Customer Survey Questions

We on the Cvent Web Surveys Client Services team always encourages clients to customize the headers for their online surveys. By adding your organization’s logo to the header of your survey, you are essentially branding your organization for free!

Although some clients do choose to add customized headers to their survey design templates, many do not carefully consider the best option for HOW to add their header images. When add your header image to your survey, you have two options:


There are numerous advantages to using the HTML Editor to add your header image, as opposed to the alternative option. My top 5 reasons for why you should use the HTML Editor as opposed to the alternative option are as follows:


As you can see, using the HTML Editor to add your header to your custom survey does indeed have its perks. In general, please take advantage of the HTML Editor throughout Cvent’s Web Surveys tool! As soon as you start working in the HTML Editor, you will undoubtedly agree that it's online survey software made easy. I bet it wont take long for you to start singing its praises as well.

Today we're continuing our count down of our top five posts. Today's theme? You guessed it customer, client and consumer surveys.

• Don't Just Conduct Customer Satisfaction Surveys, Also Collect User Satisfaction Feedback: In this post, we talk about how the purchaser and the user are not always the same person. So when you review your customer feedback procedures and customer survey best practices, make sure you consider who you're surveying: the purchaser, the user or both.

• Customer Service Feedback To Increase Customer Loyalty: Customers have higher standards for organizations than 20 years ago. We all want more, more more! In this post, we talk about the importance of good customer service and how to boost your customer service satisfaction survey scores.

• What's Your Customer Satisfaction Score? This post debunks the myth that customer service is the defining factor in client satisfaction. Customers switch to competitors, become repeat customers, and recommend products and services based on their overall satisfaction experience, not just customer service experiences.

• Classify Customers: Are They Secure, Satisfied/Favorable, Vulnerable Or Dissatisfied? Typically, client survey best practices say there are four distinct customer satisfaction categories: secure, satisfied, vulnerable and dissatisfied. It's important to classify customers into these groups and uncover similarities in each group. Why? Because it will help you identify new revenue opportunities.

• Customer Reviews Matter: 6 Reasons Why: It's common knowledge that customer and consumer reviews have become an important part of the decision making process. As the title suggests, the post takes a deeper look at why reviews are more important than we think they are.

Most planners use welcome pages, thank you pages, presentation headers and email survey templates to personalize their online surveys by putting in customized messages and images related to their organization, the purpose of the survey questionnaire and even the survey incentives. But the Cvent Web Surveys software platform allows you to go above and beyond to personalize the way your survey looks (the graphical survey template), how people see their progress (progress indicator bars), whether they see the survey title and question numbers, what buttons are on the survey and even the text of these buttons!

Graphical Template – Choose from over 50 out-of-the-box graphical templates, each with its own unique background, header image, button style and survey question displays. Beyond the out-of-the-box survey template designs for market surveys, customer surveys, employee attitude surveys, or any other type of survey, you have the ability to further customize the layout of your survey by adding customized headers and footers to reflect your organization's brand.

Progress Indicator Bar – Select whether you want a progress indicator bar that shows survey respondents how much of the survey form they've completed. Choose from four different styles – whether you want them to see % of the survey completed or page X of Y, etc.

Survey Title and Question Numbers – Select whether you want respondents to see the Survey Title; also determine whether they should see the Question Numbers. When it comes to showing survey question numbers ask yourself, Do I have a simple survey or a complex survey? If you have a complex survey, you may not want to show question numbers if you're going to use survey question logic to jump respondents through the feedback form.

Previous and Cancel Buttons – You can choose to display one or both of these buttons to respondents at the bottom of every page along with the Next button.

Button Text – Customize the text of each button – Start Survey, Next, Previous, Cancel, Submit. This can be especially useful if the survey acts as a Test, Quiz, Registration Form, etc. Next can be changed to Next Section, Next Level, Advance, etc. and Submit on event surveys can read Yes! I want to Register.

Button Style – Select whether you would like to keep the default button style of the survey design you selected or choose from the 15 additional button styles available.

Surveys are targeted at a wide variety of audiences, from board members and senior managers of organizations, to kids and teenagers using a product. Using the survey application features above, you can truly customize the look and feel of your survey based on your audience!

