Shanna Oskin

Agreed that surveys suck - you're usually not getting near enough responses to constitute a representative sample. Worse, they're often used as a crutch to prop up assumptions. But they're a necessary evil sometimes so to add to your list, here are a few principles I use: * Make sure you're prepared to act on the data. For each question, ask yourself, what will we do if the answer is A? What if the answer is B? If you don't know, or they aren't different actions, maybe you don't need to ask the question. * Don't ask for identifying info, it's a waste of a question. You're probably emailing your recipients right? If you sent a survey to their email address, they shouldn't have to tell you what their email address is. With URL variables and hidden fields, most survey tools (Typeform, Survey Monkey, Survey Gizmo) can grab any identifying contact info from your email program. Make sure you have a unique identifier like an email address or user ID and you can then marry responses up to all that great demo/firmographic data in your CRM. * Close the loop. Tell recipients what you plan to do with the data and then let them know what you did with the data. Customers want to provide feedback but if they feel like they're talking to a brick wall, they'll stop talking.