The purpose of a customer survey is to collect focused opinions from consumers of a product or service. They are seen as a powerful tool because they allow the makers of the product or service to ask direct questions to the customers. Customer surveys are often used in the Six Sigma methodology as a tool to collect Voice of the Customer (VOC) input.

A plethora of online survey tools are available today, allowing a surveyor to quickly and easily distribute a survey to thousands of users at a time.

Designing a Good Survey

There are many ways to design a survey. Below are some generally accepted steps towards creating an effective customer survey.

1. Decide what the survey is supposed to find out.
2. Identify the audience of the survey and how they will relate to the questions asked.
3. Create questions that identify the survey demographic. These are known as "qualifying questions".
4. Design the questions, deciding on the format of each. Questions can be optional or required, multiple choice or open ended.
5. Write the survey.
6. Administer a pilot survey with a small sample.
7. Validate that the results of the pilot survey are meaningful and complete.
8. Make adjustments based on the results of the pilot.
9. Publish the survey.
10. Collect results.
11. Analyze results both statistically and qualitatively.

Survey results can be analyzed with trivial statistics such as averages, maximums, minimums or more advanced concepts such as cross tabulation using chi square methods.

See also

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• Questionnaire
• Statistical survey

Research methods