Survey Builder

All too often, we begin the survey creation process, but draw a blank.  How should we design a survey?  Should a survey design have the company look and feel?  Or should we design it to be a fresh look?

Having an online surveys tool that has survey templates built into the system is extremely important.  It eliminates the nagging question, "What is a survey design? How do I create a professional looking web 2.0 survey?"  This gives the survey builder that boost to get the creative juices flowing. In the Cvent Web Survey solution, there are over 50 graphical templates, ready to help you in designing surveys. Any color, any pattern, any style. They are all preloaded in the Cvent Web Surveys application. Definitely check these out the next time you are trying to figure out survey research design ideas for your next questionnaire.

Want to learn more about our survey design software? Sign up for a product demonstration.

Cvent offers a variety of Pre-Designed Survey Templates you can choose from for your first online web survey. These internet survey templates contain default questions, email, welcome and thank you text which you can utilize when designing a questionnaire. You can also choose from over 50 different graphical templates to suit the look and feel of your survey forms. Here’s a list of the different pre-created survey templates that you can use to build the base of your survey:


Besides this vast list of pre-designed questionnaires and graphical survey templates, Cvent also offers you a Question Library, which is filled with Customer Service, Demographics, Event, HR/Training, Marketing/Sales questions that you can utilize in your survey.

So! Go ahead and Sign up for an online web survey free trial account now and enjoy these á-la-carte features absolutely free.

This week I've shared what different colors mean and how they can effect people. The neutral color group is the last of the three groups, cool and warm colors being the other two.

Neutral Colors are good background colors because they unify diverse color palettes. When neutral colors are paired with warm or cool colors, they allow the focus to be on the other color (whether it's warm or cool). They also serve to tone down the intensity of the other color. As I've mentioned in the other two posts, neutral colors do have attributes of warm and cool colors. Blacks, browns, tans, golds and beige are considered warm. Cool neutral colors include white, ivory, silver and gray. As you might guess though, these attributes are much more subtle than those of reds (the hottest color) and blue (the coolest).

	Black - As we've discussed with other colors, black can have contradicting meanings. While black is conservative, conventional and serious it can also be sophisticated, mysterious and sexy. Black, like many of the neutral colors, match almost every color. The colors black doesn't match well with is other very dark colors.
	White - White represents purity, cleanliness and innocence. Like black, white goes well with most colors. Keep in mind that too much bright white can cause some people headaches and be a bit "blinding." For the most part, the colors paired with white, no matter the proportions, are often the ones that pass on meanings in your survey design.
	Gray - This is a neutral color, but it also has cool elements and rarely evokes strong emotions. Dark, charcoal grays show strength and mystery, similar to black. Gray is a sophisticated color, without the negative connotations of black. Grays are good background colors because they're so neutral. You can swap a light gray for white, or a darker gray for black.
	Silver - Silver can be cool like a gray, but it can also be livelier than a gray. Silver is often associated with being sleek and modern and imparts an ornate feel. Silver is a cool metal and lack the warm that gold has. When you use silver, it can give an earthy, natural, or sleek and elegant feel.
	Brown - Earthy. Wholesome. Dependable. Brown is a warm color that can be associated with all of these things, as well as being considered steadfast, simple and friendly. Not sure that brown represents dependability? What about UPS? They've built their whole brand around brown's dependability. Browns, taupes, beiges and creams all are excellent background colors because they make the other colors appear richer and brighter.
	Beige - Like a chameleon, beige takes on the attributes of the colors that accompanies it. However, on it's own, beige is a calm background color. The reason beige can behave like a warm or cool color is because it has the warmth of a brown and the coolness of white.

If you're using the Cvent Web Surveys software application, you'll notice all our pre-created survey templates take into account how colors interact with each other. So next time you're working on a world class customer service survey or creating web polls, check out the graphical survey templates in your online survey account.

One of the great things about Cvent Web Surveys software application is that it is constantly getting “better.” I, for one, am not aware of another survey software company that can state with confidence that 80% of all product enhancements come directly from the requests of current clients. Cvent, however, has certain processes in place so that every time a client expresses interest in seeing a new feature added to the online survey application, this request is quickly relayed to our technical team.

For those of you who were clients before our most recent product release in August 2009, you definitely noticed at least one big change in your account the first time you logged in after the release. As soon as you logged into your Cvent Web Surveys account, you saw that your surveys were no longer organized into folders on the Survey Selection page. Instead, they are now displayed in “views.”

