Are you interested in getting to know your audience or client? Do you want to know if they liked the coffee from your bar, if they had a good time in the event you hosted or if they would buy clothes in your store again? You should create a plan that allows you to collect data about the experience that each one of them has with your brand.
To be successful, it is key that you carry out an investigation that is as exhaustive as possible. For this reason, we recommend that you combine different methods that allow you to collect the highest quantity and quality of data possible.
Great varieties of resources exist, but on this occasion we want to focus on the 2 most common ones: interviews and surveys. These are different, but complementary methodologies that, if well implemented, will allow you to obtain valuable data about your client.
Are interviews useful to get to know your audience?
The interview is a very interactive format, a conversation between two parties: one that formulates the questions and the other which answers them. In general, it is usually done in person, although it can also be done by telephone or by online means like e-mail or chat.
Although the interviewer usually has a predefined questionnaire, it is not a rigid format; in that sense its main utility is that the answers of the interviewee can generate new questions. Improvised at the moment, they are useful to reveal matters that, because of error or omission, were not foreseen at the time of planning. However, you should keep in mind that conducting interviews is a cumbersome and time-consuming process.
First you must get people who are willing to be interviewed and prepare a schedule with specific days and times to conduct them. And, even if you get an incentive that allows you to get many interested people, it will always be a limited universe.
Also, you should have a skilled interviewer, who does not simply read each question, but can cross examine and interpret the answers to get the most out of each interviewee.
Finally, the processing of the information obtained in the interviews implies a huge amount of hours of work: you have to record them (both if they were face to face or by phone) and find ways to structure the data to make comparisons and draw conclusions.
Are surveys useful to get to know your audience?
Surveys pursue the same objectives as interviews, but on a larger scale, based on a predefined questionnaire that is answered by a certain universe of people on whom data is seeked or their general opinion is perceived.
Without doubts, it is a useful methodology to know your audience, especially from the development of internet surveys, which offer more attractive formats to get the attention of the respondent and facilitate the processing of the results.
Creating personalized web surveys is a simple and fast process. Also, if you want to, you can use templates from diverse campaigns previously created and organized by categories so that you can be inspired. These have predefined questions for the type of survey you want to do and illustrative images that help generate greater interest in the user to respond.
For example, if you wish to know the opinion of someone who visited your restaurant, these templates will suggest questions (with their respective optional answers) like “which one of our main dishes have you tasted?”, “What would you highlight about our restaurant?”, “How would you evaluate the hygiene?”, etc.
Or, in case you want to know how was the experience of a visitor to your website, you can access a template with predefined questions such as "How many times have you visited our site in the last 30 days?", "Do you think you will return to visit in the future? ”,“ What was the reason for your visit? ” "Evaluate from 1 to 10 what is the quality of our content", among others.
Finally, it is worth highlighting another valuable aspect of online surveys: they are not rigid formats but, depending on what each person responds, some questions may be overlooked. The jump logic lets you interact with the answers and generate customized journeys. This way, respondents don't have to skip irrelevant questions that don't apply; with the jump logic, they won't even see them! This allows you to generate a more human and personal experience for respondents.
Personal interviews or online surveys: Which method is better?
The ideal mix is being able to combine both resources as they can contribute with different data. As we previously pointed out, each one has its pros and cons.
However, if we had to choose only one, we'd recommend the online surveys. The evolution of the Internet has transformed this tool in an accessible and simple resource to use, with diverse functions which give great interaction and allow you to customize your survey by adding images, logos or videos.
Additionally, online forms are easy to implement, no matter what budget you have, and will allow you to reach a much broader universe than interviews.
We invite you to use Survey Kiwi, a tool in the cloud that allows you to create highly visual and dynamic surveys in just a few minutes and with an average completion rate of 83%. Visit our website now to create customized online surveys and thus obtain key information to enhance the relationship with your customers. Create your first online survey in a few steps with Survey Kiwi!