13 Types of Surveys Your Business Should Consider Using
Surveys are a window to your audience’s authentic preferences, opinions, and attitudes. If you know how to conduct a survey and analyze it correctly, it will provide invaluable insights into various areas of your business. There are many types of surveys you can use to understand the state of your business and identify ways to improve it. In this article, we cover 13 different kinds of surveys you can use and the benefits of each of them.
- Direct transaction survey
- Overall satisfaction survey
- Net promoter score (NPS) survey
- User experience survey
- Market research survey
- New product concept analysis survey
- Sales effectiveness survey
- Brand tracking survey
- Competitor analysis survey
- Employee satisfaction survey
- Management performance survey
- 360-degree feedback survey
- Exit interview survey
The three main areas you should be focusing on are your customers, output, and employees. After all, a business needs competent employees to provide high-quality products/services and satisfy its valued customers. Optimizing these three areas will ultimately lead to significant growth.
Once you decide what type of survey you want to create you can head over to our user-friendly survey maker and start building. Our extensive library of survey templates will give you some structure and help you get going.
Survey Methods & Distribution
Survey research can be conducted in a wide variety of ways. Each way has its advantages and disadvantages. When choosing between the different options, you should consider both your goals and your target audience’s convenience.
The most personal survey option is the face-to-face interview, followed by the phone interview. While these offer direct communication with your audience, personalized follow-up possibilities, and deeper communication, they do have some downsides.
First of all, they require significant manpower. As a result, they cost significantly more than paper and online surveys. Secondly, they can also be less reliable due to the inevitable human factor. It’s best to use these survey methods, especially the face-to-face interview when your target audience is very specific and the information you need is very profound.
If you wish to gauge feelings, for example, or aspects of communication, an in-person interview may be the way to go. A face-to-face interview, telephone survey, and paper survey can also come in handy when your target audience is not internet savvy (e.g. young children or seniors) or when the infrastructure doesn’t allow for an online survey.
Advantages of Online Surveys
Today, more and more researchers and marketers are opting for online surveys. Here are a few reasons why:
- Online surveys have become very easy to build. There are great online survey builders that feature tools with which you can build interactive, engaging, and reliable surveys.
- When a survey is conducted on the Internet, data collection, documentation, and analysis are very easy and convenient.
- Seeing as we all spend so much time online, participating in a survey online is way more convenient and accessible for most respondents.
- Survey technology has developed to a point where it enables you to reach a wide audience while giving every individual participant the sense that you see them.
Now that we’ve discussed survey distribution methods let’s take a look at the different types of surveys you can use and how they can each supports the health and growth of your business.
For more information on survey methodology and types of survey questions, check out these articles: How to Conduct a Survey in 5 Steps,
Survey Questions: 100 Examples and 15 Types of Surveys. Here are the 13 types of surveys you should conduct for better business growth:
Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Customer satisfaction surveys can teach you a lot about how your customers feel about your product and service. You can also use the feedback you receive from these surveys to retain customers, build new customer relationships, and ensure future growth.
Ready to get started? Make a customer satisfaction survey
There are many surveys you can use to determine customer satisfaction but make sure that you regularly conduct these three:
Direct Transaction Survey
This type of survey is typically conducted right after a transaction. You can use it to ask for feedback about your service, delivery, automated assistance, helpdesk representative, and more. It gives your customers the opportunity to rate how happy they are with what they received in this transaction. This in turn gives you valuable information about your customers’ attitude towards you and the accuracy of your offering.
Using this type of survey helps you determine whether your business is meeting your customers’ expectations. The information you gather also guides you toward the necessary product, service, or transaction process iterations so that you can better answer your customer’s needs in the future.
Overall Satisfaction Survey
This relationship survey helps you determine how customers feel about your company in general. Unlike the previous type, it considers past experiences and other factors as well as a recent transaction.
Assessing your overall customer satisfaction can help you create a better customer experience. You can also use results from this survey as a benchmark against competitors.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey
An NPS survey checks how likely a customer is to refer another customer to you. When your NPS survey yields favorable results, it is a good indication that your business is on track. If not, consider how you can improve the quality of your output to raise the potential of your customers generating buzz about it.
Ready to get started? Create an NPS survey
User Experience Survey
User experience surveys, or as they are often called – usability surveys – can help you understand how your customers are experiencing the use of your website. Based on the feedback you receive, you can decide whether you should change anything on your interface, add information, revamp design or interactivity, etc.
These surveys can take different forms. They can include both closed-ended and open-ended questions. Some send out these surveys via email or social media, while others prefer to embed them on their website in order to receive feedback in close proximity to the use of their site.
Ready to get started? Create a user experience survey
Marketing & Product Surveys
This kind of survey provides insights into your target market, perceived product value, customer buying habits, and brand awareness. They help you better understand your target market and identify your competition.