Now, you may wonder why I chose to write my blog post this week on the transition from folders to survey views. It may seem like a pretty dry topic. I wanted to write on this particular survey subject because I get so many calls from clients asking how to create a new survey view that pull the appropriate surveys into view. If you have a lot of surveys created in your account, then this is a pretty important thing to know how to do, so that you don’t have to sort through all of your company’s surveys just to find the few that you are personally working on!

When you are ready to create a new survey view and filter the appropriate surveys into this view, you need to remember 3 simple steps:

1) Create a survey custom field. You can create survey custom fields under the Administration tab, on the same page that you create contact custom fields. Survey custom fields are primarily used to classify the surveys in your account and pull them into the appropriate views on the Survey Selection page. So, for example, if your marketing department and human resources department are running surveys, you may want to create 2 separate survey views, one for each department. The first step to do this would be to create a survey custom field for department.

2) Create a new view on the Survey Selection page. You can create a new survey view by choosing “add new view” from the Display drop-down menu. When you add the new view, you will need to name it and also specify certain options (i.e. whether you would like the view to be private or public). Finally, at the bottom of the page, you should apply an advanced filter based on the survey custom field you just created for department. For example, if you are adding the survey view for “Marketing Surveys,” you should choose “department” as the field, “equals” as the operator, and “marketing” as the value.


3) Now that you have created the survey custom field and added the new view, all you need to do is pull the appropriate surveys into the view you just created! When you added the new view for “Marketing Surveys,” you should have gotten a message, “no surveys match your criteria.” This is because you have not yet applied the survey custom field at the survey-level! To do this, simply go into an individual marketing survey, and click on  Settings on the top navigation bar. On the General Information page, you should click on the Custom Survey Fields tab. Here you can apply the “marketing” label to the individual survey, so that it will show up in the “Marketing Surveys” view.


Hopefully this post will be helpful to those of you who are struggling with the transition from folders to survey views. Believe me, survey views are completely customizable and will help you organize online surveys in your Cvent Web Surveys software account.

Sometimes we get so excited about creating a survey we want to jump right in and ask the really interesting questions. Those typically consist of finding out about who our clients are, where they're located, etc. (factual questions). In other words, our demographic questions.

But if we don’t take the time to think about placement of these really important factual items within our surveys, we may be inadvertently affecting the results we see. By placing your demographic survey questions (name, gender, race/ethnicity, age, etc.) close to the end of the survey feedback form as opposed to right at the beginning, you are increasing the chances that respondents will fill out these items, leading to richer data collection and more useful results. Respondents are more likely to feel invested in your survey, and will understand why you are asking those personal questions if those sensitive items are placed after survey questions that address the purpose of your survey.

Check out these blog posts to get started with your demographic survey questions.

When working with a client who has already built a strong customer base, market researchers are often called upon to create surveys to aid with customer retention programs.

Customer retention surveys are a bit different than a new product or service launch survey because the survey respondent sample must consist of product users. There are several things you need to ask this group so your client can formulate the best customer retention strategies, including:


The recommendation sample customer questionnaire question is important. Often, this can be a company’s bread-and-butter when it comes to retaining customers and gaining new ones. If a good amount of current customers would recommend the product to a friend, that speaks volumes about the quality.

It is also wise to include some open-ended questions. Find out why people use the product, and would continue to do so. If they wouldn’t recommend the product, or use it again, it is important to know why. Your client can use the information to persuade customers on the fence, and keep current customers coming back.

Before creating a poll online for your client survey, sit down and gauge initial opinions and move forward from there. If there were original product launch studies done, it may be helpful to revisit those results as well, just for comparison purposes. Approach the questionnaire research with care and the resulting data analysis will provide information to create customer retention techniques and marketing strategies.

Increasing survey response rates is a major goal of most survey builders and market researchers. There's an art and a science to increasing campaign response rates whether it's an email marketing campaign or an online market research study. I wanted to share some of my tips for how to increase survey response rates:

• Make the email survey invitation from names easy to recognize. You can do this by including an individual's name within the organization that's well known (such as the CEO or if it's a client survey, the name of their sales rep). You can also use the organization's name, or both. For example, I'm subscribed to a few MarketingProf's newsletters. When they send out emails they include the same person's name and their organizations name so it looks like this: Anne, MarketingProfs. I recognize it everytime, and since I enjoy their newsletter, I made sure to open the email.

