Eight Tips for Making Your Customer (and employee) Surveys more Customer-Friendly

1. Tell your customers how long it will take to complete the survey. There is nothing more frustrating than having to go through a survey of an indefinite duration. So tell customers up front approximately how long it will take them to complete the survey. If your survey has a lot of branching and can vary in length depending on previous responses, then provide your customers with a time range.

2. Use a progress bar to make it possible for customers to see how far along they are in the survey. They may not know how many questions there are in total, but the progress bar will give them a good idea as to how close to completion they are. The progress bar is an important motivating factor-"5% more and I'm done!"-and promoter of peace of mind-"I'm progressing pretty quickly!"

3. Allow customers to go back and change their answers. Sometimes, a customer may answer a question incorrectly and want to go back and change his or her answer. So make sure to select a web- survey solution that allows respondents to navigate back a page or two.

4. Ask customers to give you qualitative feedback. Don't just ask for responses to closed- ended or multiple choice questions. Be sure to include a couple of open-ended questions to give your customers the option to share ideas, suggestions or additional feedback. Make sure that the questions are targeted and avoid using the generic words "Additional Comments." Also, do not include too many open-ended questions- ideally, use 2 to 3 and a maximum of 5.

5. Give them a reason to participate. Most people are busy nowadays and unlike employees who can expect to benefit from an employee survey, customers have less to gain. So make participation worth their while. The information they provide to you is extremely valuable so be willing to provide incentives. Consider holding a raffle, offering compensation, or giving a donation to a charitable organization for every completed survey.

6. Do not require an answer for every question. While you may think that every customer will have enough information/experience to respond to every survey question, they are likely to find this requirement very frustrating.

7. Let customers take a break from the survey and return to it later. Be sure to give customers this option to save the survey and resume it later if your survey takes more than 5 minutes to complete. Most web survey programs offer this capability and it can make things easier for busy customers who may find themselves pulled in different directions throughout the day.

8. Make sure to test run your web survey prior to its release to make sure that it works. This step is pretty simple but it is often overlooked. As a traveler, business owner and consumer, I am often asked to complete surveys. The most frustrating thing is participating in a survey that does not work.