In this blog post, we look at how online surveys can help collect market research data, the question types you might include, and how to go about creating your own online questionnaire.
If you want to collect feedback or opinions from your customers, online questionnaires are a great way to get responses on specific areas that interest you. The below sections explore what an online questionnaire is, the benefits of using one, and more.
Table of Contents:
- What is an online questionnaire?
- Benefits of an online questionnaire
- What are online questionnaires used for?
- How to create an online questionnaire with quantilope’s research platform
What is an online questionnaire?
An online questionnaire (which can be turned into an online survey) is a form that contains a set of survey questions designed to answer your business’s research objectives. The research objectives will often be based on a company-wide business question - like whether you should expand a product line, create a new service, or adjust your pricing. The ultimate aim of any online questionnaire is to collect survey data that sheds light on a business issue and helps guide decision-making. With this in mind, it’s important to consider your research objectives before starting to create a questionnaire, to ensure that the questions you’re asking will answer company objectives.
Teams can structure their online questionnaire in many ways, but will almost always want to gather key demographic data such as your respondents’ age, gender, geographical location, income level, and so on; this enables researchers to see how responses to key questions differ by certain groups of people. The remainder of the questions will be tailored to the team’s unique research objectives; for example, a brand might want to use the remaining questions to ask for customer feedback on a product’s performance, brand image, competitor preference, or a new concept idea.
Many questionnaires also include basic question types known as usage and attitude (U&A) question types. These questions aim to understand consumers’ behaviors (where people shop, how often they go to the store, etc.) as well as their attitudes (what they think of store environments or products). Beyond U&A questions, questionnaires can also build in questions around advanced methods (such as MaxDiff or Conjoint) to dive even further into the customer experience.
For teams of researchers that feel lost when it comes to online questionnaire design, many platforms offer online survey tools such as survey templates that include all standard questions for a particular type of study. This can be really useful if you’re new to survey creation, or if you want to be sure you’ve thought of all pertinent questions.
The sections below explore two types of online questionnaires: quantitative and qualitative. Regardless of which type, both can be hosted on an online survey platform - a place where questionnaires can be built, sent out to participants, monitored while in field, analyzed, and reported on. The link to an online questionnaire is sent to respondents via email, text, on a website pop-up screen, or on social media. Respondents can then access the questionnaire on different types of electronic devices, including mobile devices, making it convenient to complete at any time.
Quantitative Surveys
Quantitative online questionnaires can include both closed-end and open-end question types. For quantifiable responses (i.e. metrics you want to put into numerical values or percentages), researchers will use yes/no questions, rating scales, or multiple-choice lists. To gain more spontaneous customer views, and to ensure that respondents give all feedback they want to give, researchers will capture open-end responses which give respondents the freedom to type in an answer (and however long of an answer) they feel necessary to answer the question. For example, an open-end question might ask a respondent: “Which words do you associate with brand X?’. In a quantitative survey, these open-end responses can also be quantified into word clouds, topic modeling charts, or bar charts that combine similar answers into keywords or categories.
Qualitative Surveys
Some survey companies also offer qualitative methodologies for online questionnaires, allowing for spontaneous video customer feedback. Qualitative surveys might be sent out in the form of questionnaires, to which participants answer through video-recorded submissions rather than typing in their answers or selecting close-ended responses. This type of research allows a team of researchers to hear from respondents in their own words and interpret their body language/emotional reactions.
Benefits of an online questionnaire
Once a team identifies a business question and has established its research objectives, it’s time to decide how to go about conducting the research. They could opt for a focus group, ethnography study, phone survey, or several other formats of research, but the points below explain why online questionnaires offer a variety of benefits:
Reach more people
It’s far easier (and cheaper) to send out emails and texts or post survey links on websites and social media than it is to gather a group of qualified respondents for a focus group or reach enough participants by phone. Today, consumers are constantly on their phones or electronic devices, so why not reach them where they already are?
Online surveys allow participants to provide their valuable feedback during their morning commute, while waiting on dinner in the oven, or while laying down in bed at night. With this flexibility, there is a far greater pool of potential respondents to access than simply those that are available at certain times of the day.
Better targeting
As online questionnaires allow researchers to reach a larger and more varied audience, researchers can better target certain audiences for their studies. Compared to offline approaches, niche audiences are much easier to reach with online surveys because their profiles are (anonymously) saved and tagged for certain credentials that future researchers may want to tap. For example, by online survey panels asking consumers where they live, outdoor-wear companies can then target those who live in cold climates for their future studies. This is just one example of the many ways online surveys and the use of online survey panels allow for close targeting of niche subgroups.
Online surveys also allow researchers to set quotas on certain demographics and ensure their sample is representative - to avoid making biased claims in their final reporting.