• Keep subject line's compelling, but short. The subject line and the From Name are the two most critical pieces to get your email opened. Try to keep your subject lines to 35 characters or less. You don't need to put the entire email in the subject line, but you do need to include enough information to make the recipients open the survey email.

• Create an attractive survey invitation. Studies have shown that well done HTML email messages get better response rates than plain text emails. With HTML you have the opportunity to include images, change font sizes, bold text, etc. Take advantage of this chance. It's one more way to get people to click through to your survey!

• Send personalized survey invitations. Personalizing your emails, even something as simple as including the recipient's name in the greeting, will return a higher response than a generic message. It creates a personal touch, and makes the recipient feel like someone took the time to send them a personal message (even though your email survey tool did it for you).

• Introduce the survey. Let the participants know why they should participate in your survey. If they don't understand why their opinion is important to your survey findings, why would they want to take the time to fill it out?

• How long will the survey take? Not setting expectations in the beginning for survey length leads to low response rates and high abandonment rates. Not what you want to see. If you don't let people know how long it will take to fill out your online survey, they're going to assume you're hiding something about how long it is. Tell them it will take X minutes or the survey is only Y questions long. Definitely be honest, if you lie here, you're going to hurt your future chances of getting those respondents to complete your next online survey questionnaire.

• Remind your survey sample that their responses will be kept confidential. This is particularly important for surveys about uncomfortable topics. For example, you created a poll for a public opinion survey to see how your population feels about an emotional topic such as abortion. If you don't keep the information confidential, you probably will not get honest feedback. Same thing goes with employee questionnaires, they should always be kept confidential and anonymous. Not keeping responses confidential will definitely hurt your response rate, as well as the validity of the data.

• Offer an incentive. Offering incentives is a proven method for increasing survey response rates. But this method doesn't work if you don't let people know about it up front. Put it in your email, put it on the welcome page of the survey, then make sure to follow up. Again, if you drop the ball here, the chances of that survey respondent completing your online survey form in the future is drastically reduced.

• Always say Thank You! Remember when your mom always made you write thank you notes when you got presents or cards from people for holidays and birthdays? It was because people like to feel their effort is noticed and appreciated. Same idea here, it's nice to just get a short note thanking them for their time. After all, survey respondents are doing you a favor.

• Don't over email your contact list. This is very important. You shouldn't be inviting the same people to complete your online surveys every month. It's important to segment your list using whichever survey sampling method that works best for your surveys to avoid email list fatigue. Make sure that you're coordinating with other campaigns as well. Just because you know they're different initiatives you're emailing about, your contact's wont necessarily see it that way. If you begin sending emails too frequently, contacts are going to just delete your email and never open it, opt out or report you as a spammer.

Have a tip that I missed? I'd love to hear it!

A good survey includes both qualitative and quantitative data, but when gathering qualitative data it is important to gather the right kind of answers. Go too open-ended with your question, and you may end up with answers that do not help you with your study at all.

Consumer insights into a new product or service are important to a market research study, and open-ended questions are the way to get them. When conducting consumer surveys, there are several online survey tips you can follow to get the right mix of closed and open-ended question:

1. Determine if it is a question that you cannot ask in any other way. For example, if you were asking consumers how often they purchased a product, it would be difficult to analyze data if that question were left open-ended. Group responses into categories like once a month, twice a month, more than three times a month.

2. If the question must be open-ended, make it narrow. Sounds contradictory, but if you ask too much, you’ll get too much. Don’t ask if they like your product and if they share it with friends in one breath. Ask simple questions like: Why do you purchase the product?

3. Allow expansion on closed-ended questions. If you are unsure about something, leave room for comments on close-ended questions. This is a good compromise that can help you get the responses you need.

These are just a few best practices for survey writing, but it goes without saying that when creating a survey, you need to put as much, if not more, effort into writing the questions as you will analyzing the data.

Here at Cvent, we get asked for survey templates all the time. That's why we've created a bank of survey questions and pre-created questionnaires for all clients to utilize within their account. But it never seems to be enough. Sample employee motivation surveys, employee evaluation survey examples, sample employee questionnaire, employee satisfaction survey templates, the list goes on, and on, and on...

While this post may not give you all the answers or the complete employee survey template you're looking for, it definitely is a start. Below are some sample survey questions for employee questionnaires.


