Setting goals and objectives for your surveys

“What is the most important step in building or conducting surveys?”

This question has received various answers; some say it’s the questions that are asked, the target audience, and some also say it’s the means or channels via which you deliver the surveys, and so on. But, most often, the most obvious answer is the last that comes to mind. 

Why?

Because survey goals help you ask the right questions to the right people, choose the appropriate channels to share your surveys, and achieve useful actionable results. 

Survey goals and survey objectives

Let’s start with an example, and for fun, how about you bring in the main character’s energy with you? 

You are the Customer Success Leader in your company. Your customer churn rate has increased in the last quarter, and you are now looking for ways to reverse this damage. You need to know why customers churn, what is affecting churn, how many customers have churned in the last year, and how you can improve customer retention. 

Your goal is: “To understand why my customers churn”

Your objectives could be: 

  • “To assess various factors that lead to cancellation such as bugs, competitors, performance, pricing, support, etc.”
  • “To determine the percentage of customers that stopped using the product within the last 6 months.”

You can set your goals based on your intent for conducting the surveys. The goal of the survey is to answer the ‘why’ for conducting the research. It’s about what you want to achieve and knowing what is unknown currently. Once you have set the goal, you can break it down into objectives. Survey objectives can be considered action items to help you achieve your end goal.

 


 

The importance of survey goals and objectives

  • Ask the right questions to the right people

Survey goals and objectives provide the clarity you need to ask questions that will help you understand the problem areas. These also help omit ambiguous or irrelevant questions, improving the overall survey experience. 

  • Minimize chances of random efforts being made

Once you have the clarity, survey goals and objectives help build an effective strategy, allocate resources, and minimize your chances of going haywire.

  • Maintain survey progress more efficiently 

Having your goals and objectives penned down makes it easier to track progress. The goal becomes your ultimate target, and the objectives are steps or activities you perform to move slowly toward that goal. Once you’ve set your survey goals and objectives and are aware of the true purpose of the survey, the next step is to choose the right survey software. 

If you’re reading this blog before creating an NPS Survey, Freshsurvey is the perfect software for you. You get access to templates and ready question examples; you can create surveys effortlessly via channels of your choice.  

How to set up goals and objectives for your surveys

 

  • Identify business objectives: What you want to accomplish by conducting a survey, must be in sync with what the business objectives are. It can be cutting the cost of a product, improving the design or usability, adding more features, or making more revenue.

 

  • Map business objectives with survey goals: Think of ways to achieve these business objectives through a survey. For example, if you want to make more money, it can be done by selling more products or increasing the price of products. You can also conduct multiple surveys for various targets and, in the end, measure the ROI for each survey.

 

  • Define personas: Next, identify who will take the survey. Select your audience based on demographics and other parameters that the respondents must qualify for.

 

  • Build your questions: Select the right survey question types for your questionnaire that will help you collect data in the required format. For example, if you want to know the likelihood of your customers recommending your products and services to others, use NPS survey questions. 

 

 

  • Access the right reports: Once you have the responses, it’s time to generate reports. Create customized reports that highlight the data points needed for making decisions. NPS survey software like Freshsurvey helps you gather insightful NPS data and view detailed reports without the help of any data analyst.

 

  • Share insights with stakeholders: Share reports with the internal and/or external stakeholders, take action on the feedback you receive. 

 

  • Set timelines for each survey objective: Last but not least, it’s crucial to perform this exercise in a time-bound manner. Set deadlines for each step listed above to make sure you collect data and make sense of it at a point when it still holds value.

Survey goals examples

The typical customer service survey goals:

  • Identify the customers dissatisfied with our service and resolve their issues.
  • Explore opportunities to provide better support.
  • Understand how a specific interaction affected the relationship.

The common employee survey goals:

  • Measure the overall engagement and satisfaction of all employees.
  • Determine employees’ understanding of our company’s mission and values.
  • Measure the success of our current policies and procedures.
  • Understand the key drivers of team effectiveness and performance.

A startup or an SMB owner looking to understand:

  • the size of the addressable market
  • the buyer personas or customer profiles
  • the target segment’s brand preferences
  • the direct or indirect competitors
  • unmet or underserved customer needs

Usual NPS survey goals

  • Identify promoters, passives, and detractors
  • Find out ways to improve customer satisfaction
  • Open a channel of communication

Product satisfaction survey

  • Identify usage patterns and most used features
  • Ideas for new features
  • Areas of improvement
  • Open a channel of communication
  • Sales strategy and Marketing messages

Our two cents

Clarity on why a survey needs to be conducted, what needs to be found, and how the results can be used are all important factors to consider before you write your questions and gain insights. 

Got any questions on setting survey goals and objectives? Do you use any particular technique to define clear goals and objectives for your surveys? Let us know about them in the comment section below.