Crafting Effective Client Surveys

Drawing from years of my experience designing surveys for my academic projects, clients, along with teaching research methods and Human-Computer Interaction, I've consolidated these insights into this comprehensive guideline. Introducing the Layered Survey Framework, designed to unlock richer, more actionable insights by respecting the nuances of human cognition. This framework (https://lnkd.in/enQCXXnb) re-imagines survey design as a therapeutic session: you don't start with profound truths, but gently guide the respondent through layers of their experience. This isn't just an analogy; it's a functional design model where each phase maps to a known stage of emotional readiness, mirroring how people naturally recall and articulate complex experiences. The journey begins by establishing context, grounding users in their specific experience with simple, memory-activating questions, recognizing that asking "why were you frustrated?" prematurely, without cognitive preparation, yields only vague or speculative responses. Next, the framework moves to surfacing emotions, gently probing feelings tied to those activated memories, tapping into emotional salience. Following that, it focuses on uncovering mental models, guiding users to interpret "what happened and why" and revealing their underlying assumptions. Only after this structured progression does it proceed to capturing actionable insights, where satisfaction ratings and prioritization tasks, asked at the right cognitive moment, yield data that's far more specific, grounded, and truly valuable. This holistic approach ensures you ask the right questions at the right cognitive moment, fundamentally transforming your ability to understand customer minds. Remember, even the most advanced analytics tools can't compensate for fundamentally misaligned questions. Ready to transform your survey design and unlock deeper customer understanding? Read the full guide here: https://lnkd.in/enQCXXnb #UXResearch #SurveyDesign #CognitivePsychology #CustomerInsights #UserExperience #DataQuality

Remember that bad survey you wrote? The one that resulted in responses filled with blatant bias and caused you to doubt whether your respondents even understood the questions? Creating a survey may seem like a simple task, but even minor errors can result in biased results and unreliable data. If this has happened to you before, it's likely due to one or more of these common mistakes in your survey design: 1. Ambiguous Questions: Vague wording like “often” or “regularly” leads to varied interpretations among respondents. Be specific—use clear options like “daily,” “weekly,” or “monthly” to ensure consistent and accurate responses. 2. Double-Barreled Questions: Combining two questions into one, such as “Do you find our website attractive and easy to navigate?” can confuse respondents and lead to unclear answers. Break these into separate questions to get precise, actionable feedback. 3. Leading/Loaded Questions: Questions that push respondents toward a specific answer, like “Do you agree that responsible citizens should support local businesses?” can introduce bias. Keep your questions neutral to gather unbiased, genuine opinions. 4. Assumptions: Assuming respondents have certain knowledge or opinions can skew results. For example, “Are you in favor of a balanced budget?” assumes understanding of its implications. Provide necessary context to ensure respondents fully grasp the question. 5. Burdensome Questions: Asking complex or detail-heavy questions, such as “How many times have you dined out in the last six months?” can overwhelm respondents and lead to inaccurate answers. Simplify these questions or offer multiple-choice options to make them easier to answer. 6. Handling Sensitive Topics: Sensitive questions, like those about personal habits or finances, need to be phrased carefully to avoid discomfort. Use neutral language, provide options to skip or anonymize answers, or employ tactics like Randomized Response Survey (RRS) to encourage honest, accurate responses. By being aware of and avoiding these potential mistakes, you can create surveys that produce precise, dependable, and useful information. Art+Science Analytics Institute | University of Notre Dame | University of Notre Dame - Mendoza College of Business | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign | University of Chicago | D'Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University | ELVTR | Grow with Google - Data Analytics #Analytics #DataStorytelling