While not all of these questions are necessary (or appropriate) in any given employee engagement survey or job satisfaction questionnaire, you should see how some of them will fit into your next employee satisfaction survey template.

Creating a survey is a lot like taking a trip: there's a definite start, and there's always a finish.  Before you even start to write that first question of your survey, here's a few things you might want to consider.

1) Who will see the results of this survey?  Often times, those who are expecting to see clear and concise results from your survey are not even considered when writing survey questions.  Will your data stay within a particular department, or will it be run up the flagpole to directors or C-level employees?  Perhaps the results will even be the basis of a publication or news article?

2) Who will work with the survey data?  These days, almost anyone can put an online survey together, but have you considered the person responsible for analysis of the data after it has been collected?  Do they have an understanding of charts, tables, percentages and frequencies? 

3) What is the basis for conducting this survey?  What is the survey's business driver, and how will the data be used in your business?

4) What data points will satisfy that business purpose you've identified?  Ensure that answer choices, particularly survey rating scales, are providing enough data points to clearly provide insight into your objective.

5) What are the best ways to ask about and to measure those data points?  Have you crafted the appropriate questions to collect the desired data points to satisfy your goal?

Maintaining a "begin at the end" thought process is crucial to crafting an effective survey.  If you ask yourself these five questions before, you'll see vast improvements in the performance of your surveys.

Most survey poll creators will agree that while respondents always prefer to have choices explained clearly in words and phrases, numbers are much easier and far more effective when drawing inferences from the data collected. Take this typical sample customer service satisfaction survey question:


The client satisfaction survey sample question above from a measuring customer service sample survey looks much better by listing the choices as "Very Satisfied/Dissatisfied" as opposed to asking respondents to check one of the numbers between 1-5.


However, when the survey data collection is complete and it's time for data analysis and running survey reports, many survey administrators are left scratching their heads. What analysis do they draw from the individual number and percentage of respondents listed as "Neither Satisfied nor Dissatisfied", how to they compare these percentages to last year’s survey on a category by category basis and still draw an overall inference? How do they know the percentage increase in the level of satisfaction? Is it better to have a large number of people fall into the neutral category?

The answer to all these questions is the same – Export Values. The ultimate tool for anyone looking to analyze the data they have collected. Using Export Values the survey builder can assign a number (or a different word or phrase if you like) to answers as well as questions in their survey! In other words, instead of going through the never-ending text of questions and answers trying to find some semblance of meaning in the data, the questions in your report could be listed as CS1, CS2, CS3, etc. and the answers as 1,2,3,4 and 5 for each question. After exporting the Expanded Answer Details for All Respondents (the survey report with Export Values) to Excel, you can even use these numbers to calculate a mean or average – how much easier would it be for the decision makers in your organization to see the response to the above question summarized into a single number:


A case in point is our survey clients who go a step further and used this feature to export just such a report to Excel and then analyze it using SPSS and other survey research analysis software. For those of you who are already drooling over the prospect of generating such accurate feedback for your organization, export values are pre-included in your Cvent Web Surveys Professional or Enterprise account. Go on, generate that perfect report – you can thank me later.

Yesterday, I discussed a simple way to establish a Facebook group for market research uses. Today I will outline some easy ways you can use the group to aid you in market research.

Now that you’ve got your Facebook group established, be sure to update it fairly frequently to keep participants interested and engaged. If the group relates to an established product line, include updates and information on the line, promotions and developments relating to the line.

In keeping with the running shoe market research example from yesterday, you might include links to articles where the running shoe is featured or mentioned, marathon or race tips, and the like. Also post items for response on the discussion boards for the group.

You can even begin a pre-screening process for a survey or focus group on the discussion boards. Post a call for participants and a link to an online pre-screening survey to determine if respondents qualify for your poll or focus group. Facebook group participants will provide an interested, more enthusiastic audience as they are already invested in your product or company, but you still must be careful to ensure you get the right target demographic for any official studies.

You can use the group in a less official capacity to get qualitative data and “buzz” about the product. For example, if the running shoe company launched a new product six months ago, you could ask for general feedback on the product – who is using it, their thoughts, etc. The responses will be helpful when creating survey questions later.

Facebook is an inexpensive and not very time-consuming way to get additional customer feedback and potential survey participants. If you exercise caution, you can really make it work for you.

