Top 9 Online Survey Use Cases in 2024

It is estimated that the size of the online survey market will reach ~$5 billion in 2026. Companies conduct online surveys to collect data from customers, employees, or the public to understand market trends. This can help organizations get insights regarding their brand reputation, employee satisfaction, or customer experience.

Here we explain the top online survey use cases to help businesses leverage online surveys effectively.

Advantages of using online surveys instead of traditional methods

Digital transformation changed how companies interact with their customers, understand the trends, and develop better strategies to stand out from the competitors in their market. One result of digital transformation for businesses is collecting data through online survey methods. There are certain features or capabilities of online surveys that make companies prefer them:

• Higher response rates compared to traditional methods
• Ease in creating follow-up questions
• Cost-effective compared to paper pencil survey methods
• Less time consuming
• Enables real-time analysis
• Respondents do not have to fill out the survey at a particular time
• Easily distributable survey link

Top 9 use cases of online surveys

We have divided the use cases of online surveys into four based on their functions: Market research, customer experience, marketing & sales, and employee satisfaction.

1- Market research

Online survey research helps businesses to understand the market they are interested in. For instance, a retail company can survey customers on their preferences, habits, or thoughts on the products or services in the market. As a result, it gets insights and has a more comprehensive view of the market.

Source: QuickTapSurvey

Figure 1. An example of a retail customer experience survey

Learn more about using surveys for market research and the top market research software in the market. 

For those interested, here is also our data driven list of market research tools.

Brand reputation/awareness

Source: Attest

Figure 2. Example of a brand awareness survey questions

Marketers state that their top priority for the next year is to enhance brand awareness. Although various methods exist to measure brand reputation, the most preferred method is to create online surveys as they ensure anonymity for the survey participants. 

Brand awareness surveys can help understand customers’ impressions about the brand and its location in the market compared to other brands. They can also enable companies to capture customers’ sentiment toward the brand while keeping their sensitive information safe.

Pricing

Source: Towards Data Science
Figure 3. Exemplary questions for product pricing research

When companies release new products, they might have difficulties determining the price and how their products will be located in the market. 

Collecting feedback from the public on the prices of products can help businesses to gain insights into customer thoughts and to develop better pricing strategies. 

For instance, Nestle has ~2000 brands and determines price ranges based on the target audience. Their research revealed that people don’t go to supermarkets daily; thus, they developed bundle packs for the products that increased sales.

2- Customer experience

It is not only crucial to attract new customers but also to satisfy the needs of existing ones. Research shows that over 95% of customers change their buying behavior after an unsatisfying experience.

Online customer surveys can help collect feedback about customers’ thoughts, feelings, expectations, or desires. This gives companies actionable data to use in marketing strategies and to increase customer satisfaction, which helps reduce customer churn.

Website usability testing

Website usability tests can give insights into how easily customers can navigate the website and how user-friendly their pages, buttons, or webpage are. Online questionnaires can be conducted with the target audience, and the insights can be used to optimize websites for a better customer experience.

Here are some questions businesses can implement in their website usability surveys:

• How simply can you locate the details you need on the website?
• Do you think the website’s layout and design are visually appealing?
• How pleased are you with the website’s general speed and functionality?
• While visiting the website, did you notice any broken links or other technical issues?
• Did you manage to finish what you intended to do on the website?

3- Marketing & sales

According to research, 75% of newly released products fail. It is possible to develop informed marketing strategies by surveying the customers to understand their needs, complaints, desires, or expectations, which helps increase sales.

Measuring the effectiveness of marketing campaigns

Global utilization of marketing data was estimated to be $52 billion in 2021. However, not all marketing strategies are successful. Through conducting research as a way of post-campaign evaluation, businesses can gain insights into which products are most liked and disliked and can decide to stop certain campaigns and develop new ones.

Sales lead generation

Understanding the characteristics or preferences of buying customers is crucial for qualified leads. Businesses can identify qualified leads through online surveys to develop lead-generation strategies that help generate sales, such as:  

• Content marketing
• Social media marketing
• SEO practices

4- Employee satisfaction

Companies not only measure customer satisfaction through survey responses but also understand their employees’ satisfaction. According to research, more than 40% of workers intend to quit their current jobs next year. 

By conducting employee experience surveys, businesses can track the changes in their satisfaction over time and understand their workload, communication within the organization, and overall job satisfaction. This helps develop strategies to increase their satisfaction and make necessary changes in the work environment, reducing the number of employees leaving their jobs.

Here are some questions that businesses can implement in their surveys to measure employee engagement:

Source: Gartner

Figure 4. Examples of employee engagement survey questions

You can also check our article on employee sentiment analysis.

You can also check our data-driven list of survey participant recruitment services and survey tools.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any additional questions about conducting surveys: