Onsite Surveys: Implementation & Collecting Key Consumer Data

Introduction

Are you likely to recommend us to a friend? How would you rate your experience today? Any notes for us? 

Not only do we all take surveys every day without thinking about it, but we can also help our businesses grow by using surveys and collecting key consumer data. At Prismfly, we believe knowledge is power, and surveys are a tried-and-true way to gather that knowledge. All you have to do is ask.

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What Is an On-Site Survey?

Sometimes called on-page surveys, on-site surveys are questionnaires embedded into your site to gather voluntary data from your visitors in real-time. They can gather feedback on almost anything, and they can go on landing pages, product pages, or even checkout pages — anywhere a customer might interact with your site.  

These surveys are typically only a few questions long. An onsite survey can be triggered by user activity, such as adding to cart or navigating away from the page. On-site has one major advantage over email surveys: They collect unfiltered feedback in the heat of the moment. 

By avoiding the after-the-fact reflection, on-site surveys allow the surveyor to ask relevant questions and get relevant answers. The data these surveys provide is generally highly reliable. Examples of onsite surveys include pop-up surveys, live chat surveys, feedback buttons that remain in view at all times, and exit surveys.  

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How Should You Implement an On-Site Survey?

Before you do anything else, clarify your goals for each survey. Surveys are a tool to achieve a larger goal. Is your goal to streamline your POS process? Or are you more focused on delivering more targeted, polished content? Get a clear list of what information you plan to collect and to what end that information can be used. 

Some common goals for onsite surveys include: 

• Measuring customer experience 
• Discovering UI weak areas
• Learning more about customer values and preferences 

Ask the Right Questions for Actionable Insights

The types of questions you ask on your survey are more important than the number of questions. The survey process should be so seamless that your website visitors barely know they’re taking one. It should feel fun, not like a worksheet from grade school. 

Using a tone that is familiar or colloquial — without deviating from your brand voice — can make the survey more inviting.

When selecting your questions, consider your goals. Ask questions that will inform your business’s strategy to address those goals. Don’t just ask questions you think are common or standard; make this personal to your business and visitors! 

Knowing that your customers are satisfied or not satisfied with their experience during this visit is next to useless unless you also find out what specific features influenced that satisfaction.  

Determine Who You’re Talking To

You should target specific segments of your customer/user base. For example, a question to gauge customer loyalty would be completely wasted on someone entering your site for the first time. 

A user on day two of a 14-day free trial of your software will not offer well-informed feedback about your product, so surveying him would be useless. Strategize your data collection so that you’re only collecting data points from relevant users. 

Leave Room for Open-Ended Questions and Open-Ended Responses

Open-ended questions have the potential to get you answers to questions you didn’t know you needed to ask. They can provide you with valuable context for your responses. Always make these questions optional, even for opt-in surveys. 

In general, open-ended questions are the best for gathering qualitative data, but the faster multiple-choice questions will be more effective in gathering quantitative data. Don’t ask more open-ended questions than absolutely necessary, as they will make the survey more time-consuming for your customer. 

Use Pop-Up Survey Tools

Some may find pop-up surveys annoying, but you have the power to engineer pop-up surveys that won’t scare your users away. Timing is absolutely key. 

The first part of your site your customer interacts with should not be the pop-up survey. Forcing the pop-up too early might push them away or prompt random data entry, but offering the pop-up too late may get the survey ignored entirely because the customer has already finished their business with you. You also don’t want to bombard them with too many questions at one time.

When determining where to place the pop-up on the page, consider using a heatmap to determine where users are focusing the most on different pages. Make sure the pop-up is relevant to the page it’s on. Perhaps most importantly, make sure the survey has a strong call to action. 

From your visitor’s perspective, why do they want to take your survey? They could close it, and they could leave the page entirely. Having a strong call to action ensures that your survey will actually have some motivated participants. 

Use On-Site Surveys To Gauge Your NPS

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a market research metric based on a single question: Would you recommend us to a friend?

Rather than provide respondents with a yes or no, these questions are typically followed with a one to five rating. NPS is used to represent customer loyalty. Therefore, this question is not ideal for first-time customers, so be mindful of this survey’s placement and audience. 