In today’s world a lot of organizations from various industries conduct surveys to get the feedback about their products or services. Responses collected from survey respondents are used to further improve the quality of the products or services.

But do the survey writers and builders have enough time to spend creating the surveys, running the survey reports, analyzing survey data and sending the presentation to their bosses for the review?

There is a solution to this: Cvent's Survey Professional Services Group. Cvent offers a variety of online survey surveys to get your survey campaigns up and running with minimal time and effort on your part.

Survey Building: Let Cvent turn your paper survey or list of questions into a professional online survey. Web survey services team can review your questions and responses, as well as add conditional logic to make sure your electronic survey is designed to capture accurate, reliable data points.

Graphic Design Services: The skilled designers on our survey design services team can create professional looking surveys that can match a desired look and feel, be consistent with your organization's branding, and even feature embedded media.

Summary and Analysis Reports: Surveys create a lot of data - combing through it to find the meaningful trends is time-consuming work. Cvent's Survey Professional Services Group takes the pain out of analyzing survey data, because we'll turn your piles of data into eye-catching, boardroom-ready reports that highlight the business intelligence that matters to you. The report looks great, and so will you.

How to get most out of your project?

Most people conducting surveys today are not trained survey experts. A little help from our online survey professional services enables you to get the most out of your project - even if it's your first survey.

Strategy Consultation: Not completely sure how best to use web based surveys in your organization? Talk to one of our experts to learn what kinds of questions and responses you should include to accomplish your organizational goals.

Question/Response Review and Commentary: Before you send personalized email survey invitations out into the world, let our Survey Professional Services Group review it and make recommendations to improve the quality of your survey data.

List Procurement and Response Generation: Cvent can connect you to your target demographic and build your survey sample list, helping you capture accurate, meaningful data.

Turnkey Project Management: At times it's best to leave things to the experts - talk to us about letting Cvent run your survey campaign from start to finish.

Many people ask the question How do I create a customer survey? The basic steps are the same no matter what type of client survey you're writing: customer satisfaction, global market research, product development surveys, etc.

Step 1: Sit down and figure out what the goal of the survey is. Are you trying to identify upsell opportunities? Want to discover features missing from your current product? Figuring out if it's a good idea to take your marketing overseas and attack a global market? In the very beginning of the survey planning process, you should know what it is you want to get out of the consumer survey. If you don't have a firm customer satisfaction survey objectives in the beginning, while you go through the other steps such as writing survey questions or selecting the best survey software, you're going to stray from the path. If you stray from the path, you may find the final survey results are not as helpful as you had hoped.

Step 2: Decide on a research methodology. Your goals should help you on this step as well. You need to first decide if you're planning to do qualitative or quantitative research. From there narrow the scope further, if you want to do qualitative research are you interested in focus groups, advisory boards, one-on-one interviews? With quantitative research you may decide on comment cards, feedback forms and surveys. Is your survey method going to be online, telephone-based or paper questionnaires?

Step 3: Survey Design. I'm making the assumption since you're reading a survey blog about how to create customer surveys, you're not interested in the other market research methods right now so I'm going to focus on the process of building customer surveys. Once you've gotten through the first two steps, you're ready to start writing survey questions (Finally! I bet you thought this would be the first step!). Customer satisfaction survey design can be the biggest challenge. Luckily, there is survey designing software to help you step through this. Survey software tools often have templates and question libraries to help you write good survey questions.

Step 4: Data collection. Okay, you've picked your customer survey methodology, created a client survey and you're ready to field your survey (or use the data collection tool in your survey application to collect responses). Exactly what you do in this step will depend on what type of survey you decided to collected: telephone, paper, online. One way to get survey responses is to use email marketing tools to send personalized email surveys. You can also share the link on your website, social media sites, invoices, etc.

Step 5: Analyze customer feedback. Analyzing survey data is one of people's least favorite parts of the surveying process. We have some tips for how to analyze survey data here. Don't be afraid of this step. You need to conduct the survey customer analysis to achieve your goal. It's what you set out to do, so keep your chin up. You're only a step away from the final product (and once you choose survey analysis methods you should be almost finished).

Step 6: Share the survey findings. This is what you set out to do. Get answers to your customer questions. Take the customer feedback analysis you completed in the last step and format it. You're creating a survey report you can share within your organization (and maybe with others outside of your organization). If you need tips for creating survey reports or an example survey report, you can read more about them here.

