For any organization that wants to offer products or services that are highly focused and well targeted market research is important. Business decisions that are based on good intelligence and good market research can minimise risk and pay dividends. By making market research part and parcel of the business process and conducting market research throughout the life cycle of a product or service market research will bring the following benefits:-
Market research will help you better communicate - Your current customers experiences are a valuable information source, not only will they allow you to gauge how well you currently meet their expectations they can also tell you where you are getting things right and more importantly where you are getting things wrong. By asking the customer you can take the guesswork out of customer services and show them that you care.
Market research helps you identify opportunities – If you are planning to operate a new service and want to know the preconceived attitudes people have then market research can help, not only in evaluating the potential for a new idea, but also by identify the areas where a marketing message needs to be honed.
Market research will minimise risk - Market research can help shape a new product or service, identifying what is needed and ensure that the development of a product is highly focused towards demand.
Market research creates benchmarks and helps you measure your progress - You need to be able to measure so that you can ensure that your organization is always improving. Early research can identify flaws in your service or areas where a product needs to be improved, by conducting regular market research it will identify if improvements are being made and, if positive, will in turn help motivate a development team.
Market research brings considerable benefits and it is perhaps surprising how few businesses invest sufficient resources to gather good intelligence that will help them improve business. Many may think that market research takes too much time and effort but that is just not the case anymore as through the power of the Internet online survey software is readily available and vital market research data can now be gathered in a quick, simple and cost effective manner.
Writing surveys is easy; or is it? The truth is that creating surveys is easy but creating effective surveys is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you write more effective surveys.
1. What is the survey’s purpose?
There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When designing a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.
2. Title the survey
The title of the survey is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so you need to encourage them that their investment will be worthwhile.
3. Keep the survey as short as possible
Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Limit asking questions that will provide you with ‘nice to know’ information and instead concentrate on the ‘need to know’ questions.
4. Use plain English, avoid terminology and acronyms, be consistent and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers
Word the question carefully. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least suspect.
5. Don’t have long questions
Try to use short sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and golf?’
7. Do not influence the answer
Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell cigarettes to minors be prosecuted?’ is unlikely to have any value.
8. Make sure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be inclined to abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Can’t say”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.
9. While compiling your survey consider how you will want to analyse the results once the survey has been published
Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “Indicate your length of service?” - ‘less than 2 year’, ‘between 2 and 5 years’ and ‘more than 5′.
Group questions into clear categories as this will make it easier for the participants completing the survey.
11. Target your respondents carefully
In some cases you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t fit your target profile.
12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers or make comments
Allowing the respondent to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections it may be difficult to analyse free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured
If you have assured respondents that the survey is to be confidential you need to ensure that the collated data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Weigh up the advantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. Allowing respondents to remain anonymous will however allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Consideration carefully the best response format
Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyze than multiple selection check boxes. If a radio response format can be used do not use a check box format.
16. Provide the respondent with an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete
Respondent drop out can become a problem if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is a good idea to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Provide respondents with the survey end date
Encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Test the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey check the survey carefully
Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible ask a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Remember to thank the respondent
Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.
