Modern businesses continuously seek to collect and analyze customer data to help them make more strategic business choices. One of the most effective ways to do this is through market research, which involves public surveys.
However, a lingering concern for businesses when using this method is whether or not they can trust the authenticity of survey responses. If decisions are made using skewed data, this could lead to the wrong changes being made and could mean severe consequences to the business.
I’s important to understand how to validate a survey properly. Thankfully, there are industry best practices all organizations can apply when preparing and hosting their surveys to get more accurate results.
What is Survey Validation and Why is it Important?
Creating an effective survey often requires more than just thinking about good questions and designing a shareable format. A survey’s real value is in its results— assuming the data collected is accurate. This is where survey validation comes into the equation.
Survey validation is essentially a quality check that ensures all of the responses you’re receiving represent your target audience’s sentiments. Considering not everyone will approach a survey with the same level of engagement, survey validation should be an invaluable element for all businesses.
When certain individuals take a more passive approach to completing surveys, it can introduce a certain layer of bias into your data. This could lead to wrong conclusions about the data and poor decisions surrounding the “insights” that were gained. When you validate your survey data, you help to protect against this.
Surveys—regardless of who they’re given to and how they’re structured— reveal valuable data.
Whether your surveys are related to marketing techniques, pricing strategies, or the effectiveness of your customer services, taking the time to validate the data collected can help you ensure that you’re making the right changes and implementing the right strategies to help the business grow.
Survey Validation | Photo: Canva
How to Validate a Survey: Effective Strategies for Validating Survey Responses
Validating survey responses isn’t just a box you check at the end of a survey. It requires a multi-pronged approach that includes steps to take before, during, and after survey completion. Lay the right groundwork to get accurate results every time while encouraging more thoughtful participation from your respondents.
Below are some of the key strategies you can put in place to start validating survey results:
Before Hosting Your Surveys
Getting more accurate results requires careful preparation of your surveys, which begins well before you start receiving your first finished surveys. How you format and structure your surveys will significantly impact the data quality collected.
To achieve the results you’re looking for, incorporate open-ended questions into the survey format. While you could still include multiple-choice options to help manage the scope of the answers you receive, keep a good balance of question types.
Before you design the survey, define your target audience. Getting responses from individuals outside your demographic, even if their honest, can start changing the quality of the data you receive. A good practice to follow is incentivizing the specific respondents you’re looking for answers by offering gift cards or discounts in exchange for their participation.
Be transparent about how and why you’re collecting data. When individuals know their data is not being collected and sold off to advertisers, it creates a stronger layer of trust and makes survey respondents willing to leave accurate information.
Processes and Controls During Surveys
When participants beginyour survey, there are strategies you can implement to reduce the risk of receiving incomplete or misleading data.
There are now many automated tools available to help create an extra layer of security and validation for your surveys. CAPTCHA services, for example, while not perfect, can be a strong deterrent for AI-generated or false survey results. These services work by requiring a specific sequence of charters that bots often struggle with completing.
While a CAPTCHA service may not prevent all automated survey-taking, combining these services with IP address-checking software can be great. In this case, if someone is repeatedly taking the same survey to purposely skew results, the software will detect the location of the survey being taken and block any further submissions.
Incorporating “attention-check” questions is another good tactic for improving the quality of the survey data you receive.
These could be simple, off-topic questions that require respondents to give specific answers using questions designed to identify inconsistent response patterns. They act as a filter and help to weed out careless respondents or potential bots.
Another good strategy is to add a feedback or comments section at the end of your surveys, or offering some type of incentive to have them improve your survey structure. This can make it more likely for participants to express their concerns when taking the survey and give you valuable insights on improving design or clarity.
Conducting Post-Survey Analysis
Your post-survey analysis is one of the most critical steps you’ll take to validate survey results. This is where you can start refining the information you’ve collected so you’re only looking at the most reliable data to inform any business decisions or initiatives you take.
A key step during this phase is to properly identify any outliers. These are responses that shouldn’t be included in your final results. Even though it may not be possible to remove all outliers, having too many random answers could suggest that you’re still seeing some potential bot activity or just insincere responses.
Take the time to compare answers across several other related questions to see if some apparent inconsistencies should be addressed. If you start to see some contradictory responses, this could indicate that survey respondents aren’t paying enough attention during the process.
This could also point to a flaw in your survey design leading to respondent fatigue.
Looking at your open-ended questions is a great place to start when validating results. Seeing many blank or nonsensical answers is a clear red flag that certain respondents may not be engaged during the process, and you may want to remove their results altogether so they don’t skew the final numbers.
Survey Analysis | Photo: Canva
How to Validate a Survey: Additional Checks and Balances to Give You Better Survey Results
Below are a few best practices you could incorporate into your surveys to help you get better results:
- Consider Doing a Pilot Test – Consider conducting a smaller-scale survey with a smaller group of individuals. This can be a great way to get valuable feedback on how to improve the clarity or flow of the survey and maximize participation when you officially host it.
- Set Clear Eligibility Criteria from the Start – Keeping your surveys open for “everyone” could be a recipe for a disaster. Instead, create a list of eligibility criteria for who should complete the survey from the start. While this may not eliminate the wrong participants from providing their responses, it can help to keep the survey’s scope where you want it to be.
- Include a Progress Indicator – Maximizing engagement during a survey isn’t always easy, considering declining attention spans. Including a visual progress bar that shows respondents how far they’ve gone and how long they have left for the survey. This can significantly reduce survey abandonment rates.
Start Getting Better Insights from Your Surveys
Survey validation is a critical element to ensure you get maximum value out of your survey initiatives. By following the guidelines discussed, you’ll make sure the information you’re receiving is accurate and relevant to your needs, giving you the valuable insights you need to make better decisions for your business.