Step 6.1: Take action. This is still part of step 6, but it's important enough it should be broken out. In your customer analysis survey report, you should have shared your recommendations for moving forward. Make sure you make recommendations and there is an agreement about moving forward based on the customer survey findings. If you don't plan to take action in Step 1, then you should save yourself the time of conducting the customer research in the first place.

Any other survey research design tips? How have you used these steps to create a customer survey that improved processes in your organization?

I have always been told that shortcuts have a negative connotation.  “You can’t take a shortcut through life,” was a common phrase in my household whenever my parents caught me scheming the best way to get the dishes unloaded.   But let’s be honest: Who actually likes to load or unload the dishwasher?  It takes time and you always feel like there must be an easier way once the task is finished.  Well, the advice bestowed upon me was seldom heeded and to this day I am a huge fan of shortcuts.  When traffic has me down, I will take a "shortcut" through back roads.   Even if that route takes me ten more minutes than had I remained in traffic, I feel a sense of jubilation; I am the road warrior.  

But, to me, shortcuts are invaluable resources in any respect.  Who coined the phrase "Time is Money?"  And doesn’t the calculation of opportunity cost, the foundation of economics, factor in the lost time you exchange to reach a separate goal?  (It does.  The all-knowing Wikipedia concurs). 

I have used this logic for years to justify shortcuts I have made; the results of those decisions beside the point.  And I do have a point which is this; if a shortcut will get you to the same end point, with the same results, just in a few less clicks, why not take full advantage?

Cvent agrees and has added 3 helpful shortcuts to our feedback software that will save you time and shield you from the dreaded hand cramp. 

The first is the Quick Links displayed on the left of your screen.  The 4 links allow you to:  
Another great shortcut is the Quick Add Respondent section link.  This is located under the Manage Respondents tab and allows you to add someone to your targeted list AND send them a survey invitation email in one click.  If you sent out your email survey and realize a few people were left off the distribution list, this is an easy way to combine 4 steps into 1.  

There is a grab bag of goodies located under the Administration tab, from Parked Reports to Account Users and everything in between.  This is also where our Customer Support tab is located.  This tab has all the important information you will ever need to know: it has our contact information, is home to the comprehensive User’s Guide, and is also where you go to register for our training classes.  However, I realize that in the midst of a panic, clicking into the Administration tab, then selecting Customer Support then clicking the appropriate Section Link is probably not the path most taken.  If only tears had directional powers… to simplify this process for you, while we work to complete the sob recognition feature that will automatically direct clients to the support page, we have added a Support hyperlink at the top right of the page.  This link will take you immediately into the Customer Support page where you are free to bask in the support glow.   

To sum it up, there are things that will be missed and things that will be overlooked when using shortcuts.  That is an inevitable consequence of the sheer purpose of shortcuts.  However, when you know what you need and the path to get there seems daunting, use one of these shortcuts.  You too will feel like a road warrior. 

I was recently asked to complete a restaurant customer satisfaction survey. Only two questions into the restaurant questionnaire I was asked the following restaurant survey sample question:


None of these answers fit my situation. I simply just don't eat out that often. So to me, none of these answers fit. I suppose technically, after thinking about it for awhile, I could have answered that I think it's too expensive or the value isn't good enough. However, because of the question before this one, to me this restaurant customer satisfaction survey question is asking why don't I eat there over other restaurants more frequently. So in reading the options, I'm thinking the survey builder want to know why I don't visit their restaurant over other restaurants more frequently.

Morale of the story? Survey respondents will not always read your restaurant, market research, employee or retail survey the way you planned. Everyone makes different associations and is influenced by question flow or answer choices. Make sure that if you're going to give a long list of options, you include all the possible answer choices. This question could have been improved simply by not requiring it.

If there's one thing that can be frustrating about building surveys online, it's putting together the appropriate questions and responses that will give you the survey data you're looking for.  Furthermore, manually inputting questions you re-use in different surveys can be tedious at best.  But you don't have to continue this repetitive task.

Cvent's feedback management solution comes equipped with both question and response libraries designed specifically to save you time and energy when building out your surveys.  Once you've crafted that perfect question or set of answer choices, simply save them to your libraries for future use.  Take it one step further and categorize them so you can find them quickly and easily.

In addition, Cvent's online web survey system provides standard questions in multiple categories, including Customer Service, Demographics, Marketing and Sales, HR, and Training.  Standard responses range from demographic questions, income levels, frequency and survey rating scales.