Real-time data
Online questionnaire platforms with AI-driven data collection and analytics are designed to process survey responses in real time as they come in. As such, findings are available to researchers immediately so they can get an early read on how respondents are answering questions.
Compare this to a project using offline questionnaires, where results take a while to compile and comb through, and you’ll quickly see how real-time results help make business decisions in a fraction of the time.
Enjoyable user experience
Aside from the behind-the-scenes benefits of online questionnaire research (i.e. reaching more people, reaching the right people, and monitoring data in real-time), online questionnaires also have user benefits for the participants taking the survey.
Respondents tend to feel more positive about online questionnaires than offline, given that they have a game-like setup, can be completed at convenient times, and are automatically routed to relevant questions (thanks to online survey programming logic). All these aspects make for an enjoyable user experience - requiring minimal effort from the participant for highly-valuable feedback.
What are online questionnaires used for?
Online questionnaires are used for a great variety of research project types. Below are a few examples:
Brand identity questionnaire
A brand identity survey is a set of questions designed to establish what the brand stands for and how the company is conveyed to a target audience - such as the brand’s voice, personality, and values. This type of questionnaire is a great way to understand what current customers think about your brand and if their responses are in line with the type of image your brand hopes to achieve; if it is, your brand identity is already strong and you don’t have to make too many drastic changes to your current strategy. Contrarily, if consumers’ feedback about your brand is not in line with expectations, you know where to make tweaks to your current branding to hopefully move the needle in the right direction.
Your brand identity is not only what your customers think, it’s also what competitors and third- parties that work with you think about your brand as well - which are important to consider. Findings from any brand identity questionnaire can be used to guide branding and communication decisions.
Concept testing survey
Concept testing surveys are used by businesses to explore consumer reactions to new ideas before they hit the market. These could be new products, websites, product or service features, advertising materials, or any other aspects of brand communication. Consumer feedback is used to determine the overall reaction to a concept, as well as the finer details of which aspects work and which do not. Findings are used to guide the innovation and development plans of a business.
Online questionnaires are uniquely suited to show participants a variety of concept iterations and test reactions to each. This might be testing several website design layouts, product packaging prototypes, or several ideas for a new brand logo.
Customer satisfaction survey
Customer satisfaction surveys aim to identify how happy customers are with different aspects of a brand, product, or service. Certain types of customer satisfaction surveys known as Net Promoter Scores (NPS) can further measure which types of customers are ‘promoters’ of your brand, product, or service (with satisfaction levels 9 or higher on a 10-point scale), and who are ‘detractors’ (those who give your brand, product, or service a score of 6 or lower on a 10-point scale). Participants of NPS surveys who give a rating of 7 or 8 are simply ‘passive’.
Customer satisfaction surveys might also include questions on satisfaction levels with competitors so that businesses can see where they are currently performing well and where they need to improve.
Employee satisfaction survey
Employee satisfaction surveys are similar to customer satisfaction surveys but are distributed amongst the employees of an organization. While consumer insights are extremely valuable for brands, they also need to have a gauge of how their own staff is feeling about the business. Employee sentiment can severely impact an organization’s success; a miserable department is reflected in work ethic, the same way that satisfied employees are dedicated to producing high-quality work.
Whether good or bad, employee satisfaction levels undoubtedly impact a company’s performance and how customers perceive the business. Findings from these types of online questionnaires can help retain good talent by identifying areas in the business where employees hope to see improvements.
How to create an online questionnaire with quantilope’s research platform
quantilope’s end-to-end survey platform offers a simple way to create surveys, collect data, and get results fast. Its survey builder allows the user to create a questionnaire easily using drag-and-drop functionality. For clients less interested in building surveys from scratch, the platform also offers a variety of survey templates (all of which are customizable) that provide standard questions to include for different types of research to ensure the right questions are asked.
Whether a business is looking to reach hundreds or thousands of respondents, quantilope’s platform is panel agnostic, meaning clients can source participants through an online survey panel provider, or from their own sources.
When it comes time for analysis and reporting, quantilope’s survey software is fully automated leaving no manual charting or analysis to undergo, and no waiting around for a data team to process and send over the findings. As soon as a survey is launched and participants complete the survey, quantilope’s AI-driven analytics tools update charts in real time. Charts can be added to an interactive dashboard with just a few clicks, which includes automatic significance testing (visible by hovering over a chart with the mouse). The dashboard is shareable with a single link, making it accessible to any team member or stakeholder.
Whether it’s understanding brand identity, running customer or employee feedback surveys, concept testing, or any other type of research you’re looking for, quantilope’s online questionnaires offer reliable findings in a matter of days.
Get in touch to learn more about using online questionnaires to answer your important business questions:
