Consumer Surveys » Consumer Satisfaction Survey

Consumer satisfaction surveys allow you to collect feedback about your product from your consumers. A well designed consumer satisfaction survey will help you understand your customers’ needs and desires and can provide valuable information that can direct your marketing strategy. These surveys can help you gain insight as to why people choose your product over your competitors, where they shop, and their buying habits. Reveal attitudes about your product and how those attitudes affect shopping habits.

Survey Goal:

If you are wondering what type of adjustments you need to make to your product to better meet your customers’ needs, then there is no better way to find out than asking them. Consumer surveys allow you to efficiently collect this data in a timely and affordable manner.

Consumer surveys can also build good will and show your customers that you care. Understanding your consumers’ needs and wants leads to satisfied customers. Satisfied customers lead to higher profits.

Survey Questions

Survey questions must be carefully worded. A poorly worded question will greatly increase the chance of response error and limit the usefulness of the survey data you collect. Designing a good survey means only selecting those questions that meet your survey goal.

For a more comprehensive approach to data collection, you might want to include both quantitative (forced-choice questions, such as yes or no, or true or false) and qualitative questions (open-ended questions that give respondents a chance to write their thoughts and feelings).

Survey questions must be concise and should not lead the respondent to a particular response. For easier analysis and interpretation, ask multiple choice rather than open-ended questions. Also, ask about existing behavior since existing behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

If you need to segment your data for marketing purposes you will want to collect user demographic information such as:

• Gender
• Age Range
• By age, how many people live in their household
• Home zip code
• Maritial status
• Highest level of formal education
• Household annual income

To help identify your consumers buying habits you might ask:

• Did you purchase our product in a store or online?
• How long have you been a customer?
• What products of ours do you use?
• How frequently do you use our products?

If you are trying to identify how your customers feel about your product, their needs and what sets your product apart from others you might ask:

• How important were each of the following attributes in your decision to purchase our product?
• What makes our product unique from our competitors?
• Compared with competitors, where do we rank in this specialty?
• If we aren’t your first choice, who is and why?
• What do you want or need most from this type of product?
• How can we make this product better?

Be careful not to make your survey too long so as to avoid survey fatigue. Remember that your respondents will only be willing to spend a limited amount of time on your survey, so only ask the most important questions.

Survey Distribution

Before distributing your survey, consider the minimum number of surveys you need to draw a valid conclusion. The University of Wisconsin uses this equation to calculate the distribution number:

# of surveys distributed = required minimum number returned / expected response rate

For example, if you target the minimum of 400 completed surveys and expect a response rate of 30% your calculation would be:

400 / .30 = 1333 surveys distributed

When possible, consider offering incentives for participation to improve response rates. Be sure to thank your respondents at the end of your survey.

Survey Example:

You can start your consumer survey from scratch or user our Consumer Survey Template to get started. Our survey templates are completely customizable so feel free to add your logo and brand style.

Click image to explore this survey example

Survey Reports:

Our interactive reports are real-time and make it easy to sort through your data. We provide summary, comparison, cross Tab and TURF reports. You can also filter your results for a specific question or date range.

Click image to explore this interactive report

Use our Cross Tab Report to compare specific demographics to a specific question. This can reveal patterns for each group. In the example below, we are comparing gender with product satisfaction.

Media Management Center

ASQ