Want Quotes to Add To Your Research Findings? Add a Second (Automated) Survey

Recently, I was working with a client who wanted to include community member quotes in their survey results.

Of course, they could have pulled anonymous quotes from responses to the write-in questions, but this client wanted to share quotes from actual people.

Enter: a second survey.

More specifically, we created an additional survey that asked participants to answer a handful of write-in questions. Unlike the traditional (and primary) survey, we asked for a few key pieces of contact info — name, title, company and email address — so they could be quoted.

To automate this process, we set up an email that would be automatically sent to anyone who completed in the primary survey (who also provided their email address). The email thanked the person for their participation and offered them an opportunity to take the second survey.

This was the first time experimenting with this second survey, and we had a decent response rate. Approximately 10% of respondents participated (which was plenty of fodder for editorial!)

Bonus tip: Ask questions that will shine a positive light on the people responding. For instance, ask them to relay an example of something they are proud of or share a piece of advice that would help other community members. In general, avoid asking questions about challenges or something they may not want to share publicly. These types of questions are better answered anonymously.

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