6 tips to create a survey or conversational form

If you’re planning to send a survey or an online form to know your audience’s opinion and gather valuable information to improve your business, it’s important to look for the right tone to encourage the respondents. As with any type of conversation, it’s necessary to keep the communication going and make the other feel heard. 

Think about how much you enjoy talking to somebody who seems interested in your opinion, treats you kindly and invites you to express yourself freely. A survey or a form in the structure of a conversation aims to generate the same effect.

In other articles, we’ve already dealt with the importance of knowing your clients. That’s why marketing tends towards customization. In a context where people are saturated with information, it’s a way of catching the consumer’s attention.

 

Online surveys and forms may increase the completion rate when we are able to transform them into an interactive and pleasant experience, like an everyday conversation. 

Conversational marketing has become more relevant in the last couple of years, with the skyrocketing of smartphones and other devices. In this context, the way in which surveys are carried out has also changed and we cannot keep sending dull and impersonal forms which aren’t appealing enough to be filled in.  

If the aim is for the clients to engage, an online survey or a conversational form is simply the one that is able to positively transform the moment of answering an online questionnaire. Briefly, the idea is for it to stop being a static, boring, and routinary experience to become an interesting and even fun conversation.

Neither the reason nor the types of questions matter. This structure can be used with different goals. It may be useful to record the people who have signed up for a specific event, to take orders or even to collect questions or complaints from clients who are unsatisfied with your product or service. What is important and valuable is to transform that situation into an experience that resembles most a dialogue between two people. 

Conversations on online customized forms should resemble a real-life talk, in which each line is built based on what has been previously said. That’s why we say it’s the opposite to a static experience. Then, the aim is for the survey to be different from a cold and impersonal interrogatory, but a friendly and pleasant experience, such as a talk between two people. Not necessarily between friends or acquaintances, but between two parties who respect and are interested in what the other one says. 

But that’s not all. Taking advantage of the digital context, these types of conversational surveys can also include images, videos, or gifs. In this way, the structure aims at replicating an exchange via chat, so popular in these years, not just to communicate with relatives or friends but with stores and institutions.

Do you want to learn more tips on how to create these types of surveys to increase the satisfaction of your respondents? Let’s look at some ideas. 

We could say that the basis to create online surveys or forms in the structure of a conversation is to customize them as much as possible. So, let’s begin by knowing the name of each of the people who kindly decide to complete the survey. 

If you know their names beforehand, the best you can do is to greet them personally at the beginning. Conversely, you can start the online survey with a question such as “What’s your name?” and use the answer as a variable to customize other parts of the questionnaire. 

“Hey [NAME]! How frequently do you shop in our store?” is a question that includes the item “name” in the case of surveys for clients who visited your store. 

This same resource can be used in other stages of the survey to keep customizing each question. If we ask them to choose their favorite drink in our coffee store and then we want to know more details about their choice, we can use their answer to customize the following question. For example: 

- Question 1: “What is your favorite drink?”

- Answer: a) Tea; b) Coffee; c) Juice.

- Question 2: “Great! We try every day to make the best [DRINK] possible. Would you like to have something to eat?”

- Answer: a) Yes; b) No; c) Sometimes. 

- Question 3: “Of course! You enjoy a [DRINK] better with something to eat. [NAME], what is your favorite option?”

- Answer: a) Croissants; b) Sandwich; c) Toast; d) Cake.

As you might have noticed, the third question brings out a problem, as it only applies to those who have chosen options “a” or “c” in the previous one. This is another chance of customizing the survey: the Logic Jump, in which you can avoid the user from answering those questions which are relevant to them. So, those who answered “yes” or “sometimes” go to the question in which they explain what food they choose, whilst the ones who answered “no” can’t skip it. 

You might have noticed that the idea of chaining questions and answers is key when making a successful conversational survey. Therefore, as you might have seen in the example, it’s important to use a friendly and less solemn, as we will see later on.

Have you noticed that we spend much more time sending and receiving messages than phone calls? We’ve become used to contacting through WhatsApp, Messenger, and other platforms, not just with your friends, but with co-workers, clients, and other contacts.

The logic behind the chat prevails in our relationships with people. Then, applying this model in your form, think about what it would be like for the users to answer in the same way in which they chat online with their contacts.

