The Most Common Mistakes When Conducting Customer Surveys
Posted: Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:29 am
Surveys can open up a “world of new opportunities” for you, but they can also lead you astray. To avoid customer surveys that disappoint you, try to avoid the following mistakes:
1. Create and launch a non-targeted survey
It is hardly a wise decision to conduct healthtrax corporate email list a survey just because your competitors are doing it. Any research is conducted for a specific purpose.
Look at customer surveys from this perspective: I haven't done enough and I can't say exactly what the purpose of the survey is, why should customers participate? I launched the survey "just like that", why can't they ignore it or answer at random?
There is no point in bothering clients unnecessarily and asking them to participate in surveys that have no purpose. This often leads to the fact that really important research may go unnoticed and remain without respondents.
2. Attracting non-target audience
Knowing your target audience is the key to effective marketing. This applies to surveys and research in general. No questions, even the most correct ones, will be useful if you don’t know who you’re addressing them to.
The Most Common Mistakes When Conducting Customer Surveys
Source: shutterstock.com
Before creating customer surveys, ask yourself, “Who do I want to ask?” Do you want to talk to frustrated buyers who have considered a product but haven’t purchased it? To those who have recently made a purchase or are making a first-time purchase? To loyal customers or to perpetually dissatisfied customers? In other words, the key to success is to thoroughly analyze your target audience through preliminary marketing research.
3. Incorrect selection of answers
Whether you’re conducting surveys or A/B testing, the wrong sample size can create big problems. If you collect too much data, you’ll spend a huge amount of time processing and analyzing the results. If, on the contrary, you collect too little data, your research will be useless due to inaccuracy.
Read also!
"Analysis of potential clients: traditional and innovative methods"
Read more
You need to find the optimal combination of the number of respondents and the possible error. In other words, you need to get enough responses that you can identify trends without creating erroneous patterns.
4. Using the wrong questions
Not everyone is able to choose the right people in time. But if you try a little, you will gain this gift. To do this, you can use our recommendations:
Use the respondents' vocabulary in your question.
Add verbs to the formulation that motivate the action to be taken. For example, compete, create, plan, cause.
Add emotional triggers.
Start your survey with the most important questions.
Put the survey in context (users should have no doubts about taking the survey).
The point is that the quality of the questions determines the quality of the result. It doesn't work any other way.
5. Erroneous data analysis
The fact is that there is simply no universal method for data analysis. When choosing a technology and ways to obtain the necessary information, you take into account many factors (target audience, sample size, survey purpose, etc.). However, you cannot conduct an analysis using any method. You need to develop your own standardized procedure for this process.
1. Create and launch a non-targeted survey
It is hardly a wise decision to conduct healthtrax corporate email list a survey just because your competitors are doing it. Any research is conducted for a specific purpose.
Look at customer surveys from this perspective: I haven't done enough and I can't say exactly what the purpose of the survey is, why should customers participate? I launched the survey "just like that", why can't they ignore it or answer at random?
There is no point in bothering clients unnecessarily and asking them to participate in surveys that have no purpose. This often leads to the fact that really important research may go unnoticed and remain without respondents.
2. Attracting non-target audience
Knowing your target audience is the key to effective marketing. This applies to surveys and research in general. No questions, even the most correct ones, will be useful if you don’t know who you’re addressing them to.
The Most Common Mistakes When Conducting Customer Surveys
Source: shutterstock.com
Before creating customer surveys, ask yourself, “Who do I want to ask?” Do you want to talk to frustrated buyers who have considered a product but haven’t purchased it? To those who have recently made a purchase or are making a first-time purchase? To loyal customers or to perpetually dissatisfied customers? In other words, the key to success is to thoroughly analyze your target audience through preliminary marketing research.
3. Incorrect selection of answers
Whether you’re conducting surveys or A/B testing, the wrong sample size can create big problems. If you collect too much data, you’ll spend a huge amount of time processing and analyzing the results. If, on the contrary, you collect too little data, your research will be useless due to inaccuracy.
Read also!
"Analysis of potential clients: traditional and innovative methods"
Read more
You need to find the optimal combination of the number of respondents and the possible error. In other words, you need to get enough responses that you can identify trends without creating erroneous patterns.
4. Using the wrong questions
Not everyone is able to choose the right people in time. But if you try a little, you will gain this gift. To do this, you can use our recommendations:
Use the respondents' vocabulary in your question.
Add verbs to the formulation that motivate the action to be taken. For example, compete, create, plan, cause.
Add emotional triggers.
Start your survey with the most important questions.
Put the survey in context (users should have no doubts about taking the survey).
The point is that the quality of the questions determines the quality of the result. It doesn't work any other way.
5. Erroneous data analysis
The fact is that there is simply no universal method for data analysis. When choosing a technology and ways to obtain the necessary information, you take into account many factors (target audience, sample size, survey purpose, etc.). However, you cannot conduct an analysis using any method. You need to develop your own standardized procedure for this process.