How Much Money Can You Make Taking Surveys

How to Write a Customer Survey

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If you own or manage a business, you know that when you want to understand what the customers want, you have to go straight to the customers. A survey can help you gauge how your company is doing, how your employees are handling customer service and whether or not your products and services are up to par. You may even be surprised to learn that your customers are more than happy to share their opinions. But in order to collect that data, you've got to write a good customer survey.

Set Your Goals

Before you create your customer survey, sit down and do some brainstorming about what your goals are for your conducting the survey. Do you want feedback on a specific product or service, or are you looking for some general ideas about how smoothly your business is running? Are you interested in finding out what customers want from you in the future, or are you looking for ways to improve your current way or doing things? Be as specific as you can.

Write Your Questions

Once you understand your goals, it's time to write some clear, precise questions that will help you find those answers. Here are some things to keep in mind when creating your questions:

Don't make the survey too long. If you do, your customers will abandon it after a while. Make sure your questions don't attempt to sway a customer's response in one direction or another. If they do, you won't receive the answers you want. Ask one question at a time. Combining questions into one sentence or paragraph can confuse the reader. Make sure the questions get right to the point. Don't limit your answers. Asking customers to provide ratings on a scale of one to ten is better than offering three or four multiple choice answers. Provide at least once question that allows your customers to write out an answer essay style. You may pick up on some information here that you didn't know you needed.

Decide How You'll Get It to the Customers

There are several ways to get your survey to your customers, and how you do so will largely depend on what sort of information you keep. If you have physical addresses, you may consider a survey by mail. Of course, email is also an option. You can make cold calls, have a survey pop up on your website or app or hand out a physical survey when your customers are in your store. In today's digital world, doing it via email, your website or app is probably going to earn you the most responses for most types of businesses. Just make sure your survey doesn't come across as spam or junk mail when you send it.

Make It Enticing

No matter how you decide to send the survey, you need to give your customers some incentive to fill it out and return it to you. Drawings for free gift cards, free products and services or even cash really grab attention. You can also offer a coupon or a percentage off the customer's next purchase in exchange for filling it out. Not every customer needs that incentive, but it will increase the number of responses you receive.

Create an Invitation

Now that you've written your questions, write out a short invitation to customers asking them to complete the survey. This will pop up on your website or show up in the email and lead up to the survey link. Keep it short and simple. Personalize it as much as possible, and unless your business calls for it, keep it somewhat casual. Thank the customer in advance, explain why you're conducting the survey, tell the customer why you want them to take it, offer the incentive if there is one and give the customer an idea of how long the survey will take.

Proofread the Survey and Send It

Now that you've written your customer survey, it's time to go over it, edit it, proofread, have someone else read it — and then go over it all over again. Make sure there are no typos and no misspellings. Be sure the questions make sense, are in the right order and help you reach your goals. Consider asking a few friends or colleagues to fill out the survey and provide you with any feedback if something could be improved. Once you've perfected it, send it and wait for the responses to roll in.