Have you ever been lost?  Like, really lost?  You are going the wrong way, and you realize you are turned around so you take the next right turn, justifying to yourself that right-hand turns have never led you astray before, why would they now?  Before you know it, you have managed to end up on a one-way street heading out of town. 

This is easy to do when you are moving yourself physically so naturally, a few clicks here and a few clicks there in an online survey platform will get you in into an even worse pickle.  Not to fear!  The ‘failsafe’ method of right-turn then right-turn may have gotten you into areas of the Cvent online web survey system you didn’t even know existed, but there are some survey software navigational tips that will get you back on track!

1. Cvent Web Surveys application reads like a book.  For anyone that intends to register for our Online Survey Creation & Management Training Class, you will hear this expression at least 3 times.  The easiest way to make all your modifications and ensure you have covered all the necessary bases is to go from Left to Right in your navigation and, once you have clicked into a section, from Top to Bottom within the section links.  This order will take you through the intuitive steps of creating and customizing your survey. 

2. Don’t neglect your breadcrumbs!  Hansel and Gretel used them to navigate their way back from a witch’s house made of candy.  Think about it… this feat should surely solidify breadcrumbs' validity.  Breadcrumbs will tell you where you are and how you got there even when you have convinced yourself that somehow you have entered an alternate universe where the survey software has become a black hole, pulling you deeper in with no intention of letting you leave.  You can either refer to the breadcrumbs to backtrack out or you can click directly on one of the breadcrumbs to be immediately re-directed to the respective section.


3. Designate your "go-to-spot."  This is the place in Cvent you feel the most comfortable navigating through.  For me, I prefer the survey overview page.  If you ever feel like you have completely lost your way, click on that tab or section link.  Wherever you are in the web based customer survey tool, and no matter how many hairs might have grayed in the process of getting there, you will instantly be redirected to that safe haven. 

With these tools at your disposal, you will feel like a modern day Columbus.  So keep on trekking, Chris, keep on trekking.

Survey reports in the Cvent Web Surveys software tool offer a wide variety of ways to view your data and begin conducting your market research survey analysis. The answer summary by question report, for example, pulls up a table, a graph and basic statistical analysis for each survey question. Another example survey report, answer details by respondent, offers you the option of seeing each respondent’s answers on a separate page or answer details for all respondents gives you the opportunity to see all the answers for all respondents on a single page!

But sometimes these are not enough when you want to make a professional report for your boss to present to the board members. This is exactly why Cvent has the presentations feature within the survey application. The presentations section allows you to create reports with unique combinations of filters and display options. You can use our presentations creator to access data views that are unavailable with other out-of-the-box survey reports. Creating distributable reports in the Cvent Web Surveys software tool makes it easy to communicate the survey results in either Word or PDF format.

To determine what you see on each page of your sample report, choose from the options below:

According to a new bank customer survey commissioned by the American Bankers Association, for the first time survey respondents said they prefer to bank online compared to other traditional banking methods. This is a major change. In a statement Nessa Feddis, ABA senior counsel and retail baking expert, gave to MediaPost.com she highlights how more customers prefer the speed and convenience of conducting their banking transactions on the internet... It also tells us that consumers now have the confidence in the accuracy and security of online banking.

The survey report broke out demographic survey questions and their correlation to preferred banking methods. In the past, the youngest consumers have been the ones pushing online banking. However, now bank customers under 55 prefer the online methods. Bank customers over 55 still prefer to visit their local branch or ATMs. The survey found that across all bank customers, online banking (25%) lead the pack followed by visiting branches (21%) and using ATMs (17%).

It's always good news when you see organizations making changes and adopting to changing customer attitudes and opinions - whether or not survey research accompanies the change. MediaPost points to Bank of America as a case study. BOA recently announced they would be closing 10% of their branches and increasing their online and mobile offerings. BOA was also the first financial institution to offer free bill-pay. Smaller, independent banks and credit unions aren't missing out on the trends found in these survey results. Several credit unions and local banks are encouraging customers to bank online as well.

