Sending A Micro-Survey: Industry Metrics & Best Practices

Haven’t we all filled up a survey at least once in our lifetime?  I’m sure most of you have. A few surveys might have got us annoyed, but the key point here is “few” since most of us aren’t annoyed at filling a survey. In fact, it’s a mutual exchange. We want to know what kind of questions are being asked and what our thoughts are about it.

Creating surveys isn’t an easy task. In fact, deciding if you want a survey is a tough decision in the first place. One needs to answer the tough question before coming up with the survey questions. What problems is the survey trying to solve? What are the insights that I’m trying to gain? Who are going to be my Target Audience?

Creating a micro-survey for mobile app users can have its own challenges apart from the challenges which are common to any survey, be it online or offline.

Some of the generic industry rules and best practices for any survey include

• Pre-planning before the survey is sent out is very important – As mentioned earlier, you need to answer the important questions. What problems are the survey trying to solve and who my target audience are?
• Decide the type of questions to ask. Surveys can have open-ended questions (what’s your opinion on mobile banking?), or close-ended questions (on scale of one to ten, how would you rate reliability of mobile banking). Questions can be quantitative (how much are you ready to pay for a new feature) or qualitative (how much are you ready to pay for a new feature – low, average or high)
• Keep your survey short and to the point.
• Avoid asking multiple things in a question and avoid cascading questions (Do you like to eat dark chocolate and sweets?)
• Avoid questions which use the extreme words such as “Always”, “Never”, etc.
• Place your questions strategically; frame the flow of questions with the respondent in mind.
• Always test the survey by sending it to a select group of people to get an initial idea of whether the survey will provide the desired feedback.
• Segment the right audience to take the survey.
• Share the result with the respondents if possible.

These are some of the agreed upon industry norms for sending a survey.

However, micro-surveys in the mobile ecosystem have their own set of challenges. Make sure you take the following points into consideration while automating a micro-survey for app users.

• Since the size of smartphones is smaller compared to desktop and offline pen paper surveys, designing the look and feel of the survey on the mobile is vital.
• Avoid surveys that occupy the full screen of mobile as this may come across as an obtrusive ad(d) and user might get annoyed by the survey.
• Since the general user statistic can be obtained directly by the inbuilt features of the app marketing automation engine, avoid direct questions on demographic details of the user, this may invade their personal space and result in incomplete survey.
• The survey size for mobile should be even smaller compared to normal surveys.
• Make use of features offered on mobile platform to create rich engaging surveys which are also creative and fun to use.
• Avoid confusing the user – the cancel button should be clear and big.
• If you are not doing your survey right, the other end would be the user leaving the app which will reduce the retention rate.

Surveys are a great way to understand who is using your app, for the specific purpose, under what trigger conditions and reasons the retention is trailing. If your survey is planned and executed well, and the data gathered from the survey is analyzed well, this will help you get crucial insights on user’s mind and help you personalize the experience.