Smart Surveys: Definition, how to create & more

Do you want to increase customer satisfaction, such as product development and decision research? Smart surveys are a great way to do this. In addition to collecting feedback from your target audience, it allows you to collect data on many topics. This way, you can develop more conscious and effective strategies.

In this article, we first talk about what smart surveys are and the pros of using these surveys. We cover 15+ must-ask questions to ask in your smart survey for your business and why you should ask them. You can also learn how to create a smart survey step by step and consider 8 expert tips.

First things first: What is a smart survey?

They are more interactive and interesting in the data collection than traditional surveys. These surveys, optimizations of traditional surveys, help you obtain more accurate and efficient results. They also allow you to increase the response rate.

Pros of using smart surveys

Creating a smart survey has many advantages for time, space, and resources. These surveys help you collect feedback faster than traditional survey tools. This way, you can identify areas needing improvement and take action faster. We have listed the pros of conducting a smart survey for your business below:

Benefits of smart surveys

🎯Save time, space, and resources: Preparing a smart survey using digital technology can save time, resources, and space.

🎯Reach a wider audience faster: Since it is adapted through digital platforms, it helps you reach a much broader audience in a shorter time.

🎯Gather faster answers from participants: Compared to traditional survey methods, the target audience's response time is faster in digital surveys.

🎯Easier and faster analysis: It offers more advanced and quicker options for analyzing and integrating the data you obtain in real-time.

🎯Minimize the margin of error: Smart surveys, with their fast, real-time feedback and analysis features, can help you minimize the margin of error.

🎯Increase customer satisfaction: Based on the feedback you receive from your customers through smart surveys, you can meet your customers' demands in a shorter time, which helps increase customer satisfaction.

🎯Gain competitive advantage and correct market positioning: By creating a satisfied customer profile based on the information you collect from surveys, you can gain a competitive advantage and market positioning correctly.

🎯Guides improvements and developments: By learning what your customers think about your products and services, you can identify areas that need improvement and growth and shape your strategies accordingly.

15+ Must-ask questions to ask in your smart survey for your business

Making a smart survey  ​​in every field, from gathering customer or employee feedback processes to organization culture evaluations, will speed up the evaluation process. You can evaluate your business in various areas through the questions you ask in your survey. Below, you can find 15+ smart survey example questions you can ask and why you should ask them:

1. How did you hear about us?

This question can help you determine which sources customers use to obtain information about your products or services. It will help you evaluate your effective marketing campaign and reach more customers. You can also identify marketing channels you need to improve your marketing strategies and stay current.

2. How satisfied are you with your overall experience? (Rating 1-10)

A customer satisfaction survey(CSAT) question measures the overall satisfaction level with your customers using the Likert scale. Feedback can be either positive or negative. Through the feedback you receive, you can work to improve the service and overall experience you offer to your customers. Additionally,  you can increase customer satisfaction and improve the quality of your service.

3. Would you recommend us to others?

You can use this net promoter score (NPS) question to understand the recommendability of your business based on your customers' perceptions. Customer responses reflect the satisfaction and loyalty your business generates. Thus, you can evaluate the recommendability of your business through the feedback you collect and direct your product development process in a customer-oriented manner.

4. What do you think about the quality of our products/services?

Through this question, you can obtain information about what your customers think about the quality of your products or services. It can help you determine your customers' product or service quality preferences. The feedback you receive provides data you can use to meet customer expectations and improve your products or services.

5. How would you rate your experience with our customer service?

Through this question, you can find out what your customers think about the customer service support your business provides. It can help you understand your current customers' experiences and identify potential customer service issues. In this way, you can develop strategies to improve your customers' customer service experience. 

6. Have you encountered any problems during your experience with our business/organization?

Asking your customers this question allows you to evaluate the adverse situations they may have experienced during their experience with your business. Thus, you can take precautions to eliminate these negativities based on the information you obtain. For example, if your customers complain about the pricing policies, you can provide a more customer expectation focused.

7. How would you rate us compared to our competitors?

This question allows you to find out, compared to your competitors, how your customers evaluate your business. Also, you can obtain valuable insights into why your customers prefer you over your competitors by adding follow-up questions. By considering the feedback, you can determine which aspects of the services you offer your customers find more attractive.

8. What do you like most about our business?

This question allows you to evaluate what customers like most about our business. It helps determine and improve the business's strengths and understand what our customers value the most. With the information obtained, you can better increase the effectiveness and value of your product or services.

9. What aspects do you think are weak in our business?

Through this question, you can determine the aspects customers think are weak in your business and the difficulties they experience. It allows you to understand the impact of your business's weaknesses on customer satisfaction. You can improve to eliminate the weaknesses identified in line with your survey results.

10. How would you evaluate our products/services regarding price performance?

This question can help you determine what your customer portfolio thinks about your pricing policy in line with their budget. Thus, you can develop efforts to convince them that your prices deserve the product quality or reconsider the pricing policy.

11. What are your expectations from our business/organization?

Through this open-ended question, you can allow your customers to talk about their experiences and expectations without being limited to the areas you offer. Open-ended questions will enable you to obtain more comprehensive information and learn about your customers' expectations in places other than what you offer.