It takes 7 seconds to lose a client's trust. (Sometimes with words that seemed perfectly reasonable.) I've watched smart professionals lose deals they deserved to win. Strong relationships. Perfect fit solutions. Gone in seconds. Because here's what nobody tells you about client conversations: Your words can either open doors or close them. After training 50,000+ client-facing professionals… I've heard every phrase that makes clients pull back. The pushy questions. The tone-deaf assumptions. The pressure that breaks trust instantly. 10 phrases that push clients away: ❌ "Do you have a price range in mind?" ❌ "When can we close this deal?" ❌ "Let me tell you why we're the best." ❌ "Are you ready to buy today?" ❌ "Who else are you talking to?" ❌ "I just wanted to check in.” ❌ "You really need what we offer." ❌ "Let me know if you have any questions." ❌ "This is a limited-time offer." ❌ "Can you introduce me to your boss?" Each one risks sounding like: "I care more about my quota than your success." Now 10 that build partnerships instead: ✅ "What outcomes are most important to you?" ✅ "What would success look like for you?" ✅ "Would it help if I shared how we've helped others?" ✅ "What's your timeline for making progress?" ✅ "What's most important when choosing a partner?" ✅ "I had an idea about your goals. Want to hear it?" ✅ "What challenges are you facing that we might help with?" ✅ "Would it help if we scheduled time to dive deeper?" ✅ "What priorities are driving your timeline?" ✅ "Who else should be part of this conversation?" Notice the pattern? Every better phrase puts the client's agenda first. Not yours. Because when you stop selling and start solving, everything shifts. Clients lean in instead of pulling back. Conversations flow instead of stalling. Trust builds instead of breaking. You don't need a personality transplant. You don't need to become "salesy." You just need to change your questions. Because the truth is: Your next client conversation is either strengthening a partnership or weakening one. Your words decide which. ♻️ Valuable? Repost to help someone in your network. 📌 Follow Mo Bunnell for client-growth strategies that don’t feel like selling. Want the full cheat sheet? Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/e3qRVJRf

People struggle to quantify metrics that are critical to disrupting the status quo Here are 10 questions that will help you do that: First, think of the outcomes your solution delivers It often sounds like, "We improve, increase, reduce, save _____ by X%" That is your business metric (M) Any metric you can't improve doesn't matter. Now your job is to ask your client questions to figure out the following: 1. Do you know your current averages for (M)? 2. If we could improve (M) by X% in what ways would that be meaningful to you? 3. Does improving (M) tie to a business priority? Which one? What is the current goal? How far from goal are you? 4. If we could improve (M) by X% could you guess at the financial impact? 5. Who owns finding ways to improve (M)? 6. What current initiatives or solutions are being deployed to improve (M)? 7. Why is improving (M) a business priority now? 8. How have you tried to improve (M) in the past, what worked, what didn’t? 9. When are you looking to get (M) improved by? 10. What happens if (M) isn't improved by that timeframe? If you are selling in an unbudgeted environment and can't figure out (M) and the corresponding impact you don't have a deal. Business cases are how unbudgeted expenses get prioritized and budgeted. With a strong business case + economic buyer involvement, you can often skip budget cycles altogether. If you haven't mastered these types of questions and found ways to get answers to them, you are missing a huge part of creating the need for change and getting executives to pay attention. This is an easy area to focus on that will likely have the largest impact on win rates and speed of deals. Give it a try 🚨 PS - If Time Savings is your metric - get good at time-in-motion studies and quantifying opportunity costs and OpEx savings. 🔔 Give me a follow - I'll post on that this afternoon.

