Customer experience has had a major haul over the years. It has come from generic long format questionnaires to short in-app surveys. However, there are places that still use traditional methods of online survey. While these are tedious and time consuming, there are pros and cons for the same. In this blog, we will discuss the pros and cons of online traditional surveys.

What is A Traditional Online Survey?

Traditional online surveys are questionnaires that contain a long list of questions based on certain topics. The external links are shared over emails, web browsers or via plain texts. Online surveys have various purposes, length and different formats. These questionnaires include both qualitative and quantitative questions. 

5 Advantages of Online Surveys 

1. High survey completion rate:

Upgrading the way you collect feedback can bring high response rates. This happens when you use a modern approach to collect user insights via new age mediums. These mediums are mobile friendly, they are in-moment in terms of functionality and interactive in nature. These features also appeal to the new age audience and keep up with the latest platforms. All of this collectively brings more response rate.

2. Get genuine customer data faster:

An engaged customer answering a feedback form on a faster platform will give more genuine responses. An upgraded feedback platform seeks qualitative data or open ended questions. This brings rich data, genuine responses, and improves overall data accuracy. Latest upgrades of offering multilingual surveys also improves data accuracy since it represents an audience that marketers would otherwise ignore via traditional routes of probing.

3. Faster analytics of customer behavior:

Innovative online surveys can provide businesses with a wealth of information on customer behavior that traditional surveys are unable to capture. By opting for faster platforms, conversational nature of survey questions, curating goal oriented questions for target audiences, businesses can get a goldmine of data. Giving the freedom to respond via photos, audio, video formats, marketers can better understand customer emotions, preferences and pain points through the customer journey.

4. Easy to design and cost-effective:

Thanks to multiple free online survey makers, marketers can access pre-designed survey templates easily. These survey templates are tested, simple to comprehend and faster to deploy. You can instantly curate a net promoter score survey, capture customer satisfaction metrics in a few clicks. Due to the advent of artificial intelligence, the cost of making a survey is currently affordable for company budgets. You can create instant questionnaires in a few clicks, customize it and share it with your respondents.

5. Compatible across multiple devices:

The current online surveys can be optimized to be compatible across multiple desktop and mobile devices. People can access the online questionnaires and answer them on the go. This is easier to reach out to your customers who are miles away and spread across regions. Multiple devices now allow collecting customer feedback safely and effectively.

The 6 Disadvantages Of Traditional Online Surveys

There are certain online surveys that are not too effective or engaging- think about static email surveys. This method of collecting responses from people might not be too effective. Additionally, these surveys often fail to capture the full range of customer experiences and emotions. This can limit insights into customer behavior. Here are some of the major drawbacks to using certain types of online surveys:

1. Poor survey completion rate with respondent fatigue:

Respondent fatigue is a common problem with specific static online surveys. This means that the respondent ceases the interest to complete a survey. They could send a skewed response in the hope to finish it off quickly. This can give gross misleading data, inaccurate opinions and most often, lesser response in general.

2. Long surveys give low response rates:

Low response rates are a significant challenge with static online surveys. Due to constant information overload, people may not have the time or mental bandwidth to fill out lengthy feedback forms. This makes it challenging for businesses to gather genuine feedback from respondents. Low response rate is a major drawback when you genuinely need honest survey data.

3. Generic surveys lack personalization:

Generic and irrelevant questions asked in traditional online forms often lead to low response rates. Traditional online surveys might come with a set of predefined questions. Certain survey templates that are impersonal and don’t have an open ended response section, do not feel personalized. To capture the individual experiences of customers, personalized surveys can be a valuable tool that yields more insightful feedback.

4. Email surveys are time consuming:

The time resource for conducting email surveys can often be prohibitive for businesses. Additionally, if these surveys are shared via slower browsers, it can get time consuming. It is not always feasible to chase every customer to respond to a survey. To allocate resources better, businesses can opt for a faster means of response collection via WhatsApp surveys or Facebook messenger surveys.

5. Survey fraud from false answers:

You cannot always be sure that people are genuine with their responses. Disinterested participants can give you fake or randomly select answers. People love a survey incentive. They might fill the questionnaires since they expect a reward at the end. This can bring more survey responses but lesser accurate answers that you actually need. Online surveys do not have a supervisor to watch you take the survey. So you might not be able to trust the data completely.

6. People are hesitant to share personal information:

People have privacy concerns from sharing their email address, name and other demographic details online. They might shy away from answering your questionnaire. Online surveys could get easier to hack on a compromised server. People might be worried about their details getting stolen for online scams. This can dissuade a large population from filling details especially if the surveys are not from a trust-worthy source.

5 Design Tips to Create Responsive Online Surveys

1. Keep it mobile-friendly and easily accessible:

The goal is to enhance the user experience of every respondent answering customer feedback questionnaires. This can happen when templates are compatible across devices. This will enable any respondent to answer inmoment without having to face browser based obstacles.

2. Use conversational language and goal-oriented questions:

The only way to get a high response rate is to ask the right questions that will help businesses fulfil a goal-oriented market research. Do not intimidate participants. The bigger goal is to keep your questionnaire audience friendly. Encourage people to answer it without any preconceived notions. Keep it conversational and not interrogative.

3. Offer open-ended questions for qualitative data:

People are multidimensional. Give them the chance to express via photos, audio and video format, and pdf documents. This can give you clear and better insights on their emotions, needs and expectations. Conduct sentiment analysis on these responses using AI tools for faster insights.

4. Offer multilingual options for a wider audience:

Your audience is spread across the globe. Using an English survey can hamper the chances of getting the responses you need. To cater to a wider audience and increase responses from non-native speakers, offer surveys in multiple languages. This increases participation rate and you can increase brand loyalty on a global platform.

5. Consistent branding of your surveys can keep credibility:

Branded surveys have more credibility over unbranded online surveys. Keep it consistent with your brand image and design to get more people to respond to the questionnaires. This can also build trust among people who are usually hesitant to share information or experience online.

6. Offer survey rewards to encourage participation:

Survey rewards and survey incentives encourage greater participation. You can use monetary or non-monetary survey rewards depending on your products, services and the customer base you are serving. Keep it appropriate enough to encourage a high response rate. 

Conclusion

There are many ways to gather consumer data smartly. This can be done by an interactive approach of online surveys. Online surveys are upgrading to keep customer engagement higher. Since people’s attention span might dwindle, a new age marketer must look at interactive tools to get people to complete surveys. If you want a high response rate and interactive survey platforms, consider Merren. View all analytics on the Merren CX dashboard. Try our 14 day free plan on Merren. 

You can also create an instant survey template question with our AI survey builder. You can get custom made templates in a few clicks.