< Previous Page

Pimp My Chimp - 12 SurveyMonkey hacks to make you top banana!

Author: Liz Barnes Consultant & Trainer - Envoca

Note: these features are available in the Advantage Team Plan, which is the minimum plan we recommend for any organisation using SurveyMonkey.

There are some very cool functions and features within SurveyMonkey that many users aren't aware of. And when they find out how to use them - they always say that they wish they'd known sooner! We know this because we train delegates from government, local authorities, charities, social enterprises, universities, the NHS, social services, education and industry to use SurveyMonkey software. Here are some of our favourites tips to help you design, deliver, analyse & present your findings with flair.

Questionnaire Design

1. Image choice questions.

It's a visual world and respondents are more likely to stay engaged if we give them images to assess. SurveyMonkey now has an 'image choice' question where you can upload or hyperlink to several images and ask to select one or more. And for those who use 'quiz mode' you can use it to ask respondents which is the correct version or which option has a specified number of errors for example. 

Go to Builder --> Image Choice

2. Question formatting and embedding elements

Following on from this, did you know that you can also embed images, videos, hyperlinks, tables, bullet points and numbered points within a question itself? You can also change the font or colour of the text. 

> Edit or click within the question you are typing

> Use the simple editor that appears top right, where you can embolden, underline, italicise, link, colour, embed images or text OR

> Click on ... to see full editor screen

We find this particularly useful if we need to give respondents additional information or instruction or emphasise specific parts of the wording. 

3. Carry Forward responses

This is another great way to increase respondent engagement by improving flow and relevance. It is a form of logic and allows you to carry forward responses from a previous question and insert the answer into a subsequent question. You can carry forward all those responses selected or not selected. For example, you might want to ask respondents which charities they have ever heard of and then ask if they had ever made donations to them. You might want to find out why they had NOT donated to the others. This is how you would do it:

P1, Q1: Create a multiple choice question e.g. Which charities have you heard of? [from a pre-defined list].

NOTE: you MUST put a page break inbetween your sender question (Q1) and your receiver question (Q2).

P2, Q2:  Check the box  'Use previous answer choices' (carry forward responses) - this is found underneath your list of answer choices. This allows you to take the answers from an earlier previous question on a different page. 
And which of these charities have you ever donated to? - note that the respondent will only see those they ticked in Q1.

P2, Q3: Create a multiple textbox question and carry forward the answer choices that the respondent did NOT select. Ask respondents to explain why they haven't donated to that charity. 
Please tell us why you decided not to donate to this charity?

Don't forget to Preview your survey and look at 'Preview Logic' on right-hand side to show where the carry forward responses are coming from. 
The survey will gracefully handle receiver questions that don’t have any answer choices:

 - If a receiver question has no answer choices to receive, and no answer choices of its own, it is hidden from respondents

- If an empty receiver question is the only question on a page, the survey automatically skips past the empty page

 

 

 

4. Reducing bias

To reduce bias, there are several things you should consider, most notably your sampling methods. Don't forget that as SurveyMonkey is an online tool, you may be reducing the chances of hearing from those who prefer not to use online tools, who have visual impairment, reduced access to the internet or reduced literacy or who work in jobs which restrict participation. Also, to reduce bias, you should used balanced scales and avoid leading questions. 

In addition, SurveyMonkey has a simple tool called 'randomisation' which helps reduce bias. Found in the 'Options' menu on each individual question, you can:

  • Randomise choices for each respondent.
  • Flip answer choices for each respondent (the selection appears the opposite way round for every second respondent).
  • Sort answers alphabetically.
  • Keep the last choice static (e.g. N/A) and Add Comment field will always be at bottom.

We find this the most useful form of randomisation, but you can also randomise some or all questions on a page using the Page Logic menu at the top right hand side of each page. If you really wanted to, you could randomise pages in your survey too (same menu) but for both of these, be aware - you can't use with skip logic or carry forward responses. Also, if you adjust your survey, check using Preview & Score that it is still working in the way you intended.

Preview & Score

In the right hand panel you'll see how your survey is rated, its expected completion rate and time to complete. You'll get suggestions for improvement. But another great feature here is the 'Preview Logic' which shows how you have designed certain respondents to skip specific questions, or your carry forward response questions. 

5. Commenting and collaboration in Preview & Score 

One of the most helpful functions that we are using regularly now, is the ability to share your survey with anyone and allow them to comment on each question. The comments are saved so you can 'reply back' saying how you have taken their feedback on board.  

To use this feature, go into Preview & Score and click on the comment icon in the top right hand corner. This will enable the comment function to appear on every question and you can add yours first if you wish. When you are ready to share, you can invite others using their email address. Note that they MUST have a SurveyMonkey licence for this to work, however, they can sign up for just a free licence to enable this. They will get an email from you and have to sign-in to their SurveyMonkey account to add their comments. But the beauty of this is that you will have a record of all the feedback from all those you invited to comment - in one place! You can address these and show that they have been resolved. It's like using 'track changes' in Word, but it is kept on the SurveyMonkey platform and a great way to collaborate transparently. 


6. What your survey looks like on different devices

Within 'Preview & Score' - on the bottom left-hand corner of your screen, you will see 'Device View' where you can flip between widescreen for desktop, tablet view and mobile view. This is REALLY important as most of us design surveys on a desktop and you may decide to ask questions a little differently when you see how they render on a mobile device!

 



 

 

Collecting responses

SurveyMonkey provides so many ways to collect responses now, including sending via email, posting on social media, sharing in Messenger, embedding in a mobile app or using a kiosk survey which collects responses offline in an app. It's a really good idea to use a variety of collector methods to get a broad response.  