This is an annual bank customer survey conducted by a third-party market research firm for the ABA. The survey sample was 1,000 customers and the survey was fielded in the middle of August.

I spoke to a client recently who had made a great online survey for distributors of two distinct products – Widget A & Gadget B. The web survey had attractive graphics and insightful questions. However, there was an issue regarding how the survey function. More specifically, which survey respondents (read: different distributors) should see which questions. Survey questions #3-34 were for distributors of Widget A and survey questions #35-67 were intended for distributors of Gadget B. Seems easy enough, but there was a little catch: some survey respondents distribute both products and were therefore required to answer all questions.

It seemed simple enough at the outset, and the client understood what each type of survey question logic did. The second question asked the respondent whether they distributed Widget A only, Gadget B only or Both Widget A and Gadget B. Depending on how this question was answered, the survey respondent would be shuttled down the correct survey path using branch logic. Widget A only and Both Widget A and Gadget B went to survey question #3 and Gadget B only distributors went to survey question #35. However, at question 34 skip logic is used take survey respondents to the survey website's Thank You page. This was fine for Widget A only distributors, but a major headache for Both Widget A and Gadget B distributors.

This is where Cvent Web Survey's Client Services team can be a life saver for survey creators. I was there to help the survey writer create a survey that met their survey project needs.

The first option I thought of involved Advanced Logic. Once the initial branch logic was used, we simply use advanced survey question logic on the client's survey questions #35-67 to make sure anyone who responded Widget A only to the initial question (Q2) would not see these questions. This achieved the desired user experience but was tedious and time consuming. The client wanted to launch their surveys soon as possible so this was not the ideal solution in this case.

I then suggested a second option: make two separate questions with branch logic. The existing survey question (Q2) would be changed to Do you distribute A? and another survey question would be added before #35 that asked Do you distribute B? If a respondent selected Yes for Q2, they would see survey questions #3-35 and if they responded No, they would see the new survey question. If survey respondents answered Yes on the new survey question, they would see the remaining questions. The client was no on her way to a great survey with an excellent respondent experience. To top it off, it only took a minute!

Cvent offers a varied range of survey question logic, you just need to decide which will work best for your particular survey project. If you need help deciding which question type or logic type will work best for your survey, never hesitate to give our Client Services team a call.

I came across this definition of a client survey on CSM that I think is useful:


I might disagree with the fact that a client feedback form is automatically objective, but with the right client survey question creation and survey method it a client survey can be pretty close to completely objective. What the definition does not point out is just because you conduct a client satisfaction survey, decisions wont be made for you. You need to take steps to analyze survey results after the data collection. Customer surveys give you the opportunity to review customer and client feedback and analyze results to get you going down the right decision making path.

So what can conducting client satisfaction questionnaires help you do?


We have some tips for how to analyze survey data - which is the goal of your client satisfaction right? To be able to analyze survey responses and use the data to make decisions.

Like most survey software companies, our online software has a welcome page for each survey. While having the welcome page is a great place to introduce your web survey project, sometimes you want to be able to hide it. As of last Friday, you can!


Here's why it matters from a survey respondent experiences:

It's really not a big deal it takes them an extra page to get to the questions, but it is a little annoying. Now, you can deactivate the welcome page and have respondents automatically routed to the identity confirmation page or to the first page of the survey if you're conducting an anonymous online survey questionnaire.

I came across an interesting conversation today where someone was objecting to conducting a customer satisfaction survey because they were concerned the customer questionnaire would only reveal negative customer feedback. This is definitely the wrong attitude. If you think online survey results will only contain negative feedback, it's even more important you select a feedback management tool or survey designing software TODAY and create a customer satisfaction survey tomorrow. Then start fixing the problems that are resulting in all the negative feedback.

Fortunately, the person who thought they would only receive negative feedback will probably be proven wrong. Unless your organization has some serious issues you've been turning a blind eye to for awhile, no survey - customer or employee survey - is going to result in all negative feedback. If everyone hated your company, then you would have no customers and/or no employees. So relax.

The misnomer here is that only unhappy people complete survey questionnaires. This is not true. Happy customers complete them too. Even people who don't have strong opinions either way complete surveys. I honestly cannot say it enough: conducting business surveys to measure customer satisfaction or employee loyalty is essential to all organizations.

