Surveys are a great way to get feedback from an event you hosted. You can learn what worked and what needs to be changed for future events from those who attended it. While you might have thought your event went perfectly, there’s always room for improvement, and who better to hear that from than your attendees. While there are many different ways to create a post-event survey, below are a few tips to help you create the perfect one.
Keep it short and to the point
The more questions you have in your survey, the faster people will abandon it. No one wants to answer 25 questions, with many of them being similar. They are doing you a favor by filling out your survey. While the feedback is important, you don’t need feedback about every single little detail that went into your event. You just need to hear back about the important aspects because that’s what will help you when planning future events.
Know your goals
While it isn’t easy to keep your survey short, knowing your goals will help you not ask too many questions. Chances are, you came up with your goals for the event at the beginning of planning it. Your survey should help you measure the success of those goals. By using the goals you already created, you will be able to know what types of questions you need to ask. Your first few post-event surveys might be broad. However, once you figure out what you are really needing feedback on, you will get better with your surveys.
Thank them and offer an incentive
Your surveys should always have a thank you page at the end with an incentive. While thanking your participants might seem obvious, it’s often forgotten. They took the time out of their day to complete your survey, and you should at least thank them for that. While an incentive isn’t required, it’s simple and often the reason people will complete a survey. The incentive you offer doesn’t need to be anything major. The easiest incentive to offer is a special offer or discount on the product or service of your company.
Ask the right questions
The questions you ask in your survey have a direct impact on how many will complete your survey. This is why it’s important to ask the right questions and determine what needs to be included in your survey and what can be left out. Similar to what was stated earlier, the more questions you ask, the lower your response rate will be. Your survey should be between 10-12 questions.
You should use close-ended questions that are easy to answer and analyze. While it isn’t wrong to include open-ended questions, they feel longer to participants and are more labor-intensive. You should limit your open-ended questions to 2-3 per survey. Also, you should ask specific questions such as “how can we improve our product?” and avoid squeezing two questions into one like “How did you like the venue and entertainment?” Lastly, you should save any demographic information for the very end and not make it mandatory. They are more likely to give you at least the basics compared to filling in every little detail about themselves.