Every business needs to run a survey to understand what their clients and employees think about their products, services, and work treatments. In this sense, a Report Survey is an indispensable tool that helps you to summarize data that a survey has presented. In this article, we discuss everything about this have-to-have document.  

Now we mention the key facts that survey summaries, AKA executive summaries, should include to fulfill their mission.    

Survey Introduction

Besides the title page, which should be an engaging title, you need to include a survey introduction explaining the survey's primary purpose. In this section, clarify why you're performing the survey and using that specific tool. Most surveys include a well-done description of what the readers will find in the survey through the information gathered.     

Completion Rate

In a few words, this rate is the number of questions answered divided by the total number of questions. This will help you to understand if your survey has irrelevant questions that can interfere with correct survey analysis.

A low completion rate indicates you need to modify the survey and re-aim the questions. You may need to delete some or be clearer to encourage more readers to complete the survey.  

Total Number of Respondents

Getting accurate information involves knowing how many people responded to the survey. It means the survey platform your business uses must count individual respondents. Be careful because many platforms indicate their replies to particular questions.

Knowing the total number of respondents lets you know if you have a significant sample size. A good survey report must have a substantial number of respondents to achieve important findings. 

The number of samples will depend on the market and the type of data you need to collect. In general, decision-makers establish the age of the respondents and how many samples they need. Statistics show that over 300 samples are a good number, and over 700 is too much.

Responses Date

You need to know that the responses to individual questions may vary depending on the date you perform the survey. Perspectives about products, real politics, and the current financial situation may change the point of view of any survey respondent. 

For these reasons, take into account the period you surveyed people. This way, you can also determine if the data is still relevant. In this regard, data analysis is preponderant. 

Survey Views

A proper survey summary should indicate the total number of survey views in addition to the number of unique views, i.e., the number of different people who viewed the survey, no matter if they responded to it or not. 

Remember that many people, regardless of the nature of the survey, may view it many times and wait to answer it at any time. 

If the difference between both numbers is too high, it may indicate that our online survey does not have relevant questions for respondents or that the sample is too big. 

Most surveys suffer from this problem. Other reasons why this is happening may be:

• Respondents do not have the required equipment to respond to the survey. For instance, they may have a small phone screen, etcetera. 
• Respondents do not have time.
• After reading some simple sentences, they decide that the survey is not for them.  

Breakdown of Answers

Although general answers give you a good perspective about a particular product, it is also essential to know how each person responded to all the questions. It will help you to understand the analyzed data and identify trends found in questions that individuals answered.   

Besides, the breakdown answers you include in your survey summaries will let you know if a particular person is consistent with the last response.     

Breakdown of Closed-Ended Questions

Finally, visual information, such as pie charts or graphs, is vital to summarize and understand the closed-ended questions. 

These charts are helpful tools to take a lot of data you get via a multiple choice survey and quickly community it to individuals. This way, they can understand it at a glance.

Besides, readers will find that the organization made great marketing efforts to facilitate reading the report. It looks more user-friendly, so stakeholders will be more willing to hear recommendations based on the survey report.

Now we explain three types of survey reports you can use to present data fully and objectively.  

Customer Feedback Survey

This is the most common survey on the market. Many businesses use it to understand the habits of their customers or what they think about specific products or services. The collected data through a customer feedback survey is fundamental to analyzing satisfaction after a customer buys an article. 

Market Research Survey

This type of survey is mandatory to collect data that is not available or when your business wants to create a new product or service. Through this survey, your organization can understand the needs of a determined age group, the new market trends, its competitive advantages, and how its direct competitors position themselves in the market.

Employee Satisfaction Survey

This survey analysis determines the level of employee satisfaction in your organization. Most businesses run this type of survey from time to time to meet the needs of their teams. Thanks to the data collection from this survey, your employees can voice their opinions and frustrations, and your company can build stronger relationships.

Below you will find a step-by-step guide that will help you write your accurate survey report in a matter of minutes.

Create the Questionnaire

First, organizations should decide how many questions they want to ask their respondents and their nature. They also need to choose applied methodology. For instance, will it be only multiple-choice or free-answered questions where comments are allowed?  

The questionnaire is the structure, the skeleton of your survey. The questions that individuals answer are crucial to bring the information you're looking for. Anyway, creating a good questionnaire involves some aspects to consider. 

Define your Objective

Defining your research objective is crucial to lead your questionnaire to fruition. The main goal will determine the type of survey you need to apply.

Define your Target Audience

Once you have defined your objectives, you need to determine what age group to survey to get vital information. Besides, the target audience will provide you with insights that define your questions.

Choose the Survey Report Method, either Qualitative or Quantitative

At this point, you need to select a qualitative or quantitative method. The former will give you essential information about a specific product and age group immediately after. The latter will provide many samples from which you can extract conclusions from different sections. 

Choose the Best Questions for Your Survey

There are several types of questions you can include in your survey. The most common types are ranking ratings and close-ended questions.

These questions you conduct are closely related to the data you need to collect. Besides, the questions mustn't affect the completion rate.  

Collect Data

After building a concise questionnaire, it's time to complete the survey and collect data. Still, there are a couple of things you should focus on to get accurate data. 

Avoid Survey Bias

Collecting clean data in a determined time period is necessary to avoid survey bias. Different types of biases can lead your survey to less important findings. One of the most significant biases is when you try to direct the survey to get a specific answer. 

Choose the Right Method, either paper or online

Paper and online are the two main methods you can adopt to perform a survey. But which is better? It depends on the type of survey and data you need to gather. 

For example, if you want to survey teenagers, you should use an online survey. Since they spend a lot of time on their smartphones,  it will be easier to conduct data and do the rest. 

Analyze Data

Analyzing data starts once you’ve collected the data. This step involves simplifying the info so different people understand the information. Besides, it will facilitate writing the survey report.   

Export Data for Analysis

You need to export data for analysis. But, Where to export the information? The recommendation is to use proper software for such purposes as Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets. We encourage you to use the spreadsheet application of Microsoft. To do this, you need to export data as CVS. 

Interpret Data

Now you’ve analyzed the data, it’s time to draw a conclusion. 

Data Interpretation

There are multiple ways of interpreting the results you get through data analysis. A great example is when you use simple words to describe why teenagers prefer mobile devices over desktop computers. You can explain the related variables and patterns and write a summary describing the analysis results. 

Data Visualization

You can adopt several tools to show your interpretation of results in a visual way. For instance, you can communicate data and interpretation through graphic tools like charts and graphs. This way, it will be easy for everybody to understand and process the data.

Write your Survey

After surveying, collecting, and interpreting data, it's time to write your report. Typically, all you need to do at this point is insert all the information you got in the previous stages because everything is already done. 

Still, to accelerate the process and make it easier, you can always use a pre-designed template from the beginning, leading us to the next point.

This report survey template is adaptable for any survey you want to perform and record. With this spreadsheet template, you can organize data you got while surveying your employees and customers and know their feelings about your business, even if they are satisfied with the business's treatment.

You can download this survey template from Template.net.

This PowerPoint report survey template integrates all the sections an aware survey report should contain. This template provides space for describing purposes, methodology, survey results, and conclusions. Besides, if you need to show the results to your work environment, this template is perfect since it allows you to present the report via a PowerPoint presentation.

You can download this survey finding report template from Energy.gov.