Don't be afraid of negative feedback. It's actually a good thing because it forces you to make improvements. Your organization isn't perfect, and there is always more room for growth. Sign up for a free trial today and begin collecting feedback from customers and employees.

Tonight, Cvent's technology team will be spending some extra time in our office to bring you new features!

So we can upgrade our online software offerings, Cvent will be unavailable starting tonight (Friday, August 21) at 9 PM US ET and should be back up by 3 AM US ET Saturday, August 22nd. As a result of this scheduled downtime, all clients will be able to access our exciting new features. Did I mention our new features are ideas and product feedback clients share with us?

With the upgrade to Cvent Web Surveys software, clients will gain access to some exciting new features including:

• Addition of Google Analytics tracking
• New email navigation to make it easier to customize survey invitations
• Question importing allowing you to import multiple questions
• Advanced logic can be applied to survey question answers to only show specific answers

Matt Foley, blogger for MROC Talk, asked an interesting question today:


I think this question can be altered to work for surveys: Would you complete your online survey? It doesn't matter if you're creating business surveys or customer surveys, if you wouldn't take your survey - neither will your survey sample. If you even hesitated in thinking about how to answer that question, it's not going to happen. Keep these simple survey best practice tips in mind when working on your survey design (these apply to business-to-business surveys for customers, employee questionnaires and consumer surveys alike):

1. Introduce your online survey. You don't have to explain everything you plan to ask, keep it short and sweet (like your survey questionnaire). Give a short outline of the topic you're asking about and why.

2. What's in it for them? Are you offering an incentive? Promising change? Tell your respondents why they should complete your questionnaire. Business professionals need a reason to complete your research survey just as much as consumers do. Consider offering an incentive to give them a reason to help you out (yes that's right, they are helping you).

3. Keep it short. Put yourself in your survey respondent's shoes, if someone sent you this survey would you complete the whole thing? If it's too long for someone else's online survey, it's too long for yours. According to some people, keeping your survey to 30 surveys questions or less is a survey best practice. I don't recommend going over 30, but don't think that because it's a survey tip means you need to use all 30 questions. Only use as many as absolutely necessary.

4. Keep it interesting and engaging. Use various question types and logic patterns to keep survey respondents from zoning out or rushing through your survey.

5. Make it visually appealing. Don't be fooled, looks and survey layout matter! The graphical survey design can make it easier or harder for online survey respondents. Keep color schemes and graphics in mind: are the colors easy to read or do they clash; do the images enhance the respondent experience or are they distracting or offensive?

6. Test, Test, Test! Another survey best practice: always test your survey. When you ask other people to look at it, ask them if they received an email survey invitation whether they'd complete your web survey or abandon it. Same rule applies, if your testers wouldn't take it - neither will your target population.

I recently made a few online purchases from a major retailer and was told my order would arrive within 7-10 business days. It has been over a month, and I have yet to see my deliveries! Last night, I received a customer satisfaction survey in my inbox asking me to “rate and review” the products I purchased. Since the products have not been delivered, and I have never even seen them in person, how am I supposed to complete their retail survey?

We all understand online surveys can be an effective tool for gauging customer satisfaction. However, when the survey design for the entire process is not done well, it can create problems survey respondents. By sending me the email survey last night, the online retailer only reminded me I had not received my order.

So, how do make sure your organization avoids these miss cues?

First and foremost, it is imperative you create a process for organizing your survey projects. Find a survey method that will be quick and easy to implement (we recommend selecting an enterprise online survey tool).

Make sure employees understands the process. Even departments not directly involved should at least be aware of the process. For example, if the department in charge of customer surveys had coordinated with the order fulfillment department, maybe I would not have gotten any product surveys before I received my order.

If you plan to use an email survey tool to send retail surveys, ask if the survey software company can integrate with your CRM systems. This will make coordinating between your CRM system and the online survey system a lot easier.

How much money are you losing each year due to poor customer experience? A new study on customer experience and consumer behavior found Australia, New Zealand and India suffer combined losses of $5.6 Billion (USD) in revenue because of organizations' failure to meet customer expectations.

