If you want to keep your brand and business a level ahead of your competitors, then you need to truly understand your customers, their requirements and make them loyal to your business.

Don’t spare any single opportunity to make them happy and satisfied with your business. Now the question is what is the best way to approach the customers and understand their requirements? Online Survey Tool is the answer to your question.

So, to know your customers in-depth, start taking their feedback using an online survey tool. This helps you to improve your product and service and streamline marketing efforts to make your business more customer-centric. 

What is an Online Survey Tool? 

Online Survey Tool is a dedicated system or you can say software that helps you to conduct online surveys and collect customer feedback and other data related to customers. Over the past few years, an online survey tool has developed itself a lot in terms of its functionalities. Now, it enables you to quickly create, distributor, manage, monitor, and analyze customer feedback with no time.

Why Do You Need an Online Survey Tool?

Before diving into the answer to the above question, I want to ask one question from those businessmen who are using the conventional method of collecting customer feedback. 

The feedback results you are getting from the conventional means are helping you to make informed decisions? No, Right? So, that’s why you need an Online Survey Tool. Besides automation in the workflow, survey tools ensure other crucial benefits like: 

• Ensures Flexibility in Survey Designing - There are various elements that together make an ideal customer feedback survey. An online survey tool provides an extensive array of online survey templates that cover every element including survey templates, survey questions, and response templates.
• Captures Data Quickly - Online Survey Tool offers you an extensive range of customer feedback collection channels that capture real-time customer data quickly.
• Provides Quick & Real-Time Response - The advanced functionality of online survey software provides quick and real-time responses so that you can swiftly address the customers’ concerns and mitigate the adverse impact of it. 

How to Choose an Online Survey Tool For Your Business?   

Here we are compiling some must-have features that every online survey tool should have. Consider these features while choosing an online survey tool:

1. Multi-Channel Distribution

Web and digital growth have provided customers with diverse options when it comes to choosing a medium to contact businesses or sellers. So, this gives businesses a chance to reach their customers through different channels including email, social media, SMS, website, etc. 

Here, Online Survey Tool enters into the play. It provides multiple channels where you can easily distribute customer feedback surveys to your audience.

Some Best Survey Distribution Channels Where Customers are Easily Available:

• Online Survey Channels - Online Survey Tool provides you with various options to reach your customers and capture real-time responses. You can embed online surveys on your website, share web surveys via SMS and Email. You can also embed your survey via QR code, through which customers can scan it and give feedback.
• Email Survey Channel - Online survey tool works as an Email Survey Software that enables you to create customized email surveys and embed surveys in the email itself. It enables you to send Email surveys in bulk by connecting survey tools to your systems via APIs and Webhooks.
• SMS Survey Channel - 89%of consumers choose SMS as a channel to communicate with a business. (Trumpia). The online survey tool enables you to automate the flow of SMS surveys at different customers’ interaction touchpoints including post-transaction, post-delivery, etc by connecting your systems with it via APIs and Webhooks integration.
• Tablet & Kiosk Based Survey Channel - Online Survey Tool enables you to set up a Tablet & kiosk mode of survey collection at your locations for your customers. You can also hand over tablets and set up as a touchscreen kiosk without a WiFi connection.

2. Customization & Branding

Look at the given picture: 

If you get an email survey like this, with such a brand name, will you not attend this survey? Of course, you’ll attend this feedback survey. Why? Because it is initiated by Sony, a renowned brand. 

I think this instance is enough for you to understand the importance of customizing your survey with the brand elements. It helps you to maximize the response rate of your survey. Online Survey Tool provides the White-Labeled Survey option that enables you to control the look and feel of your survey form. This helps you to represent your brand image while respondents fill out surveys.

3. Varied Question Types

The biggest concern in the survey is the response rate. Usually, respondents abandoned the surveys and the main reason behind this rejection is Survey Question. Asking an irrelevant question or wrong question on wrong timing can destroy the whole purpose of conducting surveys. So, it is very important for you to add relevant questions to your survey.

