HOW TO DESIGN THE GREAT SURVEY

Understand the customers are important, and getting customer insight through survey is one of the main way to know more about your customers. However, there are many barriers which make the survey result are unclear and not really useful for you to take any further decision.

In this article, we would like to share you key points which help you to create the great survey.

 

1. Set the clear objectives for your survey:

You need to set those questions to yourself: Why are you conducting this survey? What do you want to learn? Who is going to use the survey result? By setting the right and suitable research objectives, you can design the better questionnaire to gain the insight.

Your research objectives shoul be clear, avoid those general terms. Example: If you are the CEO/ Director of the company, and your sales is going down. You want to create the customer survey to understand the reason why your customers are not going to re-purchase your product. You need to set the research objective: - To understand the reason for not re-purchase the product after first purchase. You avoid to set the research objective which is too general such as: Understanding customer experience, understanding customer insight.

Here are some of research objectives which you can reference:

• To gain the insight of purchase decision.
• To measure the customer experience through out the customer journey from product search to after purchase.
• To measure the brand performance (include brand awareness, brand usage, brand equity) among target customers include current users and potential users.
• To understand the gap in purchase driver of current users and non users.
• To measure the marketing campaign effectiveness in term of brand awareness, brand recall, brand purchase intention.
• To measure the sales performance of sales staff in term of hunting and dealing with customers.

Your research objective should be SMART, and Measurable. The more you set clear objectives, the good direction to go ahead to design the questionnaire.

Those general objectives you should avoid, or if your boss or client are asking you the research objectives which are too general, you can explore deep more levels to gain the SMART research objectives.

Example some general research objectives:

• To understand why sales is going down
• To measure competitive landscape
• To measure brand performance in market
• To measure customer experience
• To measure marketing activities.
• To explore the new market needs
• To explore unmet needs.

Those research objectives are too general and they can lead to many types of research methodology and lead to too broad project which may impact to cost and time of the company. However, at least you need to have research objectives before doing the research. If it is too general, you can deep dive into it and narrow down to many specific objectives.

 

2. Determining your research question

Before starting writing the questionnaire, you need to outline your research questions. Base on the SMART research objectives, you can start thinking about the research questions.

Before starting determining your research question, base on your research objectives, you need to fill in the answers of those questions:

1.     What is the research result you expect to gain in this questionnaire? / Research outcome	Write your answer	End result of research you need to achieve in survey.
2.     What are key area of information you want to collect? -      Define the primary information (must have) -      Define the secondary information (nice to have)	Write your answer	Outline the area of information to design the questionnaire.
3.     Who do you want to collect this data? / who is your target respondents?	Write your answer	This is your target respondents and help you to think about your sample.
4.     What are the key indicators? / Data points?		Key indicators or data points measure the outcome you set above. Indicators must be measurable in the framework of your survey.

 

You can use mind map to answer question No. 2, this task will help you to outline your research questions by grouping area of information by ranking them on the order of importance.

 

3. Define the research methodology

Base on the research question in step 2, you need to define which research methodology is suitable to gain those desired information you expected.

In order to achieve research objectives, you might need to combine many methodologies (Primary research with Qualitative / Quantitative, Secondary research, Observation, etc).

Each of methods have different pros and cons, when you understand each methods, you can define the best approach for your research.

Here are some key points about each of methodology:

Observation:

This is basic methodology but it is also important. As a researcher, you should have the eye of sensitivity to know and regconise the issues from observation. This is also quick and easy method to collecting data with minimal efforts. The advantages of observation can be cost-free, effortless. However, in order to gain insight from observation, it is required heavy reliance, expertises from the experts who know clear what to observe and interpret the observations to the data outcome. This method may lead to many biasness as truly depending on one side of the person who observe.

Qualitative Research:

Qualitative research describes research that produces non-numberical results. This method answers the question of “Why” and “How”. This will go deep inside the area and identify all the factors which are the root cause of the result and how do they happen.

Qualitative research is usually applied when you explore the new things, discovery the hidden insight, or explain any issues in deep. By continuing asking Why and How, the researcher can explore more details the valuable the root cause.

