What are Microsurveys? How to Use Micro Surveys for Your Product-Led Business

No one likes filling out long surveys that seem to have random questions with no clear goal. While every survey should be designed to be quick and coherent, micro surveys do more than that - They are surveys in a nutshell!

Due to their brevity, microsurveys have a huge advantage over longer surveys, as they tend to yield higher response rates. But how do you make a microsurvey to get valuable survey data?

In this article, let's take a deep dive into what microsurveys are and how to implement them for the best customer feedback and maximize your survey's response rate.

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What are Microsurveys?

Microsurveys are short and focused surveys that are typically used to gather quick and specific feedback from customers. They usually consist of just a few questions and can be completed in a matter of seconds or minutes.

Let's list some key facts about micro-surveys:

• They are a valuable tool for businesses and organizations that want to stay in touch with their customers.
• By regularly conducting microsurveys, companies can gain deep insight into their customers' experiences and needs, and make improvements accordingly.
• Microsurveys can be used to track employee satisfaction and engagement levels over time, helping companies to identify areas for improvement in their workplace culture and practices.
• While microsurveys are short and focused, they are also flexible and customizable. Companies can tailor their microsurveys to ask specific questions about products, services, or experiences, and can use the results to inform future business decisions. With the rise of online survey platforms, such as Survicate, microsurveys have become more accessible and affordable than ever before, making it easy for businesses of all sizes to gather quick and specific feedback from their customers and employees.
• Microsurveys offer a number of advantages over traditional surveys. Because they are short and easy to complete, customers and employees are more likely to participate in microsurveys than longer surveys. This can help companies to gather more responses and insights than they would with a longer survey. Additionally, they can help companies to avoid survey fatigue and reduce the risk of survey burnout among their customers and employees.
• Overall, microsurveys are a powerful tool for businesses and organizations that want to stay connected with their customers and employees. By using microsurveys strategically, companies can gain valuable insights into their customers' experiences and needs, and make data-driven decisions that lead to better outcomes for everyone involved.

What's the Goal of Microsurveys?

Microsurveys should only evaluate a single issue with as few open-ended questions as possible. Respondents should be targeted via product usage. That way, meaningful data is collected across the whole customer journey. That's why these surveys are often displayed in-app. At the same time, they can have many different use cases.

The most popular use cases for micro surveys are 

• customer satisfaction
• feature requests or prioritisation
• competitor research
• customer insights collection
• competition analysis
• customer churn research

Let’s have a look at each use case in detail.

Microsurveys for Customer Satisfaction Research

The most popular customer satisfaction surveys include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS)
• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
• Customer Effort Score (CES)
• Product-Market Fit (PMF)

The Net Promoter Score gives you a bird’s eye view of your customers’ loyalty. If a respondent would consider recommending you to a friend or family, they are unlikely to be easily swayed by a competitor. 

The Customer Satisfaction Score lets you know how good a particular interaction a customer had with your brand. This could be an in-app purchase, a resolved ticket, or testing a new feature. This kind of survey should be triggered by that particular event.

Your Customer Effort Score gives insight into how easy or difficult performing certain tasks is for your customer. This is also a great way to evaluate your customer service.

A Product Market Fit survey gives you information about how you should tweak your product to better satisfy the market's needs. It also lets you know what you are doing right.

Microsurveys for SaaS and Product Feature Prioritization

A Saas product needs to be evolving. It is never truly finished, and customers expect you to keep adding new features and functionalities. 

The only way to do it well is by asking for in-app feedback from customers who are actually engaged with your product.

You can also ask respondents to let you know what features or functionalities they feel are missing. The best product team won’t be as creative here as people who use your product or service daily.

A short feature microsurvey can help you make product decisions backed by actionable data.

Microsurveys for Customer Insights Collection

Case studies, reviews, and testimonials are a great addition to a successful marketing strategy. Especially online, where you can’t touch or pick up what you’re buying, the research includes reading about what other customers have to say.

Microsurveys are a great way to gather data from your existing customers that you can use to acquire new ones. This is the kind of intel you can’t get by simply observing your customers' behavior.

Create a microsurvey and ask your customers questions like

• Which features do you enjoy most?
• Which integrations do you appreciate most?
• How much did your revenue grow when you began using our product?

Microsurveys for Competitor Analysis 

Answers to questions like

• Why did you choose us over competitors?
• Are you considering switching to a competitor?
• What made you switch to our product instead of a competitor?