Online survey tools offer Multiple Question Types that offer you an extensive range of survey questions including NPS, Likert scale, and checkboxes. Besides these questions, an online survey tool is equipped with a supported question type that offers you the right mix of close-ended and open-ended questions. There are widely 3 types of Supported Question Type:

• Multiple Choice Questions - Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) is an assessment tool in which the respondents are asked to select the best possible answer out of the different options.
• Star Rating Questions - Here respondents will get star rating to rate their experience or feedback. Higher the star higher will be satisfaction. 
• Net Promoter® Score (NPS) Questions - Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and satisfaction towards a business based on one simple question: “How likely is it that you would recommend [Organization/Product/Service] to a friend or colleague?” 

These questions will help you to make your customer Feedback survey relevant and customer-oriented.

4. Skip Logic & Branching

Skip Logic & Branching is another important feature that you should ponder while choosing an online survey tool. It enables you to skip or hide a few screens of the survey based on respondents’ answers. You can directly make your respondents land on the specific path (page or questions) based on their experience.

Skip Logic Types:

There are various touchpoints in the customer feedback survey where you need to use the Skip Logic. So, there are broadly three types of skip logic that make your survey relevant and help you to drive maximum responses.

• Question Skip Logic - This type of skip logic automatically skips respondents or customers to a specific question on a later page based on the response to a previous closed-ended question.
• Page Skip Logic - This skip logic automatically activated when respondents reach the specific page and click next. Page skip logic has no concern with the respondents’ answers.
• Advanced Branching - This Skip Logic is being widely used to disqualify those respondents or groups of respondents that aren't relevant to the survey's goals of the business.

How Skip Logics Work in a Survey:

Let's understand the anatomy of Skip Logic & Branching from the instance.

Say you want to send a  survey to 2 different groups: 

Group A - Teenagers 

Group B - Senior Citizens 

So, In this case, you’ve to create 5 pages:

• Page 1 - Introduction page that defines the survey’s goal.
• Page 2 - Posing MCQ questions to ask respondents to choose the group they belong to. Here you will apply Question Skip Logic to each answer choice.
• Page 3 - Design a question according to your survey goals that you want to ask only to Group A (Teenagers). Here you can apply Page Skip Logic to send respondents to Page 5 after clicking the Next button.
• Page 4 - Design a question according to your survey goals that you want to ask only to Group B (Senior Citizens). You can use Page Skip Logic to send respondents to Page 5 after clicking the Next button.
• Page 5 - On this last page of the survey you can ask any common question you want to ask from both the groups. 

5. Multilingual Surveys

Did You Know? Around 75% of the world’s population do not speak English. Now what? How can I survey those customers who don’t understand English?  

Worry not!! Now language is no more a challenge for a business when it comes to surveying customers from different parts of the country who speak different languages. An ideal Online Survey Tool enables you to create and manage multilingual surveys efficiently.

Various online survey apps or tools are available with the multilingual functionality that enables you to add more survey languages to your survey and provide your own translations. When it comes to analyzing the multilingual survey results, all the responses are merged as one single data set. You can also export all responses data in XLS, or SPSS format.

6. Ability to Embed Surveys

Convincing to the B2B audience to fill surveys is tougher than a B2C audience. Why? When we send a survey link either through SMSes or Emails to the B2B or B2C audiences, they ignore the survey as they have to open the survey on the browser and wait for the page to load. So, this seems a time taking process to them, as a result, they opt-out. 

Thus, to invite the maximum open rate and increase the response rate of your survey, you can also think to embed your surveys in the email body itself or on your website at different touchpoints like the post-order and post-payment page. This way of surveying customers will also save the time of your respondents and you will be able to get maximum responses in a short span of time.   

A great way to increase email survey responses is immersing customer feedback surveys within the email. Embedded Email Surveys are email surveys where a question of your survey is inserted within the email body itself and sent. You can use an Online Survey Tool to embed your surveys in the email body that enables your respondents to quickly fill the survey in the email body itself.