User experience surveys are often underestimated. Too many teams reduce them to a checkbox exercise - a few questions thrown in post-launch, a quick look at average scores, and then back to development. But that approach leaves immense value on the table. A UX survey is not just a feedback form; it’s a structured method for learning what users think, feel, and need at scale- a design artifact in its own right. Designing an effective UX survey starts with a deeper commitment to methodology. Every question must serve a specific purpose aligned with research and product objectives. This means writing questions with cognitive clarity and neutrality, minimizing effort while maximizing insight. Whether you’re measuring satisfaction, engagement, feature prioritization, or behavioral intent, the wording, order, and format of your questions matter. Even small design choices, like using semantic differential scales instead of Likert items, can significantly reduce bias and enhance the authenticity of user responses. When we ask users, "How satisfied are you with this feature?" we might assume we're getting a clear answer. But subtle framing, mode of delivery, and even time of day can skew responses. Research shows that midweek deployment, especially on Wednesdays and Thursdays, significantly boosts both response rate and data quality. In-app micro-surveys work best for contextual feedback after specific actions, while email campaigns are better for longer, reflective questions-if properly timed and personalized. Sampling and segmentation are not just statistical details-they’re strategy. Voluntary surveys often over-represent highly engaged users, so proactively reaching less vocal segments is crucial. Carefully designed incentive structures (that don't distort motivation) and multi-modal distribution (like combining in-product, email, and social channels) offer more balanced and complete data. Survey analysis should also go beyond averages. Tracking distributions over time, comparing segments, and integrating open-ended insights lets you uncover both patterns and outliers that drive deeper understanding. One-off surveys are helpful, but longitudinal tracking and transactional pulse surveys provide trend data that allows teams to act on real user sentiment changes over time. The richest insights emerge when we synthesize qualitative and quantitative data. An open comment field that surfaces friction points, layered with behavioral analytics and sentiment analysis, can highlight not just what users feel, but why. Done well, UX surveys are not a support function - they are core to user-centered design. They can help prioritize features, flag usability breakdowns, and measure engagement in a way that's scalable and repeatable. But this only works when we elevate surveys from a technical task to a strategic discipline.

5 research questions that uncover what users won’t say out loud. Polite answers won’t build great products. These questions are the ones that force people to think and lead to useful product insights: 👉 “Tell me about the last time you tried to do [task] and gave up.” People don’t bring up failure unless you ask. But when they do, they show you where your product actually breaks 👉 “Is there anything in [product] without which you won't use it?” Reveals true dependencies vs. nice-to-haves. Users will tell you the one thing holding their workflow together. It’s rarely what you expect. 👉 “Walk me through what you were thinking during that 30-second pause.” Ask this in the moment, not after. It surfaces hesitation, mental model gaps, and quiet confusion that observation alone won’t catch. 👉 “What’s something about this that didn’t behave as you expected?” This is great for spotting subtle friction that users may not verbalize on their own 👉 “What’s the workaround you’ve created for this?” People invent hacks to survive broken flows & that can be gold.  Workarounds show what users need but can’t articulate. What’s the one question you always ask no matter what?

The WRONG way to teach discovery is to tell sellers which questions to ask. The questions don't matter until the team knows what they are trying to get the prospect to SAY in the first place. Once they know what they need to get the prospect to say, then they just need to work backwards to reverse engineer what question(s) will get them to say that! Just handing everyone a list of questions robs sellers of their authenticity - memorized questions often come across stiff and salesy. --- Once you've decided what you're trying to "discover", here's a couple question types I really like to use: Remember, focus less on the wording and more on what I'm trying to get the prospect to say. 𝟭. 𝗪𝗵𝘆'𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹? We need to know what's motivating them to show up on a sales call with us in the first place. Use this as your opening question right after setting an agenda: "𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘢, 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴?" [inbound] "𝘌𝘮𝘮𝘢, 𝘐 𝘤𝘢𝘯'𝘵 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭? [outbound] --- 𝟮. 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 Use these to "offer" problems you know you solve and steer the conversation in that direction. [what I heard] 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘤𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸. [multiple choice] 𝘜𝘴𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘐 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘙 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘢𝘮 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴. [simple ask] 𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘦𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘴? --- 𝟯. 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗲 + 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗻 Sometimes you need to just directly ask about pain points you suspect they have. But to avoid coming off too leading, try pairing compliments with your direct question to soften the blow: "𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘬𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵. 𝘛𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶'𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘯 𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘯𝘦𝘸 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘯'𝘵 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶?"