7. Scheduling reminders and saying thank you

If you are using the email collector, there are a lot of cool features such as custom data and using your own HTML template. However, our favourite function is the ability to be able to schedule and remind respondents to respond to your survey. You can schedule your first email invitation to go out at a convenient time, and then SurveyMonkey will ask you if you want to send reminders. Just follow the instructions and choose a suitable date. You can tell SurveyMonkey to send only to those who haven't yet responded by the time the reminder goes out. We use slightly different wording for each reminder, often doing up to four if necessary. A rough rule of thumb is that you get 50% of the number of responses from the previous reminder - so it is worth doing. 

There is an overview screen which shows which messages / invites have been sent and which are still scheduled. You can edit or delete the upcoming ones as necessary. 

8. Using collectors for different groups to improve analysis

If you think that you might want to compare and contrast different groups, you can set up different collectors and label them accordingly. If all respondents get the same survey, it is always better to do this, rather than copy the survey and send the new version to a different group. This is because you will have a larger data pool to view all results together, and you can use the filter tools within Analyze to look at the different groups. For example, you might have a questionnaire that will be distributed across four regions, North, South, East and West. You can label four collectors accordingly and send the relevant Collector URL to the right region. All results will be pooled but you can separate them using the filter function.

Analysing results

We often see delegates who seem to have responsibility for survey design and data collection but then don't have much to do with the analysis. This is a shame because when you understand the analysis functions and how the data is presented / interpreted, it helps you write better questions. There are so many aspects we could cover but here are some we discuss in training sessions often.

9. Customise your graphs

You aren't stuck with the graphs SurveyMonkey shows when you first open the Analyze Results tab. You can change chart type (bar, column, stacked bar, pie, line, area), change colours and add data in the chart. Most importantly, we nearly always change the LABELS so that the title of the graph and labels are more concise. 

a. Combine results

We sometimes want to combine groups, especially if we have too many options. On the data table, you click on the down arrow under 'Answer Choices'. Here you get the option to combine groups of responses and re-labelling them. You can also 'hide and re-calculate' if for example you have a number of people who ticked 'not applicable' - you may want to show the graph recalculated for just those who gave an answer.

 

b. Re-order graphs

Along a similar vein, did you know that you can re-order the results in chart to show the most selected option first, rather than the order as typed?  
In your data table, click on the down arrow on responses. This gives you the option to 'sort descending, which on bar charts, will give you the most frequently answered option at the top. You can always revert to the original order later. Look at the graph here to show the difference. 

10. Share results via URL

It can be really helpful to share results on the platform without having to produce reports of interim or final results. This is useful for 

  • Top-line reporting for senior managers
  • First view prior to full results presentation
  • Sharing in real time (as responses come in)
  • Reducing the need to download & present results

At the top right of the Analyze Results [Question Summaries] use SAVE AS, go to 'Shared data link' and follow the instructions. This will be stored in shared data link on the left panel. 
A really great use of this feature is to combine it with 'filter' results. For example, you could filter the results for just the 'Northern Region'
of your organisation if you had set this up in your questionnaire or as a collector. Then you can send this URL to the Northern manager who doesn't then have to see the results in the other areas. 

Bonus tip

You can now add your own comments to the results page in the same way that you can add comments in Preview & Score. This means that you can give your own commentary on how you view the results. 

  • When you ‘SAVE AS’ and click ‘Shared data link’ a new window appears showing that view of the results
  • In top right hand corner you can now add comments (your narrative of the results) on the shared view and invite others to comment
  • This could mean that you never need to download and present results!

11. Compare (Cross-tab or Cross-breaks)

We love this feature and we know that you write better questionnaires when you fully understand how it works. This feature enables you to compare answers to one question versus answers to another question.
It is most commonly used with what we call 'profile' data e.g. Geographic location, age, gender, role/level, length of service etc. So for example your questionnaire could ask people if they are budget holders or not. Using 'compare' (LHS) - you can then look at all the answers to any other question using this comparison. 
This is so useful for helping test hypothesis e.g. for this example, are budget holders more likely to recommend us? 

If you want to compare different 'collectors', you will need to use 'filter' rather than compare.  

Presenting findings

12. Dashboards

SurveyMonkey offers many different export options now including Pdf, Excel workbooks with each question appearing of a different worksheet as well as full Excel/ CSV data tables and PowerPoint. 

But also, there has been a great break-through for SurveyMonkey because it is now possible to produce a 'report' from within the platform, sharing it via a URL. It works like 'cards' of charts, data tables or commentary, adding them to a blank canvas. It isn't infinitely adjustable but there are a few re-sizing / presentations options. 

  • From Present Results tab, create a new dashboard
  • You can also do this from any chart on the Analyze page.
  • Then ‘pin’ charts to any of your dashboards (the icon is on Analyze, Question Summaries at the top right of each set of question results).
  • From within dashboards you can add text boxes and drag cards around
  • The text can be formatted to emphasise points
  • Once complete, the dashboard can be shared via URL

Don't let anyone make a monkey out of you!

You'll see from the hacks above, that there are so many things you can now achieve with SurveyMonkey. Indeed, there are many more features and tools that we don't have the space for here, but you'll be pleased to hear that SurveyMonkey has a great 'help' section and offers lots of valuable tips and advice when you sign up for their newsletter. Don't forget, these tips are just from the standard level price plan. If you upgrade, you'll have a raft of other features to consider too.

We hope this has been useful, and if you want to know more about our training, please look at www.envoca.co.uk or contact admin@envoca.co.uk.

About the author:

Liz Barnes is a board member on the Charity and Social Marketing Group. She is also a consultant and trainer at Envoca. You can contact Liz via LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizbarnesenvoca/.