7. APIs Integration

When it comes to surveying customers in bulk, triggering surveys at the right time to the right respondents is quite challenging. Sending relevant surveys at the correct touchpoint at the right time helps you to get the maximum response rate.    

So, with the help of an online survey tool, you can easily integrate your system with other CRM, third-party apps, and marketing automation software. By using custom APIs and Weehbook, Mailchimp, Zapier, Twilio you can integrate your system and automate the flow of surveys at different customer interaction touchpoints.

8. User & Domain Management

Check the User & Domain Management feature while choosing an online survey tool. It enables you to freely add another user to a domain or a new domain to an existing account. This helps you to manage your surveys and their responses efficiently without investing much time.

9. Quantitative Data Analysis

Quantitative Data Analysis refers to the representation or analyzing data in numerical form. These data provide valuable insights into the quantifiable aspects of your customer experience.

So, online survey software helps you to retrieve data by providing different customer feedback metrics including the Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Effort Score (CES), and Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). Let’s explore these customer feedback metrics:  

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) - Net Promoter Score is a leading customer feedback metric introduced by Fred Reichheld of Bain & Company in the year 2003. It helps you to gauge the loyalty level of customers for your business. It can be gauged through a simple NPS Question that “How likely would you be to recommend our (PRODUCT/SERVICE/BRAND) to a friend or relative?” Here, customers are provided with a score scale from 0 to 10 to range their willingness to recommend. 
• Customer Effort Score (CES) - This is another customer feedback metric that was incepted by CEB (now Gartner) to surveying customers and determine their efforts experience. It can be gauged by posing a simple question - “To what extent do you agree with the following statement: The company made it easy for me to handle my problems." Customers are provided with the scale that ranges from 1-7 to rate their effort experience. 
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) - The Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) metric helps you to track how satisfied customers are with your organization’s products or services and customer experience you are providing. It can be gauged through a simple question - “How satisfied were you with your experience?” Here customers scale their satisfaction level on the scales of 1 – 3, 1 – 5, or 1 – 10 or on the scale of agree/disagree.

10. Qualitative Data Analysis

Analyzing the quality of anything is always being a challenge for the analyst, especially when it comes to customers’ survey data. So, online survey apps provide you with various parameters to analyze the quality of the survey data, one among them is Feedback Word & Text Analysis.

In this word & text analysis system, you can analyze the words (positive & negative) from comments and responses. Based on the analysis, you can easily understand the reason and psychology behind why your customer has provided negative or positive (quantitative) feedback. This helps you to quickly identify the concerns of your customers and swiftly address their concerns.

11. Real-Time Tracking & Instant Report 

Based on the data collected, a company or organization can make informed decisions about their business. The significance, quality, and freshness of data totally depend on the two most important things, one is accuracy and another is the promptness of data availability. Thus, an Online Survey System works best to serve both motives.

Online survey software is equipped with advanced functionalities that can enable you to conduct, collect, manage, and analyze data quickly. Be it market information, lead generation data, demographical data, data related to patient profiles, employee-related data, survey app captures reliable and real-time actionable data for you. With instant alerts and reports, you can quickly identify the problem areas and address them at the right time.

12. Ability to Close Feedback Loop

Since you are collecting customer feedback then it is obvious that you’ll get negative feedback or negative scoring from some of your unhappy customers. So, here you need to quickly address them and figure out the solutions to mitigate the impact of negative feedback on business. This is commonly known as Closing the Feedback Loop. 

Why closing the feedback loop is important for your business? According to a study, 57% of consumers said they share a negative experience with their friends and colleagues, whereas 42% of them stated they’d recommend a product/service. 

So, leaving your unhappy customers like this can create a big risk to your business as they spread bad word of mouth for your brand. So, choose an online survey tool that allows you to quickly follow-up your unhappy customers and close your feedback loop. 

If your online survey system is equipped with the closing feedback loop feature, you can quickly share the negative feedback among the team and tell them to quickly contact them to identify their issues and address them. This further helps your business to improve the customer experience of your unhappy customers and turn them to happy customers.