For some reason in the last couple of days I found myself completing two online surveys. I never normally respond to these requests so what happened here?

It got me thinking how do you get people to complete you online survey? Survey’s can be a great tool for getting feedback from customers but I’ve always found it really hard going just getting people to respond.

Here’s what I read between the lines with the two surveys I responded to. Compliments go to @Craig Rosenberg from Funnelholic and  @chris_behnke.

Both request’s came to me via email, although the second example originated from a Twitter direct message.

Rule #1: Have a good email Subject line.

Make the subject line of the email concise and conversational. And make the body of the email short and too the point.

The subject line:

good email subject line survey flashissue

 

 

The email body:

Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 11.40.53 AM

Rule #2: Use Social Media as well as email

One of the surveys I responded to came from a Twitter direct message. I wouldn’t have clicked through if i’d seen it on my Twitter feed but since it was sent to me as a direct message to my email Inbox it got more attention.

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 4.46.42 PM

 

Using LinkedIN is another way to directly target people, especially of your specifically know who you’d like to complete the survey.

Rule #3: Don’t ask for too much

I was inclined to click through to the survey’s i responded to because I believed they would be quick to complete.

Answering one, two or three questions is quick. Take me beyond that and I’m bailing. If I have to “page next”, then you’ve lost me. There exceptions to this but they’re pretty rare for me.

The first survey example below asks me three questions and the second example just one…

Example 1

get results customer surveys

 

Example 2

Screen Shot 2013-03-07 at 5.24.12 PM

Tips on survey software:

If you want to go “free” Google docs has a good option called “Forms“. It’s not as polished and streamlined as other more survey-focused services but it’s worked well for most scenarios I’ve come across.

To create a survey in Google docs, from the docs dashboard click Create and Form.

If you want a feature rich option you can try Survey Monkey or Instant.ly.

 

 

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