Want more online survey participants? To increase survey participation, you need to address frequent issues pointed out by people.
We’ve compiled a list of this article’s most common consumer complaints concerning online surveys, along with suggestions for resolving them.
Top Customer Complaints About Online Surveys
Unfortunately, many internet polls fail to meet their participants’ expectations. If you take the time to create a survey form in WordPress, you probably don’t want it to go unused. Let’s check over the possible causes of this phenomenon and ensure your online surveys aren’t turning off potential customers. The following are the top complaints voiced on the internet, according to polls:
1. “This survey is way too long!”
Out of all the complaints customers have about online surveys, this one is pretty fatal. One of the easiest ways to scare away a survey taker is by doing your survey too long.
Simply put, be brief. Ask questions only if you 100% need the answers. Don’t waste the precious time of your customers.
Solution: Multi-step surveys
Try making your survey a Multi-step survey to break each section up into separate ‘pages easily’.
Confused about how long your survey should be? Consider using a survey template from our Survey and Polls addon to get started building your survey form in just minutes.
2. “I don’t understand X…”
It’s not uncommon to hear a customer complain about a survey question not being clear enough for them to give an informed answer. The truth is that customers sometimes have questions while filling out a survey.
Solution: Tooltips
Adding a Tooltip, you can clarify any field you need on your survey. Customers are much more likely to finish filling out the form if you can provide them with some extra details on questions you think might be a little confusing.
3.”I lose interest fast.”
There’s a good reason many people use Google Forms to gather information through surveys quickly. It’s because there are no other choices on the page but to fill out the survey form.
Google Forms has limits for business owners. This has led to a proliferation of Google Form alternatives to keep users interested. They can create a distraction-free landing page that connects to your email marketing, is safe, and allows you to organise and save your entries in WordPress.
Solution: Form Pages
You can create unlimited and dedicated form landing pages to help you conduct surveys while getting more leads and tracking campaigns. All while reducing distractions for your visitors and getting more people to complete your surveys.
4.”I already answered a similar question!”
Do you see a trend in the online survey complaints from these customers? It’s annoying to squander other people’s time. Users of an online survey may become frustrated if it is not easy to navigate, leading them to abandon it midway through. The questions people dislike the most are those that seek irrelevant information, are repeated, or are ones they have already been asked.
But sometimes, you just need different info from different customers, so website owners often make the mistake of asking all kinds of questions on a survey.
Solution: Conditional Logic
This easy-to-use feature in WPForms lets you show or hide form fields based on user selections. That way, you can show only the questions you need to ask based on each unique visitor and limit the number of fields to as few as possible. In the example below, the paragraph text box only shows up on this survey if someone rates their experience less than 3 stars.
5. “Which field is wrong?”
Typos happen. Sometimes, people will put the wrong information into your surveys without realizing it.
For example, they could miss a digit in their phone number. Or, they could mistype their email address.
A common customer complaint about online surveys is that it won’t let them submit because a field is wrong, but they can’t tell which one. If you don’t let them know, they’ll likely give up and never finish filling out your survey (costing you lost revenue!).
Solution: Smart Fields
Smartphone and email fields automatically detect when a typo has been entered. For emails, it even suggests a correction based on popular email service providers. This is a great way to increase the quality of your email list.
6. Irrelevant Questions
One of the top complaints customers have about online surveys is encountering irrelevant questions. Customers find it frustrating to answer questions that do not relate to their experience or opinion of a product or service. For instance, asking for personal information irrelevant to the survey topic can make customers feel uneasy and may prompt them to abandon the survey altogether.
Furthermore, irrelevant questions may also lead to inaccurate data collection. Suppose respondents are confused or unsure how to answer a question because they don’t see its relevance. In that case, they might just choose any answer – including one that does not correspond with their true opinion or experience.
To avoid these issues, companies need to ensure their surveys are well-crafted and targeted towards specific goals. By doing so, they can ask only questions that will yield meaningful data while minimizing the number of extraneous ones. Additionally, companies should test their surveys before launching them publicly to catch any irrelevant questions and make revisions before deployment.
7. “There are too many distractions.”
You could be doing everything right on your online survey, but customers will still get distracted when filling it out.
Most online surveys aren’t very ‘human’ feelings, and distractions are everywhere for people these days. This huge issue for website owners has a bright side, though. It’s led to the creation of a snazzy new tactic called conversational marketing.
Solution: Conversational Forms
You can turn any online survey you make into a conversational survey form (and watch your conversion rates skyrocket in the process!). Conversational forms help you keep customers interested and engaged while filling out surveys because they act as a one-on-one conversation. They’re also an easy and fun way to make your site look extremely modern and professional.
8. “Ugh, I’m not sure I trust this survey.”
Another top issue on our list of customer complaints about online surveys is all about trust. There are a lot of untrustworthy and phishy links and websites floating around the internet, so customers may be worried about trusting your survey.
Solution: Form Locker addon
You can add an extra layer of security to your survey forms by enabling password protection. This not only ensures that the people you want filling out your form can, but it also helps make your users feel more secure when they are provided with a password to access the survey.
9. “I don’t want to share my personal information.”
Customers are sometimes willing to fill out your survey, but only if they don’t have to provide their personal information. In some situations, the survey takers are willing to be more honest if it’s an anonymous survey. If you ask for their personal information, you could scare people away from taking your survey.
But allowing anonymous entries in all scenarios is not a good idea. For example, if you’re a medical practice with a patient satisfaction survey that receives complaints, you may want to reach out to the patient to make things right. In that case, you’ll need their contact info to do so. But if you don’t, there’s a great solution.
Solution: Allow anonymous entries
If you aren’t planning on following up with survey takers, you should consider allowing for anonymous entries. Simply remove your survey’s email and name fields in the form editor.
10. Lack of Personalization
Customers’ top complaints about online surveys is the lack of personalization. Customers often feel like they are just a number in a mass survey rather than an individual with unique needs and opinions. Businesses need to understand that personalized surveys can lead to higher response rates and more valuable feedback.
To combat this issue, businesses can use targeted questions based on customer demographics or purchase history. They can also personalize the introduction or thank you a message to make customers feel valued and appreciated for their time. Taking steps towards personalization in online surveys can greatly improve customer satisfaction and provide more meaningful insights for businesses to act on.
11. “I wonder what the results were.”
All those cool data visualisation tools aren’t just for business owners to enjoy. You can use them on your customers, too! Sometimes, people who fill out your forms expect to know (or are just curious about) the poll results.
Solution: Real-time poll displays
Reward your customers for filling out your poll with real-time poll displays, so they can see how their answer matches up.
12.”The site the survey was on took forever to load.”
A slow site can lead to a ton of issues, including a loss of sales and conversion rates. According to some shocking eCommerce statistics, a 3-second page load time could increase bounce rates by 32%. This means customers expect your site to load at lightning speed. You want to keep your site running quickly so there are no issues when people fill out your surveys.
Solution: Make your site faster
Keep your site fast by using one of the best CDN providers for WordPress, such as Cloudflare. In addition, make sure to take a peek at this list of easy tips to speed up WordPress performance.
In Conclusion
And there it is! You now know the top customer complaints about online surveys, so you can make your surveys as successful as possible. And if you like this article, then please comment below.