I was out to dinner with a friend the other day and had an odd thing happen when the check came. Our waitress asked us if we would complete an online survey about our experience. Now so far being asked to complete a restaurant survey on customer satisfaction and overall experience with the dining establishment, pretty normal. But the link to the survey wasn't on our receipt. It was on the receipt the restaurant keeps. Huh? Did they expect me to memorize the website survey link and the validation code? Obviously that was not going to happen.

But I was hooked. Because of my desire to pass on survey best practices and tips, I'm always curious about organizations' surveys. I always want to take them - who knows what great idea or technique they'll have that should be shared. Or on the reverse, what faux pas was committed that should be used as a survey example of what not to do.

Before I let you in on what I did to be able to take the survey, lets pause for a moment so you can allow this concept to sink in: it's a bad idea to not give the customer something they will take way that contains the survey link. It's your job to make it easy for patrons to give customer feedback. I'm not a fan of paper surveys or comment cards, because I think online surveys are a better solution. But if you cannot handle passing along the website link generated by your online survey software tool, use comment cards and feedback forms instead. The key: Make it easy for respondents to complete your customer survey.

Obviously, I took the survey, so I must have somehow taken something home that had the information on it. I suppose in hind sight I could have just written the information down on my receipt, but I did not. I ripped off the middle section of their receipt and took it with me.

Finally, while I'm talking about making it easy for customers to complete your feedback survey questionnaire, try to use an easy link. You can do this one of two ways:

1. If you're a Cvent Web Surveys software customer, you can brand your URL to include your organizations name and the name for the survey.
    
2. You can set up a redirect on your website, or another domain, that will redirect to the longer online survey link. For example, instead of having to type in http://guest.cvent.com/v.aspx?3B,Q3,2c85db16-4ab4-45a2-ae17-... they would only have to type in www.example-survey.com.

It's a good idea to always review the online survey respondent experience. It may not seem worth the time because no one else does, but if it's too difficult to take your survey, no one's going to take it.

When I think about Cvent Web Surveys software features I typically think of our robust contact database that allows you to track activity history and segment lists; our email marketing engine that allows you to send survey invitations; our libraries that allow you to quickly select pre-designed graphical templates, utilize pre-built survey question and responses to get their survey out the door quickly; and survey question logic ranging from sub-questions to skip and branch to pipe and finally other advanced logic.

However, I often overlook the fact that clients can customize the footer of their online survey questionnaires. It should be no surprise that we empower our users to use the footer associated with the graphical survey's template, create their own footer image and add footer text. A survey should reflect your brand, from the header to the footer and throughout the graphical layout of the survey. Some survey companies force survey designers to have their default footer on the bottom of every survey. Instead, we give survey designers complete freedom over the online survey's design.

So what might you even want to put in your customized footer? I would tell you it depends on the type of survey you're doing. If you're offering an incentive to generate survey responses, you may want to include a link to any restrictions or contest rules. If you're collecting personal information in the survey, it may be important to include your organization's privacy policy. If you're conducting a branded survey (versus a blind survey), company logo and other information may go in the footer of online market research or customer surveys. Want your survey footer to exactly match your website's footer? Go for it. Being able to match your survey templates to your website is one of the reasons to chose our web survey solution.

Ready to get started building your own online survey with a customized footer? Sign up for our free trial account and get started today.

Yesterday I was out to dinner with a friend, and we started talking about retail surveys. She was expressing her frustration with the survey questionnaire design for her company's retail surveys. Apparently, they always score low on this one question:

Most people don't come into her store looking for pants, so the sales associates don't harass customers asking if they need the fits explained. Makes sense. Then why is their online survey asking for customer feedback from all consumers regardless of their primary purpose in visiting the store?

Oh, wait! There's the problem. The survey writer neglected to ask survey respondents why they came to the store. Because of this omission, the survey question in question (Were pant fits explained?) isn't presenting very valuable survey data. The clear solution would be to add a new question and use some form of survey question logic (perhaps branch logic might be ideal here) to only ask those people who were shopping for pants if the pant fits were explained to them. Ideally, when you're testing your survey, you should think through the question flow and catch situations like these.