 

It would be ideal for each question to be related to the previous one and the following one. That is to say, for the questions to support and unite. A good conversational survey generates eagerness to fill it in. The users are encouraged to see their answers are considered and want to keep on answering the survey. This is why we believe they are useful to increase the number of people who finish filling in the surveys. 

We could say that nowadays text and image coexist completely in our online communications. Pictures, memes, stickers, and gifs have become part of every chat. Many times, they summarize exactly what we are thinking in an image, they make us laugh, and they point out what’s important, among other things.

 

Thus, it’s natural for a conversational form to include them, especially when they can replace words. In the coffee store we referred to as an example before, we can replace the answers in the structure of a text for the images of products so that the respondents, when they see their favorite drink on screen, have a more vivid memory of their visit to our store.

It’s important to count on your own images and gifs bank to give your online surveys a truly personal touch. However, if you don’t have one, there are several resources to solve this problem. Some sites such as Unsplash, The Noun Project, or GIPHY provide free access to images, icons, or gifs, respectively. So, there are no excuses not to customize the questionnaire with images and make it more entertaining and dynamic!

Another key point to creating a conversational form is to forget formalities. A dull online survey will make the user leave the survey halfway through. 

A questionnaire written in an informal tone provides a more pleasant experience and, at the same time, it’s useful to humanize a brand. It’s a way to show your audience that you’re not only interested in their opinion, but in them enjoying filling in the survey. 

That being said, try to avoid the exact opposite. Excessive informality may make the user distrust or feel uncomfortable. We don’t recommend inappropriate phrases or words to be funny even though your audience is composed of young people or people used to a relaxed style. It’s an unnecessary risk and the respondent may take it the wrong way. 

So, to sum up, go for controlled informality as the way of achieving a conversational environment. Plus, don’t forget to respect the basic norms of writing and spelling. Even though when we chat, we tend to overlook this, we must be careful in the surveys. We should pretend it’s a conversation but pay close attention when making the questionnaire to make sure the questions are understood. 

Imagine you meet someone for the first time. Two complete strangers wouldn’t talk about personal matters right away, wouldn’t you? Most probably, after greeting each other and learning your names, you might talk about the topic that brought you together or matters that are not intimate. 

Then, as minutes go by, both of you get acquainted and start to relax. As you feel more comfortable, it’s possible for the talk to turn more personal. The same should happen in a conversational online survey. You can’t start by asking questions on sensitive matters. It might be done further on, but it’s necessary for the user to feel comfortable. This is very important. Not until the stage of distrust is over, will you be able to get honest and personal answers. 

This doesn’t mean that your form should try to deceive the user first to move on to what really matters. The objective never changes: trying to get valuable information based on the answers and opinions of our audience. However, if you turn a blind eye to the environment, you will only make the respondents fill in half of the questionnaire as they get bored or feel uncomfortable. 

A conversational survey should encourage and generate the users’ compromise. In this way, they’ll be certain that their personal information, their answers, and comments are protected and won’t be used with unknown aims. 

Let’s imagine a job interview. The candidate arrives, sits down and the HR person says: “How are you, when could you start and what is the salary you expect?” It sounds weird, right? Most probably these topics are dealt with during the exchange, but not at the same time and let alone as soon as the interviewee arrives. 

Therefore, when we talk with someone, the conversation can flow faster or slower, but nobody would dare ask three or four things at the same time. The same should happen when filling in a customized survey or online form.

Let’s go back to the coffee store example. As you might have noticed, the questionnaire goes step by step. First, the chosen drink, then the question of whether you will accompany your drink, and lastly, what they had to eat (only if they answered affirmatively the previous question). It wouldn’t make any sense to ask all at once. 

Drafting a quality conversational form isn’t easy. If until now you’ve never used tools such as variables, Logic Jump, or answers in the form of pictures, you might find it hard at first. However, these functions are easy to use. There’s no need to have advanced knowledge or any of the sort, just read the help or support page of your platform or watch tutorials. 

Another common barrier is counting with little or no information on the user at all. This will make it harder and longer to define the right level of informality and find the perfect tone when drafting questions. 

The important thing is not to get discouraged and lose sight of your objective: creating conversations which increase the completion rate. We recommend creating some forms and trying alternatives until you’re really certain you’ve found the appropriate style.