This question is best followed with a “why” question to help you gather the qualitative data behind their answer. On-site surveys are the perfect place to pose this question to your users: it’s fast, to the point, and doesn’t require deep thought from your visitor. 

In just a one-sentence survey, you can gauge your NPS. 

Aim for Quantitative Data 

Open-ended questions will likely help collect useful qualitative data. However, quantitative data is much easier to analyze and more reliable than qualitative data, 

Qualitative data can be subjective or emotional; it’s information regarding user experience or demographic data. Quantitative data is numbers that can just be calculated; it’s your conversion rates, average order value, cart abandonment rate, and other similar metrics. 

Don’t just leave quantitative data for Google Analytics to collect. When designing your surveys, don’t forget to collect specific quantitative data. 

Follow-Up If Someone Abandons Your Survey

Time for your email marketing campaign to work its magic. If one of your users abandons your survey, send them a nudge to either complete it or answer one question regarding why they abandoned it. This should be an auto-generated email. 

If this user has already abandoned one survey, the question you ask in this email should be one multiple-choice question. This will give you the best odds of actually having it answered. 

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How Should You Use Your Survey Results?

There are a few ways you can use the results of your survey to your advantage. These include user experience optimization, A/B testing, and other practical research models.

Optimize Your User Experience

Naturally, like all CRO tools, the end goal of surveys is to increase your revenue. Your revenue will increase when your customer experience improves. 

You’re likely collecting qualitative data through your surveys. This can often give you great insight into your users’ current experience to help you identify current areas of weakness in your interface.

If you design your survey questions with the mindset of creating a more enjoyable user experience, your results will lead you to ways to optimize that user experience. Everybody wins. 

Run In-Depth A/B Tests on Product Pages

A/B tests are tests wherein you create two versions of the thing being tested, and compare the test-takers’ experiences with each version. On product pages, you would create two versions of the page and compare how users are interacting with that page and that product. 

If you combine this A/B test with a questionnaire, you will receive data on what the user base is doing and why they’re doing it. 

For example, suppose you see a sudden decline in clicks on the add to cart button without any explanation on the modified version. You may misattribute the decline to a poorly placed or sized button. However, by adding a questionnaire to your test, you may find that there was a reason you hadn’t considered. 

Combining qualitative and quantitative data will provide in-depth test results. 

Use Your Survey Results To Measure User Behavior

Customer behavioral data includes information on purchase history, lifespan, purchase patterns, engagement levels, brand loyalty, and more. Collecting data to measure user behavior is the first step in answering an important question: What will prompt the average customer to take an action at a specific point on your website? 

This type of data can be collected from surveys, but you’ll also find this type of data in your regular analytics report. You can always ask them directly about their brand loyalty, but you’ll also be able to see by the numbers if they’re making repeat purchases. 

Assess and Modify Your Customer Data Process

As your eCommerce business becomes more experienced with implementing and utilizing surveys, don’t forget to learn from each experience. Reflecting on the efficacy of each survey’s results can help your team become more data-driven and your data become more useful. 

Identify any weaknesses in your team’s data organization and analysis processes. Keep watch for ways to collect more meaningful, comprehensive data in higher quantities. It’s crucial to build on data year over year. Looking for patterns in your survey data over time can reveal unique insights about your consumers, far more than any one survey alone. 

Further Considerations

Remember, when you’re relying on users’ self-reported data, there is room for human error. A person having a bad day or a great day might influence their likelihood to recommend anything to their friends. 

Perhaps your sample size was too small. A person might just hate surveys and give intentionally wrong answers. The margin of error on the accuracy of onsite surveys dictates that theories regarding the results need to be tested before making permanent changes to your marketing or business plans. 

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Make Data-Driven Changes To Boost Your Business

Let us help you make some data-driven changes for conversion rate optimization. We at Prismfly are already helping businesses like yours improve their conversion rate by making better connections with their customers. 

Making connections with customers starts with getting a thorough understanding of your users, and surveys are just one of the many tools Prismfly will utilize to help you reach your full growth potential. Let’s grow together.