Another minor point about this question, what about those customers who were asked if they'd like the pant fits explained and declined? How are they going to answer this question to give you accurate data? Even if you would answer "Yes" because it was offered, not all online survey respondents will. This would be a more useful question, after being paired with a screener question, if it asked if a sales associated offered to explain the pant fits.

This same concept applies to hotel surveys, customer satisfaction research, website surveys, etc. The reason why a guest stays at a hotel (business or leisure travel) matters. What someone was looking for when they visited your website (trying to purchase X vs. looking for information about Y), makes a difference. If they are looking for information about Y it does not make sense to ask them if they found information on Z.

Do you listen to customer complaints? Who do the come from? If I had to guess, I would say they're probably coming from the user. In the B2B world, the user is not always the same person that signed the agreement and purchased your product or service. So when you review your customer feedback procedures and customer survey best practices, make sure you consider who you're surveying: the purchaser, the user or both?

Both groups will have a different perspective. Those who hold the purse strings are often going to focus on results: is your offering saving them money; is it producing measurable results; is it solving the problem? On the other hand, while the end user may share some of these concerns, they're more likely to be focused on the usability: is it hard to use; do I need a lot of help from product support; is customer service responsive and helpful; is it making my job easier?

Organizations should seek customer feedback through user surveys, particularly if they do not have a way to pass feedback through the organization from sales and customer service to product development to management. Even though the purchaser may be happy and seeing high ROI from your offering, the user may bang their head against the wall to make it achieve those results. Soon as a competitor enters the market, the user is likely to push for a change.

Depending on your survey goals, a customer feedback survey form may look very similar to a user survey, including similar goals. The key is who your survey respondents are. That's information you should have in your customer database. Collecting names, emails and additional contact information is sometimes the biggest hurdle for survey programs. From there, writing survey questions and building questionnaires in online survey software tools should all be downhill.

One type of online survey questionnaire we don't talk about a lot is website marketing research and web usability surveys for your web pages. Often times we narrow in on market surveys, customer surveys and employee surveys leaving out a wide range of other types of surveys. Web site survey tools can help you quickly build surveys and polls to gather visitors feedback to help you improve your website. According to an article published in the current issue of BtoB Magazine, websites rank at the top for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketers when it comes to online marketing tactics. If websites are so important, how can you not take the time to gather feedback about your web pages?

You can use the website feedback survey questions below as a site survey template for gathering user feedback. For many of these questions, you will need to change the options so it makes sense for your particular website.

It's pretty frustrating when it comes time begin your survey results analysis using either the survey reports built into your online survey software, excel or another survey analysis tool and you find your survey has a high partial response rate. You spent a lot of time writing survey questions then building the survey in your survey tool. You thought about your survey methodology (including your survey analysis methods) and determined sample sizes using a sample size calculator, because you wanted to ensure you had a representative sample. However, survey best practices tell you that you should not use partial responses in your survey analysis. It seems unfair after all your time working on the survey project that you should have to throw out partial responses and fall short of your estimated sample size.

This is one of the reasons you need to test your survey to a small segment of your email list prior to fully launching your survey. A small test would allow you to catch this problem early. I typically see survey abandonment stem from an online questionnaire being too long, the topic of the questions are too personal or the respondent knows little about the topic.

You know how frustrating it is for you to see a high abandonment rate? It's equally frustrating to an online survey respondent to begin to completing a customer survey, website market research or web usability survey and find out it's long. Particularly because most survey invitations promise a short survey.

Solution? Ask survey respondents the most important questions on the first page (keep it to just a few, I would try to stay under five. Think about a comment card at a restaurant, would your questions fit on a comment card?) Then ask if they have time to give additional feedback. I've seen this method used on a number of customer satisfaction marketing surveys, but the same customer satisfaction survey methodology could be applied to employee questionnaires, product feedback forms and website surveys as well. Each question in your survey should have a purpose and contribute towards meeting your survey project's goal, but some may rank higher on your "need to know" scale. Offering respondents an out will not eliminate survey abandonment but it should reduce it without forcing you to throw out that respondent.