Surveys are a handy tool to collect valuable data.
But if you thought it was enough to just put some questions together real quick and send them out… think again! You could waste time and money on something that doesn’t bring you enough answers (or not the ones you actually need).
So, here’s exactly how you can avoid the most common survey challenges and really get the most out of yours.
Benefits of conducting a survey
Surveys are a powerful tool to gather insights, feedback, or data from a specific group of people, and they come with lots of advantages:
- Getting direct input from your audience (instead of relying on guesswork and assumptions)
- Versatility (just to name a few, you can use surveys to validate a new product idea with your waitlist, measure and improve your employee experience, conduct market research, get feedback after a purchase, and collect data for original research)
- Spotting trends and patterns
- Building trust, and showing your audience you genuinely care about their opinion
- Cost-effectiveness, since you can create a survey for free or at a very low price
- Speed, because surveys are much quicker to conduct than most data-gathering options, like in-person panels
With ScoreApp, our quiz-building platform, you can create an engaging and effective survey for FREE, only upgrading to a paid plan when you need more features or responses. Easy!
9 survey challenges and how to overcome them
While they come with lots of benefits, there are many survey challenges, too. So, let’s look at them one by one and see what you can do instead to set yourself up for success.
1. Low survey response rates
Of course, you really need those insights and are excited about sending out your survey. Think about it from your audience’s perspective, though: you’re basically asking them to stop what they’re doing and spend their time and energy answering questions.
It gets even trickier if your survey is particularly lengthy and complex or if the timing couldn’t be worse for your respondents (like sending out an employee survey right before a looming project deadline).
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Personalisation – Instead of sending an impersonal and generic message, make your survey invitations more tailored (for example, if your target audience is already in your system, use their names and any other relevant data you have), and tell them why you need their input. People are a lot more likely to help if they understand the difference it’ll make or if answering this survey will benefit them, too (for instance, maybe you want their feedback to improve the SaaS product they’re already using?)
- Timing – The optimal time to send out a survey tends to be weekdays (especially Tuesday) between 10 and 11 am, followed by 6 to 9 am. However, it really depends on your audience. For example, if it’s for your employees, you might want to avoid Monday morning since they’ll probably be busy with more urgent tasks. You should also give your audience a realistic deadline so that they have time to plan around it
- Reminders – Unless you’re targeting robots, your participants are only human. So, since they already have a million things on their minds, you can’t expect them to remember your survey. Instead, send them some reminders closer to the deadline. With ScoreApp, you can set them up once so that they go out automatically, without you having to do it manually (high five!)
- Number of questions – Be realistic with what you ask of your participants. Ideally, they should be able to complete your survey within 2-5 minutes. So, 5-15 questions tend to be a good rule of thumb
- Gifted survey – Do you definitely need to ask many more questions? Perhaps they require more effort because there are several open-text boxes? Then, you might need to offer an incentive to your participants, like a discount, an entry into a raffle, a gift card, a digital product, and so on
2. Survey fatigue
Some of your target respondents might be willing to help you. But then they open your survey, answer a few questions, realise there are waaaaay too many… and give up.
As well as with complex or excessive questions, survey fatigue is common when you send out surveys too often.
So, your participants will either abandon them, or if they’re required to complete them (for example, because they’re your employees), they’ll answer the first thing that comes to mind just to get it done with.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Mixture of question types – Prioritise formats that are quick and easy to answer (such as yes/no and multiple choice) but include a few different ones too (like sliding scales and image-based questions) to keep your audience engaged. With ScoreApp, you have 9 question types to start from and customise!
- Strategic questions – Every single one should be there for a reason. So, remove repetitive or unnecessary questions, and use conditional logic to skip those that wouldn’t make sense for certain participants. For example, if they answered “No” to the question on whether they have a business website, it’d be irrelevant to ask them “How many monthly website visitors do you get?”
