We've talked about using a progress indicator bar to encourage participants to finish a survey. Such a feature can motivate your respondents to complete a survey by displaying how much they have left to complete. What other factors play into whether or not your survey participants finish a longer survey?
• Incentives. Incentives are a big motivator for people to take surveys. We've given a few tips on incentive pitfalls to avoid, but certainly a lot has to be said for them. Used wisely, they can boost survey responses on longer surveys.
Remember to consider your audience before selecting your survey incentive, and know that a guaranteed incentive is much more likely to get a response than a possible reward (e.g. win a $10 gift card versus be entered to win at $10 gift card).
• Interesting subjects. Does your survey audience care about what you are surveying? You wouldn't create a customer satisfaction survey and send it to a random list of contacts, after all, you'd send it to those contacts who have interacted with your customer satisfaction team in the past. Don't blindly send surveys out without first analyzing your contacts.
• Meaningful outcomes. When people have strong opinions about something, they are more likely to want their voice to be heard so that something can be done about it. Letting participants know that responses from a customer satisfaction survey will be used to structure how you handle customer questions is likely to prompt plenty of opinions. Tell participants that your job satisfaction survey will be used to make changes in benefits, salaries, etc., and you can bet that employees will take it.
When survey participants see how important the survey outcome is to them and how they could benefit from it, they'll be more inclined to participate.
• Incentives. Incentives are a big motivator for people to take surveys. We've given a few tips on incentive pitfalls to avoid, but certainly a lot has to be said for them. Used wisely, they can boost survey responses on longer surveys.
Remember to consider your audience before selecting your survey incentive, and know that a guaranteed incentive is much more likely to get a response than a possible reward (e.g. win a $10 gift card versus be entered to win at $10 gift card).
• Interesting subjects. Does your survey audience care about what you are surveying? You wouldn't create a customer satisfaction survey and send it to a random list of contacts, after all, you'd send it to those contacts who have interacted with your customer satisfaction team in the past. Don't blindly send surveys out without first analyzing your contacts.
• Meaningful outcomes. When people have strong opinions about something, they are more likely to want their voice to be heard so that something can be done about it. Letting participants know that responses from a customer satisfaction survey will be used to structure how you handle customer questions is likely to prompt plenty of opinions. Tell participants that your job satisfaction survey will be used to make changes in benefits, salaries, etc., and you can bet that employees will take it.
When survey participants see how important the survey outcome is to them and how they could benefit from it, they'll be more inclined to participate.
Powered by Compendium Blogware
Comments for Getting Responses to Longer Surveys