Examples of Qualitative Questions:

• Why do you like to work remotely? What else?
• Why working remotely is most important for you to consider the offer?
• Why is that only the option you select?
• How do you do that?
• How do you suffer the pain with that product?
• How do you deal with your remote work?

Qualitative is helping you to list out all the factors, in deep and details. Qualitative won’t help you to understand which factor is most important and represent to the population of your target customers. You need to be careful in taking any decision base on Qualitative result.

Quantitative Research:

The method helps you to quantify the insights, describe the factors with the indicators, numberical results.

The question types which are using for Quantitative Research:

• Single choice question
• Multiple choice question
• Rating question
• Yes No question
• Scaling question
• Grouping card
• Drop down menu
• Choice grid question.

Explore more question types from ASHAVI here. (https://ashavi.com/help/question-types-119.html )

When to use Qualitative and Quantitative Research?

Normally, Qualitative Research is conducted before Quantitative Research, answering the research question of “Why” and “How?”.

Some application cases of Qualitative Research. 

• Research new customer segment needs
• Research new product
• Discovery the lifestyle of your customers.
• Discovery new features / functions where your customers are looking for.
• Explain for any factors, any numbers you got.

Quantitative is conducted to measure the size of something, they can be the size of market needs, the size of customer complains. Quantitative will give you the numberical results, hence most of the time, you should base on Quantitative Research result to take decision.

If Qualitative Research brings you all the factors which impacting to your customers, the Quantitative Research brings you the sense of which factor is the most highest contribution in your customer mind.

Examples:

Qualitative	Quantitative
Question: Why do you like working remotely?	Question: Below are all the factors about working remotely, which one is the most important for you?
Answer: -      Flexibility -      Saving time in commuting to work -      Family Orientation -      Work life balance	Answer: After asking 100 persons, you have the data here: -      50% Flexibilty -      20% saving time in commuting to work -      10% Family Orientation -      20% Work Life Balance

 

4. Write your questionnaire

The structure of questionnaire normally will include those 3 parts:

Part 1: Demographic question, profile question: Age, Gender, Education Level, Occupation Level, Lifestyle, Living conditions, Location, etc.

This part will help you to have the basic sense of your respondents and key input for further analysis.

Part 2: Main questionnaire:

Here is the part where you will write down all the questions to address the research information which you have outline above. You should write your questionnaire with the logic / sequence of questionnaire such as Customer Journey starts from demand, research, trial, purchase, after purchase, or Brand Health Track, you should ask from Brand Awareness, Brand Consideration, Brand Trial, Brand Purchase, Brand Usage, Brand Experience, Brand Loyalty. Or you can use the time sequece to ask from past to current, from current to future. The logic sequence would give the respondents into the contect which is easy to imagine and answer correctly.

Some important notes:

• Ask possitive before asking negative. Example: What do you like about the product? (positive), What you don’t like about the product? (negative).
• Do not ask the bias question. Here are some example of bias question:
  • Do you like this product? (You assume the customers like your product while they might not like your product).
  • How amazing was your experience with our customer service team?
• Avoid ambiguous questions:
  • How do we compare to our competitors? (this question will make your customers to think about the possitive of your competitors to answer you). This question should be asked internally, not externally.
  • Do you think in the future, you or your family members would like to purchase product X? (This question you have given the respondent the way to answer yes/ possitive as you want, while actually, they might not want the product in reality.
  • Would you like our product to be cheaper and more value for money? (this question will lead to the answer “Yes” as nobody want the expensive product. )
• Try to use more question type to make your questionaire less bored. You can try to apply single choice, multiple choice, choice grid, rating star, scalling, etc. to make the questionnaire is more exciting.
• Use the approriate language in the questionnaire. The question should be clear to the respondents. Understand your respondents are very critical to apply different workings for each types of the respondents (kids vs adult, male vs female, etc).
• Do not repeat the question.
• Try to apply logic rule to make questionnaire more logical. For example: If this is the user, you should ask about key driver to purchase. If this is non-user, you should ask about key barrier to purchase. You should not ask all for the same questions.
• In Quantitative research, try to avoid the open-end question as in many cases, the respondents feel difficult to write down their thought on your survey. You need to consider carefully when add in open-end question into your questionnaire.
• Try to use photos, media more in your survey to explain.
• Be careful in asking the sensitive question.
• Allow “No answer” for some relevant question and “Others” for the respondents to explain more.
• Do not ask too much: You should control the length of the questionnaire, and the best should be not more than 30 mins for 25-30 questions for online survey questionnaire.

