Products

SurveyMonkey is built to handle every use case and need. Explore our product to learn how SurveyMonkey can work for you.

Get data-driven insights from a global leader in online surveys.

Explore core features and advanced tools in one powerful platform.

Build and customize online forms to collect info and payments.

Integrate with 100+ apps and plug-ins to get more done.

Purpose-built solutions for all of your market research needs.

Create better surveys and spot insights quickly with built-in AI.

Templates

Measure customer satisfaction and loyalty for your business.

Learn what makes customers happy and turn them into advocates.

Get actionable insights to improve the user experience.

Collect contact information from prospects, invitees, and more.

Easily collect and track RSVPs for your next event.

Find out what attendees want so that you can improve your next event.

Uncover insights to boost engagement and drive better results.

Get feedback from your attendees so you can run better meetings.

Use peer feedback to help improve employee performance.

Create better courses and improve teaching methods.

Learn how students rate the course material and its presentation.

Find out what your customers think about your new product ideas.

Resources

Best practices for using surveys and survey data

Our blog about surveys, tips for business, and more.

Tutorials and how to guides for using SurveyMonkey.

How top brands drive growth with SurveyMonkey.

Contact SalesLog in
Contact SalesLog in
Survey Tips

Your respondents want you to start treating them like human beings

Your respondents want you to start treating them like human beings

Your survey respondents want to tell you something: You’re being kind of rude.

Those surveys with pages and pages of questions? The ones where you can’t progress until you write in an open-ended response? Those surveys are hard for your respondents to take—in more ways than one.

Look, not everyone is an offender. You might not be.

But even if you’re not, you can see how it’s easy to forget your respondents aren’t just numbers on a bar chart or email addresses to send to.

It’s easy to forget they’re people.

We’ve got to start talking to them that way. But first let’s take a look at some of the most irking—and easily avoidable—ways people are inconsiderate to their respondents.

  • Surveys with an awkward flow. Just like in a conversation, abrupt subject changes or awkward jumping from topic to topic in your survey is confusing and disruptive.
  • Surveys with too many interruptions. A few interruptions (like page breaks) can be a good thing in a conversation. It can break topics up into manageable chunks that are easy to understand. Too many are distracting.
  • Surveys that demand too much. You can’t expect to go on and on and expect people to care.

Aside from common courtesy, we still haven’t talked much about why it’s a good idea to treat your survey respondents well. After all, you don’t know these people and you’ll probably never ask for their responses again.

That might be true, but you should still care because the experience they have can alter your data—significantly. How?

Dropouts: If your surveys are too frustrating to complete, your respondents will abandon them. Some dropouts in a survey are common and natural, but too many can be a problem. Losing too many respondents might mean you won’t be able reach a viable sample size or it could damage your data with nonresponse bias. That’s when the people who respond are different from the ones who don’t, and it means you’re getting incomplete data.

Satisficers: Even if people complete a bad survey, that doesn’t mean they were paying attention. Some respondents simply don’t try very hard on their surveys, whether they’re answering without fully considering the options or just outright skimming the questions. Frustrating surveys will cause more of your respondents to act like satisficers. The data you get from these respondents can actually be worse than getting too few responses—you won’t even know if your data is good or bad!

It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, it’s pretty easy to keep your respondents happy.

  • Put yourself in your respondents’ shoes. Is this a survey you’d want to take yourself? If not, you’re probably asking too much.
  • Start treating your surveys like conversations, because that’s the best way to make sure you’re being courteous.
  • Download our guide for treating your respondents like a human being using 3 simple conversation techniques.

Download our guide for tips and tricks—backed up by data—for getting better responses from the people taking your surveys.