Questionnaires are becoming more and more popular, thanks to the ubiquitous nature of the internet. From polling people about policies and political candidates to determining customer preferences, when it comes to using surveys and questionnaires, you have a wide range of applications. Thanks to websites like Survey King, it’s never been easier to design, distribute, and analyze the results of a survey. Here are a few things you’ll definitely want to keep in mind as you work to create a questionnaire for your business.
Benefits of questionnaires
One of the biggest reasons your business may be looking to adopt a questionnaire is because they’re so inexpensive to create. In fact, because of online survey platforms and the ease at which materials can be distributed both through email and social media, it’s becoming simpler to reach an audience with your questionnaire. Another major advantage of using a questionnaire is being able to collect and analyze data quickly. Getting fast results is a major boon for companies that need to check the pulse of their consumer base as quickly as possible. And thanks to digital tools for analysis, it’s possible to interpret your data in relatively little time. Best of all, many survey platforms offer the ability to create custom graphs automatically using questionnaire answers, so it’s never been easier to visualize and share your data.
Distributing surveys online also offers survey respondents the ability to remain anonymous. This, in turn, can increase the number of individuals who complete your questionnaire as well as the likelihood that they will be more forthcoming in their answers. When you also factor in the ability to standardize questions for your respondents, it becomes even more of a no-brainer to use questionnaires when you’re looking for a fair way to collect and compare data on a broad segment of the population. All of these strengths make questionnaires well worth the time it takes to implement.
Drawbacks of questionnaires
While you can certainly find a host of benefits to using a questionnaire, you need to understand some of the weaknesses of distributing surveys. You must have a firm grasp of where questionnaires can fall short so that you can avoid these pitfalls as you design your survey questions. For example, too many questions can cause respondents to get lazy or grow tired of working on your survey. In turn, this may cause them to skip questions or provide false answers just to make bring an end to the questionnaire. As you design your questionnaire, make sure that you’re considering how much time it will take for respondents to carefully read and answer each question. Also, do everything in your power to avoid comprehension problems. By not carefully phrasing your questions in a clear and concise manner, you run the risk of creating confusion or inadvertently causing a survey-taker to improperly answer a question. This can skew your data and may also result in your having to throw out certain questions because of a badly phrased prompt. If the particular question was of great importance, this can be a major setback when it comes to getting the information you need.
Clearly, you’ll find benefits and challenges when you’re working on the design of a questionnaire. However, many of the drawbacks of surveys can be mitigated if you approach survey design with thoughtfulness and detail. With so many tools out there, creating a questionnaire to gather crucial information has never been easier, but that doesn’t mean you should rush through the creation process. With careful planning, you’ll be able to create a survey that captures useful information and allows you to improve your operations and strategies.