We've stressed the importance of careful consideration when it comes using to open-ended questions in your surveys, as analyzing their responses can be a real hassle. If we didn't warn you early enough against the post-collection headache of open-ended questions, or you decided open-ended questions were the way to go but now you have more responses than you can wrap your head around, here's how to analyze survey data quickly to summarize responses without spending days on the project. We know you may be shocked that it's possible to analyze your pages and pages of comments before lunchtime, but believe us—it is.
1. Start by downloading your survey responses from your online tool to Excel. (If you're still using paper surveys, you'll have to first manually enter all your data in the spreadsheet.)
2. Add a column to the Excel spreadsheet and use the random function. This function will randomly generate numbers for each record; copy the column and paste special to preserve the values.
3. Sort the column of your random numbers and select the first 50 to 60 rows to perform your analysis. Using a random sample ensures your sample of 50 will be representative of the whole group.
4. Go through the first 10 to 15 responses and develop categories for the responses. If you're doing a customer satisfaction questionnaire or user satisfaction survey and asked why they would recommend a particular service, perhaps your categories would be "Good support," "Ease of use," "Time saving," "Integration issues" and "Cost."
5. Quickly go through your last 35 to 50 responses and assign categories. If you don't know which category it belongs to, skip it and keep going!
6. Finally, sort by category and quality check your work. Each group should be able to stand together. As you read the groups again, you may find you can combine categories or create new categories. You'll usually be able to place the ones you skipped into a category.
Congratulations! You've preformed all the coding needed to proceed to make recommendations on the data.
And for those had to take the extra step of transferring data from paper to Excel, use the time we saved you with this trick to sign up for an online webinar to learn more about Cvent's online survey tools.
1. Start by downloading your survey responses from your online tool to Excel. (If you're still using paper surveys, you'll have to first manually enter all your data in the spreadsheet.)
2. Add a column to the Excel spreadsheet and use the random function. This function will randomly generate numbers for each record; copy the column and paste special to preserve the values.
3. Sort the column of your random numbers and select the first 50 to 60 rows to perform your analysis. Using a random sample ensures your sample of 50 will be representative of the whole group.
4. Go through the first 10 to 15 responses and develop categories for the responses. If you're doing a customer satisfaction questionnaire or user satisfaction survey and asked why they would recommend a particular service, perhaps your categories would be "Good support," "Ease of use," "Time saving," "Integration issues" and "Cost."
5. Quickly go through your last 35 to 50 responses and assign categories. If you don't know which category it belongs to, skip it and keep going!
6. Finally, sort by category and quality check your work. Each group should be able to stand together. As you read the groups again, you may find you can combine categories or create new categories. You'll usually be able to place the ones you skipped into a category.
Congratulations! You've preformed all the coding needed to proceed to make recommendations on the data.
And for those had to take the extra step of transferring data from paper to Excel, use the time we saved you with this trick to sign up for an online webinar to learn more about Cvent's online survey tools.
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