- Engaging format – Rather than a plain and boring interface, wow your participants with a more compelling quiz-like survey with ScoreApp, including your branding and user-friendly design
- Progress bar – Show your survey participants how many questions they’ve got left to answer. Without this, they could assume there are way too many… and give up
- Pacing your surveys – If you need to conduct them regularly, give your respondents a long enough break. Do you send out the same pulse survey at set intervals (for example, to measure progress or monitor your audience’s satisfaction levels)? Then, aim for 10-15 questions for monthly pulse surveys, 15-20 for quarterly ones, and 20-30 for biannual ones
3. Confusion due to poorly written survey questions
Ambitious, confusing, and complex survey questions can lead to inaccurate or misleading data.
Of course, if you thought they were badly written, you wouldn’t have sent them out like that. However, just because they’re clear to you, it doesn’t mean it’s the same for someone reading them for the first time, especially if they have a different level of awareness.
For example, if you’re an SEO expert, your survey might be for small business owners who would benefit from your services but know next to nothing about search engine optimisation.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Simple language – Write your survey questions with your specific target respondents in mind. Use their language (no industry jargon!), stick to simple sentence constructions, avoid wordy questions, and prioritise clarity
- Testing – Get feedback on your survey from a small group of people before releasing it to everyone else. You’ll get to identify confusing questions and edit them accordingly
4. Biased survey responses
If your respondents can tell you’re after a specific answer, they might give it to you… even when it’s not what they actually think!
For example, this can be the case with questions along the lines of “How much did you enjoy your stay with us?” because they might not have enjoyed it in the first place.
The same can happen with questions that, if answered truthfully, might put the respondent in a bad light (from alcohol consumption to racism and so on). So, rather than the truth, they’ll give you a socially desirable answer.
Either way, biased survey responses will skew your data.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Neutral language – Avoid emotionally charged or leading language that could sway your respondents towards a specific answer. For example, instead of “How concerned are you about the catastrophic effects of climate change on future generations?”, opt for “How do you feel about the impact that climate change will have on future generations?”
- Randomising options – We’re more likely to choose the first one we read. So, by randomising the order of all your potential answers (so that your respondents see them in different orders), you can reduce survey bias even further
- Safe and middle options – Include answers like “Prefer not to say” or “Neutral” to accommodate all respondents, and allow them to skip uncomfortable ones, if needed
- Anonymity – In some cases, you might want to allow your participants to submit your survey anonymously (so that they don’t feel the need to lie to avoid judgment or repercussions). This is particularly relevant for surveys that are sent out to your employees or that involve delicate topics
5. Lack of survey reach
You could have the clearest and most engaging questions. But if no one sees your survey in the first place, they won’t get a chance to take it.
And if you can’t reach your specific target audience? Your data might be skewed or not as useful as it could be.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Multichannel marketing – Don’t put all your survey eggs in one basket! Distribute it across different platforms to reach as many relevant people as you can, like social media, email, website pop-ups, and so on
- Paid ads – To reach more of the right people fast, you can use paid ads on search engines and social media. This will also allow you to perfect your targeting so that you’re only showing your survey to your ideal respondents
- Be specific – More isn’t always better! You must focus on getting answers from the right people. How? Targeted ads aside, be crystal clear on your landing page and invitations. With ScoreApp, you can take it one step further by requiring your participants to tick a box and confirm they match your requirements (for example, “This survey is for graphic designers who’ve been in business for at least 2 years. Tick this box to confirm that’s you, too”)
- Collaborations – Spread the word faster by partnering with relevant influencers, businesses, or online communities where your target respondents are hanging out
6. Issues with the survey data quality
What if you get LOADS of survey submissions (whoop, whoop!) but you realise you can’t trust that data (ouch)?
If your respondents provide incomplete, inconsistent or downright false information, it defeats the whole purpose of your survey. So, you must try and discourage it.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Mandatory questions – To avoid incomplete submissions, mark the most important questions (or all of them, if relevant) as mandatory. With ScoreApp, it’s a breeze!