Are great ways of finding your unique selling proposition and biggest advantages. Use a competitor analysis microsurvey to gain insights you’ll use in your next marketing campaign.

Microsurveys for Use Case or Persona Research 

A use case or persona micro survey can help you gather data on who is using your product and why. These can appear on a welcome screen or during signup.

Ask a few questions about your customer’s role in their company, their goals, where they found you, and so on. This precious demographic data will be key for your marketing and development team.

You can check a great persona microsurvey out by simply signing up for Survicate!

Microsurveys for Customer Churn Research (or Exit Micro Surveys) 

Churn microsurveys can come in handy in two situations.

First, when a potential customer leaves your website without purchasing or signing up. You can catch those by, for example, tracking their mouse position after visiting the pricing page. 

And second, when they’re about to cancel a subscription. Drawing conclusions about why customers churn can help you build a better strategy for building relationships and customer loyalty.

When to Run Microsurveys

As mentioned above, microsurveys should be specifically targeted. They are best displayed in-app for maximum context.

Use them to gather information at important touchpoints in the customer journey. Survicate offers many ready-to-send templates, like

• Customer Discovery Survey
• Product Feedback Survey
• User Experience Survey

Look through our templates to find the one you need or create a survey from scratch.

Key Principles of Compelling Microsurveys (that Gather High Response Rates)

The easiest way to implement microsurveys is by using pre-made templates. Platforms like Survicate offer a vast collection of expert-made survey templates that can be easily inserted into any product or website. These templates can be quickly and simply incorporated without disrupting your customers' workflow. Survicate's gallery has a range of templates that are ready-to-use, requiring minimal effort on your end. Check out Survicate's survey templates and start getting insightful feedback today.

If you are building your surveys from scratch, you will find the suggestions presented below helpful. You can also start with a survey template and customize it as you go.

1. Keep Your Microsurveys Focused

Rule number one! Never introduce two different topics in a microsurvey. Instead, focus on one aspect or piece of information you are looking for. It makes more sense to run two separate microsurveys rather than one that lacks focus.
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2. Make Your Microsurveys Personalized and Targeted

As mentioned above, microsurveys make sense when they are highly targeted. Do not send them to your entire customer base at a random time.

For example, if you released a new feature, the microsurvey should be triggered by a use case. It wouldn’t make sense to seek insights from customers who haven’t tried it or have no use for it.

Keep microsurveys targeted by triggering them by events. You can make them even more personalized by introducing other language versions. Translating your survey to multiple languages at once can help you get more responses.

3. Customize Your Microsurveys

Since the microsurvey will be showing up on your website or in your app (as opposed to, for example, an email) it needs to stand out. Make sure you configure the look (child’s play with Survicate) to fit your company image for consistency.

Inserting your brand colors and logo will help customers distinguish the pop-up survey from ads, chat bubbles, or cookie banners.

4. Make Your Microsurveys Simple

Make sure the copy is clear to your users and generally easy to understand. Since the survey should take no more than a few minutes to complete, it should be written in plain English (or your target language) without technical jargon or unnecessary abbreviations.

5. Integrate Your Microsurveys with Your Toolstack

Integrate your microsurvey with website optimization tools like Mixpanel, Amplitude, FullStory, Segment, and more. This will help you streamline and automate the process of distributing surveys and gathering feedback.

6. Analyze the Data and Close the Feedback Loop

Microsurveys give you a constant stream of feedback. The data will be very actionable, as it is easy to draw conclusions from data sets that are so focused. 

Make sure the data reaches the right teams and implement necessary changes. This will help you boost customer loyalty and acquire new customers.

Microsurveys Pros & Cons of Usage

Thanks to a high rate of responses from in-app microsurveys, they allow you to collect more data. The feedback is also accurate and highly specific to context - you won’t get a lot of “doesn’t apply” or “not applicable” answers if you target the users correctly.

Feedback is also highly actionable, as users fill surveys out when the experience is fresh in their minds. You can customize surveys and make them look exactly like your brand.

They work best in-app, and with Survicate, they are very simple to set up. All you need to do is copy and paste a code once. You don't need developers to create in-product surveys. You can consult with our CS team if you have any trouble. 

On the other hand, if you want to explore multiple issues, you will have to run separate microsurveys and target them accordingly.

Wrapping up

Microsurveys are a great solution if you need answers to quick-fire questions. Take advantage of the high response rate they bring, but don’t confuse your customers by mixing topics. You can use survicate templates to create optimal survey campaigns. And, if you need a little customization, you can do that right within our dashboard.