Here's my plea: Don't get bogged down in adding the same questions and responses over and over again.  Utilize robust question and response libraries in your survey software tools to springboard your thinking and streamline your survey creation processes.

Free.  Just let that word sink in for a minute.  Free.  What comes to mind?  Is it the Buy One Get One Free sale (or BOGO for all you deal enthusiasts) at Payless?  Or maybe it is the proverbial classic your mother used to recite when that new pair of shoes you knew you couldn’t afford got you down; “Sweetheart, the best things in life are free.

Now, I personally believe my good buddy Barrett put it best:

The best things in life are free,
But you can give them to the birds and bees.
I need money.
That’s what I want. 

This Motown classic put into song, and with quite a catchy tune, what so many of us have been thinking for years: What can you actually get for free?  What tangible return do you receive without first offering your life-savings to the money god?   At Payless, nothing.  At Cvent, well, where do I begin?

First, Cvent offers a FREE trial of our online survey tool.  You read that right; a completely free trial, no credit card information necessary to sign-up.  Not one of these ‘Try it 1 month free!” ads that still requires you to give them your bank accounts, children’s names, dog’s favorite snack, etc.  And to add insult to injury, in small, ineligible print at the bottom of the TV screen they have the audacity to tell you that the charge will continue per month unless an explicit cancellation notification is given.  But, I digress.  The free-trial allows you to create a survey and utilize all the functionality Cvent offers before you commit financially.  No offering of your first born child necessary.

For my second point, I have two words: Client Services.  We offer complimentary phone support 24x5, Monday through Friday as well as weekend support available 8:30am – 5:30pm US ET.  Our Client Services team will offer a complimentary survey review with some online survey best practice tips to get you the best and most accurate data possible.  You can also take advantage of the complimentary (notice a pattern?) training classes offered twice a week, not to mention our extensive recorded training session library that can be accessed at any time for no charge.  These classes walk you through every step in the survey process from inception to survey reporting and presentations.  You can have as many people take the class as many times as necessary to learn and retain the information.  And did I mention we are current finalists for the Service Excellence Award?  Enough said.

My final point is this.  Rumpelstiltskin might have required your first-born in exchange for the much sought after ability to spin twine into gold.  But the cost of spinning your paper survey questions into pure web survey gold with Cvent? Priceless.

You have to know where you’re going, if you ever plan to get there. These are certainly words of wisdom, if I’ve ever heard them. I remember my dad saying something like this to me when I was trying to decide on a major in college. Since my undergraduate major would likely affect the type of job I secured after graduation, my dad just wanted to make sure that I was thinking long-term when I made my “major” decision.

The concept of “thinking ahead” is a good one to grasp when it comes to a lot of things in life, including designing web surveys. If you stop reading this post here, please just remember this: Think about how you want to analyze and report on your data BEFORE you start building surveys in Cvent's Web Survey software! Below, I have included a short list of important things to think about, no matter which of the different survey formats you choose:


As long as you have considered these things before you launch your survey and send out email survey invitations, you are golden! You will undoubtedly find that your life will be much easier when you are analyzing survey data and reporting survey results on the collected data.

When creating online surveys, survey writers have the option to select whether the survey should collect respondent information or will be an anonymous survey. This is an extremely helpful feature if you conduct surveys, which at times, require absolute anonymity.

Collect Respondent Contact Information Survey: If during the survey creation wizard a survey designer selects this option, all survey respondents will be required to enter their contact information, such as name, email address, phone number etc. Setting up which contact fields you need collected for your survey takes place when you're designing your survey.

If you need a contact field that doesn't come standard in the survey application, simply create a custom contact field. We typically see custom contact fields created for pieces of information such as employee ID, account name, membership number, etc.

In a survey with identified survey respondents, all respondents must verify their name and email before starting the electronic survey online. This ensures their responses are correctly matched to their contact record in your address book. If the contact is not in your address book their information will be added automatically. An additional plus for the Cvent Contact Database is that even if they do exist in your address book, if they update their information while completing a survey, it will be automatically updated for you.

Anonymous Survey: In an anonymous survey, respondents can begin the web survey without entering their name or email address. No contact information will be added to or updated in your address book - because it's not being collected. As you would expect, the identities of your survey sample are kept anonymous and no survey responses are matched to contacts.

How do you know which type of survey is correct for your survey research project? Here's a few tips: