Surveys can be invaluable for female entrepreneurs looking to improve their business. Whether you want feedback from your team members or customers, surveys provide a simple way to collect data to help you make smarter decisions. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to effectively use surveys internally with your team and customers to gain insights that can significantly benefit your business.
As a female entrepreneur, you likely wear many hats and have endless demands on your time. It can be tempting to rely on your intuition or best guesses when evaluating your business and making decisions. However, this opens the door for blindspots, assumptions, and missed opportunities.
Implementing regular surveys allows you to supplement your own observations with unfiltered feedback directly from your employees and customers. The data provides objective insights into what’s working well and what could be improved. Most importantly, surveys enable you to base decisions on evidence rather than guesses.
Surveys are easy to create, distribute, and analyze. The small time investment pays off exponentially in the form of higher team satisfaction, increased customer loyalty, and a better understanding of your business needs. Read on to learn how to use surveys effectively to see real improvements.
There are countless ways surveys can provide value to your business.
You may have some clues about problems, but surveys allow you to quantify the issue. For example, you might think your customers have been less satisfied recently. A Net Promoter Score survey will show precisely how your net promoter score has changed over time. For internal issues, anonymous employee satisfaction surveys can surface challenges without making anyone feel singled out.
Your team members and customers may have great ideas for improving your product, services, or processes. Surveys provide a comfortable way for them to share suggestions you may have never considered.
Check the pulse of your employees and customers. Even if people seem happy, surveys can show you where satisfaction is surprisingly low so you can dig into potential causes. On the flip side, high satisfaction scores are concrete proof you’re doing something right.
Asking open-ended questions like “How could we improve our product/service?” elicits honest, constructive feedback you can use.
Repeated surveys allow you to establish baselines and quantify the impact of changes you implement. For example, send out an employee engagement survey annually to measure progress.
The reasons to use surveys are truly endless. Ultimately, they equip you with data to assess what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus your efforts to serve your team and customers better.
While surveys can provide a wealth of information, each should have a clear purpose. Be specific in what you want to learn or evaluate. This focuses the survey questions and avoids collecting meaningless data just for the sake of it.
Some typical objectives include the following:
Evaluate employee satisfaction.
Gauge customer loyalty.
Assess perceptions of your brand image.
Quantify response to a new product feature.
Measure awareness of a marketing campaign.
Get ideas for improving customer service.
Define your goals upfront so you can craft survey questions that will provide relevant insights. Don’t ask questions that provide data you aren’t going to use!
You don’t need complex or expensive software to create effective surveys. Many free or low-cost online tools allow you to build, distribute, and analyze survey results quickly. Here are some popular options.
Google’s free form builder is incredibly simple to use. Choose from a variety of templates or create your own questions from scratch. Easily customize options like question types, images, section headers, and more. You can send the survey via email or a link. Responses populate a connected spreadsheet for easy analysis.
This is one of the most well-known survey tools. There are flexible pricing plans to meet your needs. SurveyMonkey allows you to design attractive surveys and leverage features like skip logic, randomization, and branching. In-depth analytics help uncover insights.
Typeform stands out with gorgeous, interactive survey designs. Options like conversational interfaces and logic jumps make completing surveys more engaging. Real-time analytics help you monitor and understand responses.
Many other options exist, like Slido, SurveyLegend, SurveySparrow, Qualtrics, and more. Look for an affordable tool that enables you to create professional surveys quickly and easily.
Your survey questions directly impact the quality of the data. Follow these tips to get meaningful results.
Avoid confusing questions or industry jargon when surveying customers. Write concisely using terms your audience will understand. For internal surveys, provide context if needed for company-specific acronyms or terminology.
Leading questions influence the answer and result in skewed data. For example, asking, “Don’t you enjoy our customer service?” defaults to a positive response. Instead, ask, “How satisfied are you with our customer service?” and use a rating scale.
Incorporate some multiple choice, scales, rankings, and open-ended questions. This provides quantitative data as well as deeper insights. Just be judicious with open-ended questions – too many result in survey fatigue.
Keep your survey focused, but include enough variety to collect meaningful data. Pilot-test your survey with a few people representing your target audience and tweak anything that needs clarification before sending the survey out to the masses.
Once you’ve closed your survey and have all the responses, it’s time to make sense of the data.
Review response rates
Low response rates undermine results. Aim for at least a 30% response rate as a benchmark. Consider incentives to improve participation.
Look at completion rates
Did respondents finish the survey? Or did many drop off partway through? This may indicate a need for improvement in the survey design or length.
Identify overall trends
Look at topline results. What areas received high or low scores overall? Spot any surprising findings?
Analyze correlations
Are there relationships between certain questions? For example, does low satisfaction with customer service seem to be correlated to high cancellation rates?
Highlight key takeaways
Dig into your findings to call out the most critical learnings and insights from the data.
Don’t get stuck just reporting the data. Analyze it to identify opportunities for meaningful business improvements.
The real value of surveys comes from what you do next. Use your findings to spark change.
Make data-driven decisions on what to prioritize first based on pain points that surfaced in the survey responses.
Implement process improvements to address concerns raised by employees or customers.
Roll out new features or offerings customers requested.
Follow up with specific teams if their sub-scores identified problems.
Work on improving brand perception if surveys reveal misconceptions.
Take no action at all if satisfaction scores are already high! Recognize what’s working well.
Most importantly, close the loop with follow-up surveys. This demonstrates you listened, helps gauge the impact of changes, and shows an ongoing commitment to continuous improvement.
It can be challenging to gauge what’s working well in your business and where there’s room for improvement. Surveys provide a simple tool to gain an unbiased perspective from your team and customers.
With some careful planning and targeted questions, surveys deliver data-driven insights to help you address issues proactively, capitalize on new opportunities, and keep a pulse on satisfaction. Free and low-cost tools make survey creation, distribution, and analysis accessible for any business.
Make surveying a consistent part of your business strategy. The small investment of time pays off with happier employees, more loyal customers, and smarter decisions. Let data, not assumptions, guide your path to success. The feedback will prove invaluable.
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