- Validation – To avoid incorrect or irrelevant answers, you can offer options or drop-down menus so that your participants have to choose from those. Alternatively, set up automated prompts that appear when someone provides an answer that doesn’t match your criteria. For example, if you ask about their age and they enter “400”, it could tell them “Please, enter a valid age”. You can also include a very basic question (like, “What’s the colour of grass?”) to check that they’re still paying attention
- Conditional logic – If a question wouldn’t be relevant to someone based on their previous answers, don’t run the risk of them answering it anyway (and skewing your data). With ScoreApp, you can use conditional logic to skip questions or show different messages to certain participants
- Limiting open-text boxes – Open-ended questions are useful because they give you qualitative data in your audience’s own words. However, because they require more time and effort, they can also lead to unhelpful responses: your participants could type something quick and random just to get it over with. So, only use them when necessary
7. Survey respondents have privacy concerns
If your audience is worried about their privacy and how you’ll store and use their data, they might be reluctant to complete your survey.
So, you must ease their minds straightaway.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Privacy laws – Respect relevant ones depending on where you’re based (like GDPR within the EU). For example, you should get your respondents’ consent to store their data, protect it, and give them the option to end all communications whenever they wish
- Transparency – Clearly explain how you’ll use, store, and protect your participants’ data. You can do that on your landing page, in your invitation to complete the survey, or through a small note (for example, right before they press Start)
- Flexibility – Consider allowing your participants to exit the survey, skip certain questions, and as recommended earlier, choose safer options like “Prefer not to say” or “Neutral”
- Anonymity – As seen before, you might want to offer this option if your respondents could be reluctant to complete or be truthful in your survey out of fear of judgment or repercussions
8. Limited features of your survey platform
Technically, you can create a survey with the most basic tools. However, if they lack relevant features (like conditional logic) or offer a poor user experience, you could get fewer and less relevant responses.
You also don’t want to run the risk of getting survey submissions by bots, which would skew your results.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Reputable survey tools – Build your survey on a reliable and safe platform. With ScoreApp, you get a user-friendly interface (for both you and your respondents), mobile compatibility, handy features like conditional logic, robust analytics, and much more. No wonder 6000+ businesses and entrepreneurs keep trusting us with their quizzes and surveys!
- Testing – Since you don’t know how and where your audience is going to take your survey, it must work smoothly on all browsers and devices (like desktops, tablets, and phones). So, test it properly before releasing it!
- Periodic checks – Check your surveys regularly to make sure there are no glitches or performance problems
9. Difficulty analysing and interpreting survey data
Let’s say you got lots of target respondents to complete your survey (hurray!). What now?
Being able to analyse your results is just as important as getting those answers in the first place.
So, if you don’t know how to proceed or if your chosen platform makes things harder, you won’t get as much out of your survey.
How to overcome this survey challenge
- Quantitative data – Prioritise questions whose answers are easy to analyse, like yes/no, multiple choice, and sliding scales. While open-text boxes can be incredibly beneficial because they give you qualitative data, they’re also more difficult and time-consuming to review. So, once again, be realistic with how many you include
- Finding patterns – Consider breaking down your data by different segments (like demographics or behaviours) to identify trends more easily
- External help – If you’re running a HUGE survey or using advanced tools, you might want to hire a data analyst instead
- Survey tools with analytics – Trust us: you really don’t want to do all this manually by reviewing one submission at a time. To make your life easier and get the most out of your data, choose a platform with great reporting features. With ScoreApp, you get analytics that are both in-depth and easy to understand!
Overcome these survey challenges, and get valuable data easily with ScoreApp
Now that you know how to avoid these common survey challenges, you’re ready to set yourself up for success.
With ScoreApp, you can create a compelling and strategic survey that gets you the data you need. Thanks to our robust reporting features, you can then analyse it without losing your mind.
So, bypass those common survey challenges. Get started with ScoreApp today and for FREE!