12. How likely are you to choose us in the future?

You can determine whether your customers prefer your business when needing a product or service in the future. By asking this question, you can evaluate the satisfaction level of your business's customers. You can also gather feedback to determine the level of commitment and loyalty.

13. What do you think we need to improve in our products/services?

Through this open-ended question, you can learn where your customers are dissatisfied. The feedback you obtain also lets you identify areas where your business needs to improve your product/services. Thus, you can make the necessary improvements and develop efforts to increase overall customer satisfaction.

14. What can we do to improve your experience with us?

Through this open-ended question, you can allow your participants to talk about their experiences in various ways. Customers can share what you can do to improve their experience with your business. Based on the results, you can develop proper strategies for areas with high or low satisfaction rates regarding their experience with your organization.

15. Do you have a preferred communication channel for collecting feedback?

This question can help you learn the communication channel your customers prefer. For example, your customers may prefer something other than this method because they do not use their email, or they may choose to be given feedback via SMS because they do not like to be disturbed. Learning communication preferences is essential for optimizing customer communication.

How to create a smart survey (without coding)

Smart surveys are a valuable tool that allows you to quickly and efficiently collect feedback about your target audience's experiences, emotions, and behaviors. You've seen 15+ essential questions to ask in a business smart survey and the benefits of asking them. You can easily conduct your smart survey by following the 6 steps below:

Step 1: Log in or sign up for forms.app

Login to your account

You can sign up for an account using the forms.app online survey platform to start creating a smart survey. You can go directly to the platform if you already have an account. The forms.app allows you to log in or sign up using your Google, Apple, or Facebook accounts.

Step 2: Start from scratch, choose a template, or generate with AI

Choose a beginning option

Once logged in, click the Create Form button to create a new form. You can create your smart survey for free to increase your business success according to your goals. You can also use other ready-to-use survey templates on forms.app and optimize them according to your goals. You can also get help from forms.app AI for creating your survey.

Step 3: Add your questions

Add your own survey questions

You need to add your survey questions based on your goals. The forms app offers a variety of question types, such as multiple answers, short answers, and long answers. Adding your survey open-ended question types increases effectiveness and helps you better understand your target audience. You can also use the 15+ smart survey questions above in your survey. 

Ask the right questions to understand how target audiences feel about your brand, products, or services. In this sense, you can use our article on practices for writing good survey questions to determine whether the questions you will include in your survey align with your goals.

Step 4: Customize your survey design

Change the design of your survey

You can easily customize the design survey offering forms.app’s rich content. You can select a theme and change colors. You can enrich your form images, a logo, and a cover. You can tailor colors, fonts, and overall design tools to create a survey that mirrors your company's identity. Additionally, you can choose a new background image and a view type.

Step 5: Share your smart survey

Share your survey

You can distribute your smart survey to the target audience using various sharing options from the forms app. You can share your survey on popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and WhatsApp. In addition, you can copy your survey link and share it with the target audience via SMS and email address for easy access.

Step 6: Analyze the results

Check the results

Once you have gathered feedback, you can use the forms.app's features like statistics and filters to analyze survey responses. This way, you can better interpret the benchmark data you collect and evaluate your feedback more efficiently. Accurately analyzing survey results will help you create a strategy that increases and measures employee or customer loyalty and satisfaction.

8 Expert tips for smart survey

A smart survey quickly communicates with your target audience, serving as a valuable tool for understanding customer satisfaction in a shorter time. There are expert tips to consider when conducting a successful smart survey methodology for your business. You can follow 8 expert tips below to create a survey about your identified any area:

Pro tips for smart surveys

✅Know your target audience: Knowing your target audience will allow you to adapt your questions, considering their characteristics, and will also enable you to obtain more accurate and understandable results.

✅Set your goals clearly: Determining your goals clearly and openly ensures that the results you achieve align with your goals.

✅Choose the correct survey platform: There are many online survey platforms on the Internet. You should choose the correct survey platform and ask questions based on your goals.

✅Keep your survey short: Although smart surveys save time for businesses and participants, people prefer shorter surveys. Therefore, to increase participation, you need to keep your survey short.

✅Use the various types of survey questions and structure: Your survey can include closed-ended, open-ended, and multiple-choice questions. It allows participants to answer the questions more clearly. You can also group relevant smart survey question types.

✅Make your survey user-friendly: People generally spend more time on mobile devices. Making your survey mobile-friendly enhances participants' accessibility and comfort.

✅Create trust in your participants: One of the most essential things people worry about when participating in a survey is privacy. Reassure candidates about anonymity and confidentiality to get more honest answers and increase the response rate.

✅Pre-test your survey: You can pre-test it with a small group before presenting it to your primary audience. Thus, you can improve your study with the results you obtain.

Key points to take away

You can use smart surveys to evaluate many areas by adjusting them according to the needs of your business. These surveys allow you to make quick and effective evaluations in many areas, such as corporate culture, customer development, and market research. Create your own smart survey using what you learned from our article and increase the success of your business.

In this article, we talked about the smart surveys meaning and the pros of using smart surveys. We also showed how to create a smart survey (without coding) for your business. You can also learn about 15+ smart survey questions you can ask, why you should ask them, and see expert tips.