Part 3: Sub-question and Thank you Note

The last part of questionnaire should be some sub-questions you want to explore more and thank you note. For sub-question, you can ask or simple ignore this part. But if your questionnaire is short, we recommend to ask 2-3 more sub-questions to help you understand more contact details, lifestyle and habit of your customers. Those questions might not irrelevant to your research, but somehow, it will help you to understand more about your customers, you might need it in future.

Example of sub questions:

• Contact details/ Consent:
  • What is your email address? What is your phone numbers.
  • In the future, will you allow us to receive our survey invitiation?
• Frequency of doing something or habit, or taste or opinion in general
  • What do you do in your free time?
  • What do you do with the spare / package of the product after using?
  • What color do you like?
  • Do you have 2^nd smartphone?
  • Do you have any comment to help us improve our survey?

Lastly, the questionnaire should have thank you note. You should write down formal thank you note to your respondents to show your respect and appriciation to their time spending on your survey. This is also helping you to engage your respondents to the future research.

It is very important to pilot the questionnaire before launching it. During the pilot, you can identify more areas which are non-approximate and fix it before launching it.

5. Define the sample size and sample collection methodology:

Ideally, one survey should gather data of at least 80% up to 100% total population so that the result would be fair enough to bring the reliable result. However, in the reality, it’s difficult to conduct the survey with large sample size. We recommend that if your total population size is less than 1,000, you should conduct the survey at least 40% of size, which means 400 samples. If your population size more than 1,000, you can use tool to calculate the minimum sample size required to conduct the survey.

In most of the cases, the researchers don’t have enough of resource to reach all samples, the researchers need to carefully identify the subset of sample which is represetative of the larger population. By doing this correctly, the survey data will be useful to draw inferences.

Top 3 important things in choosing the sample population:   

• Consistency: It is totally important to select the sample consistency, the researchers understand the population and test consistency before going ahead with the survey. If the sample is inconsistent, the researchers can be confident that any changes in the data can be reflected the real change across the population.
• Diversity: The sample should be diversified, so that the opinions which are been collected through survey will cover all the segments, and aspects of population. The sample would truly represent the population and must be sensitive to local differences.
• Transparency: The researchers should maintain the transparency during the sample collection procedures, to bring the result of survey in the right respective.

How to choose the sampling technique?

Probability sampling: Probability sampling is a statistical technique used to select a random sample of individuals from a population, in order to study that population.

• Random Sampling: Random sampling is the most basic and straightforward type of probability sampling. In this method, each individual in the population has an equal chance of being selected for the sample. To do this, you can simply put all the names into a hat and draw out a certain number. This is the most unbiased way to select a sample, but it can be difficult to achieve if the population is large. This type of sampling is used when the population is homogeneous and the researcher wants to obtain a representative sample.
• Systematic Sampling: Systematic sampling is similar to random sampling, but instead of selecting individuals at random, every nth individual is selected. Systematic sampling is a type of probability sampling where units are selected from the population in a systematic manner. For example, if you wanted to select every 10th person on a list of 1000 people, you would start by selecting the 10th person on the list, then the 20th person, then the 30th person, and so on. This type of sampling is used when the population is too large to be covered completely and when units in the population are arranged systematically (e.g. in alphabetical order). This order can be based on factors such as time, alphabetical order, or geographic location.

Non Probability sampling: Non probability sampling is a type of sampling where units are not selected randomly from the population. This means that some units will have a greater chance of being selected than others. The four most common types of non-probability samples are convenience samples, quota samples, snowball samples, and judgment samples. A method of selection in which the chances of choosing a particular unit are unknown or unknowable.

