Quick Tip: Creating Customer-Friendly Surveys

There's no question that it's a good idea to survey your customers on occasion to figure out what you're doing right and doing wrong. And there's no denying the fact that you will likely receive more responses from customers if you offer a "reward" for filling out your survey -- a chance to win a prize, a code for free shipping, a discount on the next order... whatever is most applicable for your business/organization.

Today's quick tip, however, focuses on creating a customer-friendly survey. And it is the result of a survey I took this morning for a retail outlet. The survey required I answer every question -- which is not a bad thing in and of itself. But some of the questions didn't apply to my experience. And answering "not applicable" wasn't an option. Very frustrating! A part of me wanted to exit out of the survey without submitting my answers because of this -- and I've done just that in the past.

But this time, for every question that I would have answered N/A, I just answered "5," which was the middle rating. Unfortunately, this may end up skewing the final results.

So today's quick tip: The next time you're creating a survey and intend to require the user answer every question, make sure you offer up an N/A option when it's appropriate.