Dynamic Surveys are Here to Stay

We’ve all heard it: surveys are boring.

It’s safe to assume that if you are reading this article you’ve also heard this: listening to customer feedback is vital to improving the customer experience.

To recap, if your goal is to tap into customer insights to create better experiences, you’re trying to compel people who would rather watch paint dry to fill out a survey. What a pickle, huh?

Well, it doesn’t have to be. All you need to do is create smart surveys that ask the right questions from the right people. We refer to these surveys as Dynamic Surveys.

What is a Dynamic Survey? 

A dynamic survey is a survey that changes its structure based on who the respondent is and/or how they reply to questions. Dynamic surveys use information you already have (for example in your CRM) or just received (from the answers provided while taking the survey) to introduce follow-up questions that are relevant and don’t waste anybody’s time.

Dynamic surveys change based on who the respondent is and/or how they reply to survey questions

Dynamic vs Boring Survey examples

To make the case for dynamic surveys, we’ll use an imaginary company called ZeeZoo Ltd. ZeeZoo offers pet rental services to office spaces. The company has more than 300 customers in two cities and plans to scale operations by expanding its offering to two more cities. ZeeZoo is looking to further develop its business concept by creating a customer experience survey to collect and analyze feedback about its service.

ZeeZoo can achieve this either with

• A dynamic survey, or
• A boring survey

What’s so special about a dynamic survey, anyway?

Let’s take a closer look at the dynamic survey, shall we?

Page 1

Airlines care about the landing experience. In the feedback management world, we also care about the landing experience – the survey landing page experience, which refers to how a respondent perceives the first page. In our dynamic survey example, the first page

• Is visually appealing and concise
• It includes a straightforward question – no unnecessary text or headings
• it doesn’t include questions designed to collect background information (background info is uploaded to the respondent list before sending the survey)

If you pay closer attention, you will notice that by selecting an answer to the first question, the survey automatically moves to the next page. This means:

• that the response to the first question is immediately saved
• there is no need for a Next button which makes the survey landing page appear to have a sharper, distraction-free look and feel

Page 2

The question on the second page is designed to gauge customer sentiment towards different aspects of the overall experience. Note that a slider replaces the more traditional rating scale. This is because:

• the style of the slider can be customized with the company’s brand color
• it allows for a better response experience on mobile devices

Page 3

The third page of the survey does not include unnecessary texts, and the questions are to the point and easily comprehensible. The question on this page includes icon answer options which:

• are a modern and engaging alternative to the traditional answer option list
• are visually appealing
• boost survey response rates

The respondent’s answer to the first question determines the follow-up question, which only appears after the selection is complete. Hiding questions that are not immediately relevant to the respondent make the survey shorter and more pleasant to look at and reply to.

Page 4

The final page of the survey allows the respondent to give open (positive or negative) feedback about their experience.

When the respondents start typing, a hidden question asking whether they’d like to be contacted by the company appears on the page.  

What are the benefits of dynamic surveys?

You can design a dynamic survey in a way that supports your goals while at the same time prioritising the response experience. You can fully customise this type of survey to reflect your brand and also personalise it to a particular respondent to promote engagement.

Consider using them if you want to:

Reduce survey fatigue

We are asking consumers for feedback very often. This leads to survey fatigue. Survey fatigue is what happens when a respondent gets tired of being asked to reply to a survey or actually answering multiple questions within the same survey.  

If you would like to learn how to convince a respondent to take a survey, read this article.

You can reduce survey fatigue with the use of dynamic surveys which can render your surveys more visually appealing, shorter, simpler, and tailored to whoever provides responses.

Respect your respondents’ time

As we mentioned earlier, feedback requests are a very usual phenomenon in our everyday lives. Consumers are not averse to the idea of providing feedback – they just don’t have the time to do so on your terms. Dynamic surveys enable you to present them only with relevant questions that add value to your business and don’t waste anybody’s time.

Get better data  

Feedback can provide valuable insights that can help you make better decisions, scale your business and improve the customer experience. If you’re anything like us, your goal is to use surveys to gather reliable and accurate data. Dynamic surveys are your best option to achieve that because they include simple, easy-to-understand questions that leave no room for misinterpretation and result in better, more trustworthy data.