Importance of Website Surveys To Grow Your Business

You have probably wondered how customers like your website or maybe you assume that everything is okay because business is good and traffic is coming in. Isn't it true that no news is good news?

On the other hand, running website surveys can provide you with all of that information and more about how your customers enjoy and interact with what you offer—what they think is working well and what they'd like to see improved. There is no better way to know about customer feedback than asking them directly, and indeed one of the best ways is to use website surveys.

Because website surveys are a fairly broad category, we've done the legwork for you. This guide will teach you everything you need to know about website surveys, from deciding what type of survey to run to asking the right questions to get open and honest responses.

What Are Website Surveys?

A website survey is a survey that allows you to directly solicit feedback from your customers about your website or products. You can use these surveys to collect quantitative and qualitative customer feedback from your website visitors—it's a great way to hear what your target audience and demography think.

Website surveys enable you to collect all of this information in a way that requires little time or effort from your customers while providing you with a wealth of rich, actionable data. You can use the data you collect to improve things that aren't working well, strengthen things that are working well, and zero in on your customers' top pain points and priorities.

What are the different types of website surveys?

Website surveys are used to achieve various objectives, including user research, UX optimization, understanding visitor behavior, gathering product feedback, and much more. The type of website research you conduct is determined by the goal you wish to achieve. In the online world, where businesses operate more through websites than physical stores, there are three types of website surveys:

• Pop up surveys 

When a condition triggering an event is met, pop-up website surveys pop up on visitors' browsers. This type of survey is set to appear at any point during a visitor's journey.

• Widget surveys

When you click on a widget survey, it appears as a small widget in the corner of a web page that opens up as a form. They are unobtrusive and allow website visitors to initiate a survey on their own to provide feedback whenever they see fit based on the type of experience they had on your website.

• Collapsible pop-up surveys

Pop-up surveys and widget surveys get combined in collapsible pop-up surveys. When an event, such as a pop-up survey, is triggered, they appear on the visitors' screens. Unlike pop-up surveys, however, when visitors close them, they appear as a small widget in the corner of the web page rather than disappearing completely. It allows website visitors to choose and participate in the campaign by simply clicking on the widget and entering their responses.

How can website surveys transform your business?

By using surveys regularly, you can demonstrate that you value your customers' opinions while also gaining valuable information about the types of products, services, and enhancements they are willing to pay for.

• Can Improve Understanding Of Customer Engagement

How your customers interact with your brand can significantly impact how much you sell. 

Customers enthralled by your marketing content will make more purchases with higher-order values. 

However, determining what has captivated audiences can be demanding.

A survey can provide you with the answer. It will help you understand why audiences choose your company over another. 

Furthermore, it can support future marketing opportunities and business processes to emulate when things are going well, resulting in more customers engaging with the brand.

Of course, some brands that operate across a large geographical area may face complications. Customers in one area may be engaged differently than those in another. 

However, surveys can help with this by asking qualifying questions that allow you to categorize respondents and see if your brand performs differently across your locations.

• User surveys reduce churn and increase customer retention.

How often have you heard this?

Keeping existing customers is more accessible and less expensive than acquiring new ones.

It is a standard error made by startups that they're so focused on an expansion that customer acquisition becomes their primary priority.

While expanding your customer base is a worthy goal, you must keep your current customers satisfied. It has never been easier than with user surveys. Ask your customers what they want.

What makes them happy or unhappy?

If you can keep your customers happy with your company, they will stay with you longer and convert to more of your offers.

The advantages are threefold:

• You reduce churn while increasing customer retention.
• Customer satisfaction and loyalty improve as a result of your efforts.
• You increase the lifetime value of your customers.

Website surveys enable you to make more informed business decisions.

How would you prefer to make business decisions? Based on a gut feeling or actionable user data?

It's a no-brainer that making the wrong move can cost you everything. So it is always necessary to consider the actionable survey response data while making business decisions.

Survey responses are, indeed, qualitative. Yes, most qualitative data is subjective. But so are the people you're attempting to help. They are the ones who are essential.

As a result, their feedback provides a solid foundation for making sound business decisions.

• Capture Leads and Keep them Active

Website Surveys are a great way to capture leads that help you to increase your business. You can use Lead Capture Forms on your website for this purpose. They will appear on your website to collect visitors’ data that you can use as lead prospects in the future. 

Some people aren't ready to buy when they first encounter your brand; providing educational materials is an excellent way to keep such leads active. 

It not only adds value but may also help overcome purchasing objections. 

When a prospect is ready to buy, the more value you provide, the more likely they will choose your product or service.

For instance, you sell landing page software.

Offering templates and best practices for landing pages is a solid strategy for maximizing the value you provide to prospects.

Best practices for employing website surveys

Here's where you should start taking notes: the best practices outlined below will transform traditional surveys into a powerful tool for capturing actionable customer insights that can transform your business.

• Limit the survey to 12 minutes or less.

While both smartphone and PC respondents may take surveys at home or work, a smartphone user's attention is likely to be more limited. They may be interrupted by the environment or by the device itself, such as notifications from other apps, the start of a TV show, or being the next person in line at the checkout if they are out shopping. They may also have low battery life or download issues. It is critical to complete the survey before respondents run out of time or patience.

• Make limited use of open-ended questions.

Although open-ended questions can provide helpful information, they are more difficult to answer on smartphones due to the small screen size and on-screen keyboards. Ask such questions only when necessary, and avoid asking them in a row, as this can lead to frustration and prompt respondents to leave the survey.

• Use questions that are both quantitative and qualitative.

Using quantitative, rating-based questions like "On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our product/service" are great, but a number alone doesn't provide enough information for change.

If you get a 2/10, where do you start making improvements? You need a "WHY" behind the score to inform decisions.

That's where the power of a qualitative follow-up question like "What was the primary reason for your answer?" A score rating and a why can give you the information you need to make real change.

Conclusion 

Website surveys are a versatile way to collect customer insights that you can use to transform your business, whether your goal is increased conversions, revenue, growth insights, or even reduced churn. The importance of website surveys can be seen in the above points and how it can be a game-changer for your business. 

It is critical to remember that the goal of surveys is not to collect as many results as possible; instead, the goal is to collect the highest quality responses. 

People who are new to website surveys should try to make them as relevant as possible. 

Think with the respondent's perspective to ensure that annoying/irrelevant surveys do not hamper their web experience. From your perspective, ensure that data gets collected from the appropriate customer group.

Author Bio: Sonika Aggarwal is an experienced Content Marketer and Digital Strategist. With 5+ years of experience in the SaaS Industry, covering customer experience, customer satisfaction, customer satisfaction, and NPS. She loves to read and network with like-minded people from the SaaS industry in her free time.