Top Survey Design Tips To Get Better Responses (And Avoid Common Pitfalls)

A well-designed survey will inspire solid response rates and increase your chances of connecting with actionable insights you can use to your business-boosting advantage.

But while this is the case, so many businesses make mistakes when it comes to survey design – leading to low response rates and poor-quality feedback.

To take you to success, here we’re going to look at a practical mix of survey design best practices and common pitfalls you should avoid at all costs.

We’re also going to tell you how you can use ScoreApp to streamline the survey design process.

Why survey design matters

Before we look at our response rate-boosting tips, let’s consider why survey design matters.

First of all, poorly designed surveys can confuse or mislead respondents and cause them to abandon them part or halfway through. This, of course, leads to shockingly low survey response rates.

On the flip side, a slick survey with a solid structure and a seamless design will inspire participation. It will also increase response rates and ensure your survey returns valuable data for accelerating your commercial growth.

Asking thoughtful and relevant questions will make your respondents feel valued – and lead to better-quality insights. A positive survey experience will also encourage future participation. Bonus.

Common survey design pitfalls (and how to avoid them)

We’ve covered the importance of making sure your surveys are well crafted. Now we’re going to tell you about the common design pitfalls to avoid at all costs. 

Overloading your survey with too many questions

Asking too many questions will kill your response rates. Lots of businesses pack as many questions as they can into one survey thinking it will help them gather piles of useful information.

But all this tactic does is create survey fatigue. Asking too many questions will overwhelm your participants and cause them to lose focus.

So, you should only include questions that are 100% relevant to your online survey goals. Oh, and if you can, keep it to around seven to 10 questions – that’s the survey sweet spot.

Using unclear or biased questions

Another common survey design pitfall is asking questions that are confusing, unclear, and biased. If they are, you’ll frustrate your participants – and get low response rates.

Plus, if your questions are biased in any way, you’re likely to end up with insights that are skewed or dishonest, offering you little value as a result.

Here are some quick tips for questions that are clear, concise, and inspire engagement:

• Use neutral language that steers clear of any personal ideas or opinions
• Say it as simply as possible and avoid long-winded industry jargon
• Proofread your questions and remove any phrases or words that aren’t 100% essential 

FYI: ScoreApp’s interactive templates feature engaging pre-set survey questions you can customise to your needs with ease. 

Ignoring mobile optimisation

Given 98.1% of people access the internet via a smartphone, making sure your surveys are optimised for mobile is essential.

If your mobile design is poor or clunky, respondents will drop off when trying to complete your survey – resulting in basically no return for your efforts. These people probably won’t take part in any of your future surveys, either.

Online survey tools such as ScoreApp come with responsive and fully mobile-optimised survey templates that provide a seamless experience across devices. No web developers required!

Failing to provide a reason for participation

Without giving people a clearcut reason to take part in your survey, they’re unlikely to bother. There are two ways you can inspire participation and boost your response rates:

1. Outline the benefits: When inviting your target respondents to take part in your survey, you should tell them exactly why they’ll benefit from doing so. Whether it’s to improve products, certain areas of the business, or services, tell people what their data will do for the greater good.

2. Offer an incentive: Dangling a virtual carrot in front of your target respondents will encourage participation. A discount code, a free trial, or the promise of an exclusive piece of content are all effective avenues to explore here.

You can use both these approaches simultaneously to inspire people to take part in your survey. 

Overlooking follow-ups

Failing to follow up with your potential respondents once you’ve invited them to take your survey is a common pitfall that will hinder your results.

If you don’t send follow-up communications to your invitees, it’s likely that:

• If they haven’t yet filled out your survey, they’ll forget to do so
• If they have filled out your survey but haven’t had a thank you message, they’ll feel unappreciated

Think of your follow-up messages as an effective form of personalised marketing. Checking in with a tailored reminder or a ‘thank you for taking part’ email will nurture your customer relationships while earning a healthy response rate for your surveys.

You can integrate ScoreApp with your existing email marketing tools to send automated follow-up emails to your survey participants, for the best possible return for your efforts.

Top tips for designing surveys that get better responses

Now you know what not to do, let’s look at how to design surveys that engage your participants and get the response rates you deserve.

1. Define your goals upfront

To achieve a survey design that gets results, you’ve got to define your exact survey goals from the very start.

Are you looking to gain a deeper understanding of your customer satisfaction scores? Do you want to conduct a very specific piece of market research? Or is boosting employee morale and motivation at the top of your list?

Knowing your exact goals will get you asking the right questions in the right order, creating a seamless survey-filling experience in the process.

2. Know your audience

In addition to defining your goals, you’ve got to know your audience. Understanding who you’re talking to will set the right tone for your survey and ask questions that are likely to inspire the most valuable responses.

Once you’ve set your goals, you’ll be able to select a segment of your audience that will give you the most insightful data to achieve them. 

You can segment your audience according to demographics, existing loyalty levels (repeat purchasers or employees with a tenure of two or more years, for example), or online behaviours.

The bottom line here? Take the time to understand exactly who you’re aiming your questions at and you’ll design a survey that’s worthy of solid response rates.

3. Ask open-ended and close-ended questions

As well as ensuring your survey questions are clear, concise, and unbiased, you should mix up your formats to prompt a well-rounded pool of responses.

Ask your participants a balanced mix of close-ended questions (scale-based, multiple choice, or yes or no) and open-ended questions to gain a wealth of actionable insights for developing your business. 

FYI: Your questions should also follow a logical format, with the easier questions at the start and the slightly more complex ones towards the end.

4. Offer anonymity

When people have the option to answer your survey questions anonymously, they’re far more likely to provide honest answers.

By offering anonymity, you’ll give your participants the confidence to share their exact thoughts and feelings. In turn, you’ll end up with actionable information and insights that will help you meet your customers’ or employees’ needs head on.

5. Brand your survey

Surveys that are bland or generic are likely to disengage your participants and discourage them from taking part.

Personalising your surveys with your brand logo, colour scheme, and font will not only demonstrate your professionalism, but it will also make them far more engaging – and increase participation.

FYI: Make sure you use your branding tastefully and that every visual complements your survey rather than causing friction, confusion, or distraction.

How ScoreApp simplifies survey design

As a leading online survey tool, ScoreApp will streamline the design process while making survey data analysis swift and simple. Here’s how:

• Ready-to-go templates: Save time with pre-designed surveys tailored to your survey goals (customer feedback, employee satisfaction, market research).

• Customisation options: Create surveys that are consistent with your brand and resonate with your audience.

• Built-in analytics: Gain clearcut insights into your response data with dynamic visual dashboards you can access from a central dashboard.

• Automated follow-ups: Send follow-up reminders and thank you messages to keep your participants engaged and build better customer relationships.

• Mobile optimisation: ScoreApp ensures your surveys look great and function perfectly on any device for a brand-boosting survey experience.

Create better surveys that get results with ScoreApp

It’s no secret that well-designed online surveys lead to higher response rates and actionable data you can use to your business-boosting advantage.

By avoiding the common survey design pitfalls we’ve covered in this guide, asking relevant questions, and working with the right online survey tools, you’ll earn healthy response rates time after time.

ScoreApp’s slick templates and platform features simplify the survey design process while offering the tools to get the best possible returns for your survey marketing efforts.

Are you ready to take your survey designs (and results) to the next level? Try ScoreApp for FREE.