Depending on the results of the surveys, you may need to update product offerings and pricing or raise brand awareness.
Market Research Survey
A market research survey is a great and cost-effective way to get to know your target audience. It’s often used before developing a new product, expanding into a new market, or trying out a new marketing strategy. In addition to teaching you about your potential customers, this type of research can also give you an idea of where you stand against your competition.
Feedback from this survey can help you continually improve your offerings, sales, and profits by giving your audience the tools and information that they need while benchmarking against similar businesses.
Ready to get started? Create a market research survey
New Product Concept Analysis Survey
This survey helps you see the potential of a new idea. Not only does it gather a consumer’s preferences and dislikes regarding the concept, but it also determines the chances of customers making a purchase. It’s like a type of pre-launch customer satisfaction survey.
Gathering opinions and attitudes towards a new product is very important. It allows you to make necessary adjustments before releasing something new into the market, potentially boosting sales. If you’re surveying a large portion of your target audience your concept analysis can also serve as a marketing tool by boosting brand awareness and building expectation.
Ready to get started? Create a product research survey
Sales Effectiveness Survey
This survey can help your sales and marketing departments investigate the impact of specific marketing strategies on sales, performance, and profitability.
Based on your customer’s feedback, you can iterate marketing strategies aimed at specific audiences, develop new sales strategies or provide training for employees on the frontline. This can help you reach more qualified leads, improve conversion rates, and increase customer satisfaction.
Brand Tracking Survey
One could say that this survey, also known as a brand awareness survey, is a way to check your brand’s pulse. It determines how your brand is perceived by your market. You can use it to find out how aware your audience is of your brand, what they expect from you, whether they plan to do business with you, and what they feel about your brand. The results will help you strategize how to build brand awareness and improve brand quality. And remember that when your brand is viewed positively by your target market, it is easier to develop brand loyalty and increase referral rates.
Competitor Analysis Survey
Most of the survey types mentioned above focus on your business efforts. This survey offers an indirect yet effective approach. And it enables you to learn more about what your customers want and what you should be doing through your competition. Competitor analysis surveys usually look at competitors through the prism of marketing, product, and/or sales. They should be very focused and tactful because you don’t want to inconvenience your potential customers or create a bias that will slant your results.
Human Resources & Employee Surveys
When your customers are satisfied your profits increase. Customer satisfaction is usually achieved with high-quality products and services. And quality is provided by content, efficient, and motivated workers. Therefore, employee satisfaction is as important as customer satisfaction.
Human resources-focused surveys help measure employee engagement and satisfaction. You can learn how happy your workers are, what they think of their colleagues and supervisors, whether they are pleased with their benefits and work conditions, and even why they leave.
Employee Satisfaction Survey
This survey helps determine how an employee feels about their work, work environment, and company culture. It also covers their basic concerns and needs. Employee satisfaction is an integral factor in business growth. When you take steps to ensure that people are happy at work, you can increase their morale, efficiency, and retention.
Ready to get started? Create an employee satisfaction survey
Management Performance Survey
This survey helps assess the performance of a management team. It can identify problems and issues within the management and help assess company policies and procedures.
If you want an efficient company, you need to run a tight ship, which means you need great leadership. When you know how your team feels about their managers, you can provide training opportunities for managers to improve their leadership styles. Ensuring that you have a well-performing management team can also significantly boost office morale and motivation.
360-Degree Feedback Survey
Also known as a multi-rater feedback survey, this type of survey is often used by HR experts to learn about company employees and how the company can help them grow. 360-degree surveys examine employees from multiple perspectives by asking coworkers, supervisors, managers, subordinates, and sometimes customers, about their performance.
Successfully deploying these surveys requires great sensitivity, respect, and tactfulness. After all, the last thing you want to do is damage company culture, create bad vibes, or shame an employee you care about. When conducted with care, they can be a key to employee empowerment and development.
Ready to get started? Create a 360-degree feedback survey
Exit Interview Survey
An exit interview is conducted when an employee leaves the company. It allows you to gather information about your company from a unique and important perspective. After all, ex-employees can become brand adversaries or brand advocates. So much depends on the experience you give them as your employees. Use this opportunity to learn about your internal processes, retention procedures, compensation model, and tenure programs. You can also see it as a chance to end your partnership on a positive and productive note.
Ready to get started? Create an exit survey
Make Your Surveys Count
The bottom line is that curiosity and openness to feedback are key to growth. The more attentive you are to feedback, the faster you will learn and improve. And surveys are a great way to ask for and receive feedback, regardless of the size of your business. Just remember to approach the right people with the right questions at the right time. And make your surveys count by learning from them and implementing necessary changes in your strategies.
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