? It may be because of the way the question was framed. This issue is magnified when you ask for personal or sensitive information from your respondents. Therefore, a very careful and skillful approach is required to acquire any personal information. Where some questions, such as the age of the respondent, education level, income, and employment status are common, others may be unique which may demand a more tactful spin.
- Start with the non-personal questions.
Instead of going straight to the personal questions, start with non-personal ones. It will help build trust within your survey, so respondents will be more likely to answer personal questions as they arise.
- Make sure that the data collected is confidential.
If you are collecting personal data, you need to ensure the confidentiality and security of respondents’ information. Explain to your respondents about how their feedback will be kept in strict confidence, as they would be more likely to answer honestly.
- Ask questions relevant to your goals.
If you feel that certain information (e.g., name, age, education or marital status of the respondents) is not important to your overall goals, don’t ask it. It only makes the survey longer and potentially increases sensitivity on behalf of your respondents, so avoid asking questions that are not related to your research goals.
- Offer an incentive for respondents.
When planning the survey, come up with an incentive to encourage respondents to answer the questions. For instance, you offering a small discount on your services or a gift card can motivate people to participate. Be warned that sending certain incentives to participants could be time consuming and/or expensive, so think through how you’ll distribute it to the respondents.
- Publicize your survey to readers.
Publicizing your survey is important to get more responders. To ensure that they know about your survey, it’s important to advertise in multiple places. After creating an effective survey, share it on different platforms and get the word out to your followers.
Where do you advertise your survey? You can use your website, emails, and social media platforms to advertise. For example, you could include the survey link in your email marketing messages, your email signature, and on your social media profiles. This way, you will be able to ensure the highest possible completion rates.
These are 7 very different ways that can help you collect survey data. If you take each of these aspects into consideration, you’ll be well on your way to create a perfect survey.
