How to create surveys and polls for your business

Surveys and polls are predominant when conducting research. They serve the purpose of gathering public or mass opinion over an issue of concern. Jotting down the right questions will lead you to collect reliable and detailed answers. It can be a hectic process altogether. Firstly, to create a survey, you need to know the types of survey questions that you must ask and the range of topics or areas it covers. 

You can include questions like open-ended questions where you can ask your respondents to add personal comments as well. For questions that cannot have long personal opinions, you can use close-ended questions for that. These close-ended questions can have multiple-choice options, a Likert scale, a simple yes/no question. Your homework does not end here. Before asking any questions via survey or polls, you need to know how to ask it. 

So this article talks about the prerequisites of creating polls and surveys for your business.  

• Include more close-ended questions 

These are the types of questions that take less time and effort of the respondent. It involves questions that simply involve choosing from the options or rating them. Whereas open-ended questions require more time and effort to answer. Some people might also hesitate to write or share their opinions. So before you sit to research something for your business and conduct a survey, you should focus more on using open-ended questions and then share your poll using social media connectivity. 

 

• Use balanced options

 Respondents will look for the most appropriate option according to their opinion. Thus, keeping a balanced and well-thought set of options will help you and them too. It will ensure convenience for the respondents and will guarantee credibility. You must ensure that your answer choices are balanced and not biased with any personal opinions. Writing a good set of survey questions means including all the possible options of the spectrum. Say, for instance, you need to include the worst, average, and the best range of options on the Likert scale. 

 

• Include more optional questions

It may be possible that the respondents are not able to answer all of your questions due to a lack of awareness or interest. Also, some questions might not sound comfortable to them. You must ensure that your questions make the respondents reply with a good amount of interest.

• Include neutral questions

While conducting a fair survey for your business, you must ensure that your questions are not leading the respondents. Try not to influence them with your leading questions/options. Do not let your questions reflect your views or opinions. 

 

• Do not confuse your respondents

Confusing your respondents will lead your survey in the wrong direction. It is equally wrong as misleading them with your bias. Hence, you need to keep your questions simple and easy to understand. This will prevent them from answering in a misinformed manner. For instance, do not include two different topics in one single question. Trying to cover more than one topic in one question might confuse them and you will get an inappropriate answer. Instead, you can try including two different topics into two close-ended questions that might be easy for the respondents as well.  

In conclusion, creating surveys and polls require sheer efforts for jotting down the right and unbiased questions and options. Your bias or opinion should have nothing to do with the survey. This way you will get the most accurate and reliable answers. The process of polling and voting becomes more reliable using the above approaches.