Do you need to engage the opinion of the wider world? Perhaps you are launching a new product and need some feedback on whether it’s good or not. Or perhaps you’re conducting a survey for university or for a client.
Either way, you’re going to want to know the best survey tools available to help you. You don’t want to be using complicated software that alienates people and makes it harder for them to fill out your survey. You also don’t want to have to pay when there’s some great free survey tools out there.
Here’s what you need to know.
1. Google Forms
This is the most famous of all the survey making websites. Everybody knows Google and the chances are most people already have a Gmail address for using Google’s Drive, Docs and other online programs.
Google is a recognized brand so people trust it and feel more comfortable entering their details. It’s great if you’re looking to get members of the public to send you some anonymous confessions to risque behavior to learn more about society.
Google Forms is free and there’s nothing stopping you from making hundreds, even thousands of different questions if you want.
Like the rest of Google’s software, Google Forms is collaborative. You can export all of the responses in the form to a Google spreadsheet. You can also add in people by email who can view the responses.
Finally, you can add the entire form into an email so your responders don’t even have to leave their email client. This is perfect, so long as they don’t think the form is spam. Be sure to send them another explanatory email and a link to your website so they know you’re legitimate.
If you’re wondering how data can help your business remember that email marketing is one of the key ways.
2. Survey Monkey
Survey monkey is another survey form that helps collate all of the data you need to help your business learn about your clients. It has recently been used by businesses to help ease their employees back to work.
It’s also a famous brand, though perhaps not as famous as Google Forms.
One of the great things about Survey Monkey is the ability to use 100 pre-formed templates. These have been expertly designed to help you get the most information out of your customers and to ask questions in the right way.
But while you can have unlimited respondents in Google Forms with Survey Monkey you can only have 100 respondents at once in the free version.
Upgrading to Premium
The premium version is where Survey Monkey comes into its own. This allows you to export your data into .CVC or .Excel XLS formats so that you can examine all of your forms and look for patterns in the spreadsheet program of your choices such as Excel or Apple’s Numbers.
With the premium version you can also add over 1,000 surveys and do team sharing and complex analysis. You can also add in graphics and images to your surveys making them more exciting and eye-catching to potential customers.
There is also a second, higher-tier level of membership that allows users to create surveys in more than one language and take advantage of industry-standard tools.
The higher price tag when other software is free though might put some business users off.
3. Formstack
What makes formstack great is how user friendly it is. This partly because it can be integrated to other programs such as Mail Chimp making it easy to send out your survey to your own customized mailing list.
Formstack can be used for a variety of functions. You can create highly sophisticated surveys to ask about specific details but you can also create simple surveys as well.
For example, if you want some customer feedback on your product or service you can create a simple feedback form and then integrate it to your website.
What it lacks is a comprehensive set of templates that the premium version of Survey Monkey has and does well.
Formstacks comes with four levels of premium membership, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The Platinum level program comes with a hefty price tag but it allows you to run the program on 10 machines all at once, allows for 100,000 people to complete the survey every month, and allows you to create up to 1,000 forms all at once. You get what you pay for with Platnium: an industry-standard form program.
Read More: 6 smart tips for conducting online surveys
4. Survey Nuts
Survey Nuts is a basic entry-level program. One of the key benefits to a program like Survey Nuts is that it’s free and easy to use.
There’s no need to make an account or go through a lengthy signup process, you create the survey you want on the homepage. There is no limit on the number of people can sign up to do your survey.
The downsides are you are limited to only 10 questions so complicated surveys are out. What’s more, there is no integration with other programs. This is the best free survey site but it’s more for users who don’t have much time.
Best Survey Tools? Depends On You
What are some of the best survey tools? That depends on you and your needs for your business. Some of the things you need to take into account are integration with other programs, the level of respondents, and the complexity of the questions you need answering.
Once you know the type of survey you are going to be asking and how many questions you need to ask you can decide the survey software that is right for you.
If you are interested in reading more about the best survey tools then be sure to check out the rest of our site.
