We all know the benefits of creating a customer survey- find out what you’re doing right, and what you’re not so you can run your business the best way possible. What everyone doesn’t know is how to make a survey that asks the right questions, in the right way, to get you the responses you need to evaluate your business accurately. Read these tips to make sure your next survey is the best one yet.

1. Use incentives. People are busy and don’t necessary have a lot of free time. Taking your survey might be more important to them if you give them a reason to make it a priority. Think about offering a small prize, coffee gift card or free t-shirt with the company logo on it for completing the survey. Any prize that doubles as branding/advertising is a win, win. You could also give a percentage off their next purchase to keep them coming back. If you have no idea where to get promo items made for your business, we featured a few we have heard of in our 4 Tips to Market your Business on a Budget.

2. Don’t be shy about using the tools designed to help you. Stumped on how to write best questions? The survey tool SurveyMonkey, has a “Questions Bank” to help you when you don’t know where to start.

3. Use a 5 point scale instead of Yes or No. An example is, “On a scale of 1-5 (1 being least convenient and 5 being most convenient) how convenient are our new service hours?”. You worked hard to get these responses, so you want to be sure you are getting the most information out of the answers. When using a 5 point scale, you can better judge whether respondents are in the middle on a particular question or feel strongly one way or another.

4. Make your survey engaging. You want to keep your customers entertained while they are taking the survey. Using software like Opinion Stage, you can feature images throughout, so it is not just a run of the mill boring survey. Check out our HVAC History Quiz for some layout inspiration. Pixabay offers free images to use if you don’t have a digital library at your fingertips.

5. Keep it short. Try your hardest not to include more than 10-15 questions. Even if it is the most engaging survey with the greatest prize waiting at the end, if you craft too many questions there is a good chance people will quit before they are finished.

After reading these tips you should be a survey making machine. Put your newfound survey making knowledge to use and start learning what your customers want to help you bring your business to the next level.