• Convenience Sampling: Convenience sampling is a type of non probability sampling where the researcher selects units which are easy to access or are readily available. For example, if a researcher wanted to study students at a particular university, they might use convenience sampling and simply ask students who happen to be passing by if they would like to participate in the study. This type of sampling can lead to bias as it is not representative of the entire population. Convenience sampling is a type of non-probability sampling which involves selecting units that are easily accessible or available. This is often used when time or budget constraints do not allow for a more complex probability sample to be used.
• Snowball sampling: A type of non-probability sampling in which units are selected based on referrals from previous participants. Snowball sampling is a type of non-probability sampling which involves starting with a small group of units and then asking them to identify other units that meet the criteria for inclusion in the sample. This process is repeated until the desired sample size is reached.
• Quota sampling is a type of non-probability sampling which involves setting quotas for specific subgroups within the population. This ensures that the composition of the sample reflects the composition of the population.

Minimize sampling error

What is a sampling error? A sampling error refers to a discrepancy in data retrieval. It can be either due to random errors, systematic bias, or both. When conducting a study, sampling errors can happen when the sample used is not representative of the population. In order to reduce sampling error, researchers calculate margins of error during final results as a statistical practice. The margin of error is the amount of error allowed for a miscalculation to represent the difference between the sample and actual population.

What are the most common sampling errors in market research?

Market research is essential, but it can be tricky. Here are the top four common errors while sampling:

• Population specification errors happen when researchers are unsure of who they should survey. Imagine a research study about kids' clothing. Who would be the right person to survey? It could be either the parents, the mother alone, or the child. The parents make purchase decisions, but the child may have an influence on those decisions too.
• Sample frame error: The sample frames are an important demographic to look at when determining the validity of the research. A few reasons why this is true are: errors that arise when researchers target the sub-population wrongly, picking a sampling frame from the telephone white pages book may have erroneous inclusions because people frequently move and unlist their phone numbers, while wealthy households may have more than one connection leading to multiple inclusions.
• Selection error: Once respondents self-select themselves to participate in a study, it's almost impossible to control how many will respond. To ensure that this doesn't happen, you need to be clear when the survey should be completed and what the respondents' responsibilities are. This includes preplanning and follow up, as well as creating an organized survey with neat and clean language. The best way to increase participation is by using CATI surveys or in-person interviews--or both!
• Sampling errors: Sampling errors occur for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the researcher doesn't plan their sample carefully and the results skew towards a small group that is represented more prominently than the actual population. This situation can be helped by careful sample design, making sure your sample size is large enough, or using an online survey to collect responses.

How to minimize sampling error:

• Avoid population specification errors: Work on understanding your target audience. Study the demographics in your area and make sure you're targeting the right sample of people to grow your business. An easy way to avoid population specifiction errors is to learn how the similar survey has been done before with the same target population. You can learn from the past experience and avoid this error.
• Avoid sample frame errors: The best way to increase the sample size is to do it gradually, recording statistics as the study goes on. When you do a study, divide the population into groups corresponding to their size in the population. If a specific group makes up 20% of your population, make sure that your exploration reflects this by ensuring that your test group is made up of people from this group.
• Avoid Non-response errors: When drafting the questionnaire, the researchers try to reduce the bias questions, sensitive questions, and option “none/ N/A” in the answer, and try to add more “Others, specify…” option for the respondents to type more if they have any other opinion. ASHAVI Quiz can help to eliminate the non-responses answer by terminate the questionnaire if the repondents are not willing to complete the survey. The platform is also help to create the unique link for each of respondents, and reduce the bad quality of the response. Read more at article: How to reduce the fake responses
• Calculating the sample size by using tool.
• Analysizing the result with the suitable confident level: Confidence level or confidence interval is the amount of certainty that the data contained within reflects the true value of your customers. The industry standard for market research is 95%. Other common confidence levels used in market research are 90% or 99%.

ASHAVI is the online research platform which helps the researchers to design the survey questionnaire, gain the reponses and analyse survey result in the quick and easy way.

Try ASHAVI today to gain your consumer insight.