I just reviewed a follow up email that made me want to delete my LinkedIn account. After an incredible discovery call where the rep: → Uncovered $500K in annual losses → Identified specific pain points → Built genuine rapport with the prospect He sent this follow up: "Hi John, following up on our conversation. Any thoughts on next steps?" I'm not joking. That was the entire email. This rep went from trusted advisor to desperate vendor in one sentence. Here's what he should have sent instead: "John, Based on our conversation about the $500K you're losing annually due to deployment delays, I've put together a brief overview of how we've helped similar companies reduce this impact by 80%. Given the scope of this challenge, when can we get your CFO involved to discuss the business case? Best regards, [Rep name]" The difference is night and day: ❌ Weak follow up: "Any thoughts on next steps?" ✅ Strong follow up: References specific problem + demonstrates value + advances the sale Your follow up emails should sell, not beg. Every touchpoint is an opportunity to: → Reinforce the problems you uncovered → Show how you solve them → Move the deal forward Stop wasting these golden opportunities with generic, desperate sounding messages. Use what you learned in discovery to craft follow-ups that advance the sale. Your prospects are drowning in "just checking in" emails. Be the one who stands out by referencing real business impact. — Reps! Here’s 5 simple follow up strategies to close seals faster and to minimize ghosting: https://lnkd.in/gJRJwzsN

Your customer survey doesn't just capture feedback on the experience. It IS the experience. Asking at the wrong time can be annoying. For example, many websites use pop-up surveys to ask for feedback. The timing of the pop-up should be carefully chosen to avoid interrupting the customer's workflow. In this example, the survey popped up on the login page. Customers on the login page are likely intent on completing a transaction within their account. The pop-up survey adds unnecessary friction to the process. Even worse? The survey takes a few minutes to complete. Asking customers to stop what they're doing to spend several minutes completing your survey is pretty cheeky. How could you make this experience better? A few ways: 1. Improve survey timing You could offer a survey at the end of a transaction or when a customer's dwell time (time spent looking at one page) exceeded a certain threshold. 2. Simplify your survey Allow customers to share feedback in one click with an optional open comment box. 3. Think twice Do you really need to survey customers here? Only use a survey if you have a clear reason and a specific plan to use the data. LinkedIn Learning subscribers can get more survey tips from my course, Using Customer Surveys to Improve Service. ➡️ https://lnkd.in/eziCufWi Bottom line: Surveys are part of the customer experience. Make sure your survey ask doesn't make the experience worse.

"Deal's looking good. I'm in with the CMO." A colleague shared his excitement. I rolled my little eyeballs. "What?" he asked, confused. "Single-threaded deals die," I replied. Three weeks later: "CMO went on leave. Deal's stalled." I wasn't surprised. The average B2B purchase now involves 11+ stakeholders. Yet most reps are still playing the "one relationship" game. Old playbook: Find one champion. Let them "sell internally" for you. Hope for the best. Failure rate? About 80%. A recent client win taught me the better approach: Initial call with the VP of Sales. Great fit, but I asked: "Who else needs to be comfortable with this decision?" The list: - CRO (economic buyer) - IT Director (technical approval) - Sales Enablement (implementation) - 2 Regional VPs (end users) That's 6 people. Each with different: - Priorities - Objections - Questions Rather than pestering my champion to coordinate everything... I created a single digital room with: - Role-specific sections for each stakeholder - Tailored ROI calculations for the CRO - Security documentation for IT - Implementation timeline for Enablement - Quick-start guides for the Regional VPs My champion shared the link. The magic happened silently: Analytics showed the CRO viewed the ROI calculator 5 times. The IT Director spent 15 minutes on security docs. Both Regional VPs watched the training videos. I hadn't spoken to any of them directly. But they were all selling themselves. When we finally had the "decision call," everyone was already aligned. No last-minute objections. No mysterious "other stakeholders." No surprises. Here's what changed: Old approach: Pray your champion effectively represents you to people you never meet. New approach: Give every stakeholder what they need, even without direct access. Multi-threading isn't about scheduling more calls. It's about making yourself irrelevant to the process. The best deals close when stakeholders convince themselves...without you in the room. Are you still gambling on single-threaded relationships? Or building networks that sell for you? Agree?