Do you ever wonder what your students or clients are thinking in regard to the services you offer or your performance in delivering those services? Fortunately, answers to these questions are readily obtainable in the form of a survey.
There are many ways to present a survey to your students and clients. One is with a piece of paper handed to them to fill out and return to a box in your office or via mail. Another is to use electronic methods such as sending in an email to be returned via email. Also, a survey can be presented on your website or you can offer a survey through a commercial survey app accessed online.
An often-used online survey provider is Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com). The basic service is free for 10 questions and allows 100 respondents. It interfaces with your email, website and/or social media. Using this website’s templates allows rapid preparation of your survey, including customized questions. Encryption techniques protect the data. The results can be exported to an Excel or PDF file. Email support from Survey Monkey is available 24/7.
Yet, Survey Monkey is not the only available survey app or software. A number of other apps offer similar benefits, and a few are compatible with mobile devices such as phones and tablets. Those include:
- Survey Gizmo (www.surveygizmo.com)
- QuestionPro (www.questionpro.com)
- Getfeedback (www.getfeedback.com), which also works with mobile applications
- Key Survey (www.keysurvey.com), which is compatible with mobile devices
- QuickTapSurvey (www.quicktapsurvey.com), which works with mobile devices off-line
It is often helpful to test your survey with friends or colleagues before sending it out to students and clients. Will you send it out in an email blast or provide access to the survey on your website? Website access might be problematic as it allows anyone visiting your website to participate despite the lack of relevance of their opinions for the information you’re trying to discover. In addition, unless identification of each respondent is required on the website, you won’t know if you are receiving responses from your target group.
Timing of survey presentation is also important since that influences who will respond. For example, it doesn’t help to send it out when everyone is away on spring break or during the holidays. You’ll want to set a deadline for people to answer the survey so you can compile the information in a timely manner.
With the many online survey application options available, it is easy to prepare a survey and distribute it to your students and clients. Information gleaned in this manner can help you better build student and client loyalty to shore up the bottom line of your business.
