When done right, mobile surveys receive up to 3x higher response rates than traditional web surveys. With 85% of adults keeping their smartphones within arm’s reach at all times, mobile surveys have become the most direct route to gathering authentic user feedback.
But here’s the challenge: successful mobile surveys require a tailored playbook; what works on desktop can actively harm your mobile response rates. Companies that simply shrink their desktop questionnaires to fit smaller screens end up with frustrated users and compromised data.
This practical guide breaks down our field-tested methodology for crafting mobile surveys that get responses, with specific examples and templates you can implement right away.
Get The Insights!
The fastest way to learn about Product Growth, Management & Trends.
What is a mobile survey?
Mobile surveys are questionnaires designed to be completed on mobile devices, such as smartphones or tablets.
In practice, this means that the layout, formatting, and question types will be optimized for smaller touch interfaces, making the survey more concise and accessible.
What are the benefits of mobile surveys?
The primary advantage of mobile surveys is that they enjoy a wider reach. With several users preferring mobile apps for their convenience, these surveys can reach a larger number of users than other survey types.
But mobile surveys still enjoy other advantages:
- Higher response rates: Unlike email surveys, mobile app surveys are collected when users are actively engaged with the app, making them more convenient. They’re also generally easier to complete.
- Real-time insights: Collecting feedback at the point of experience provides valuable, real-time insights. You can then act faster on the insight to prevent churn and improve the customer experience.
- Cost-effective: Compared to other user research methods like usability testing, mail surveys, or in-person interviews, mobile surveys are much more cost-effective.
- Focused: Mobile surveys are specific and targeted feedback; you can use segmentation and event-triggered targeting to reach a precise audience.
My best tips for conducting mobile app surveys
Now, chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re already deploying mobile surveys. So, how can you ensure your surveys are the most effective?
Here are my top tips for creating better mobile app surveys:
Ensure a mobile-friendly survey design
If you think survey aesthetics don’t matter, you’re wrong. The design and format of your survey are crucial for a positive mobile experience.
With that in mind, there are different factors to consider when creating mobile-friendly surveys. Some include:
- Visual appeal: Your survey should be aesthetically pleasing and easily readable on a small screen. This means your design must be responsive, with clear buttons and readable text sizes.
- Text sizes: Font sizes deserve special consideration. Mobile devices shrink text sizes to fit their screen, and mobile screen sizes vary wildly. Therefore, a good rule of thumb is to increase the text size to maximize legibility on small screens.
- Minimize scrolling: Ensure the question and answer choices are visible on the screen without excessive scrolling.
- Visual elements: Make your survey more engaging by incorporating relevant images or emojis.
Keep mobile surveys short and simple
There are two things to consider when deciding on the appropriate length for your surveys:
- Mobile app users are easily distracted.
- Survey fatigue is a real and (very!) common problem among survey respondents.
So, to ensure your surveys aren’t abandoned, keep them short and sweet. Aim for surveys that take no longer than 2–3 minutes to complete. And ask only what you need to know to achieve your objectives.
Speaking of “keeping it simple,” there are a few dos and don’ts to consider.
Dos:
- Use simple and straightforward language.
- Offer various answer options and include “Not Applicable” or “Don’t Know” as options where appropriate.
Don’ts:
- Avoid leading or ambiguous questions.
- Avoid jargon or technical terms that your survey respondents may not understand.
- Don’t combine multiple ideas or topics into a single question.
Trigger mobile app surveys contextually
When and how you deliver your mobile survey can significantly impact the relevance of the customer feedback and the response rate.
Your survey shouldn’t interrupt important workflow. Otherwise, you’ll frustrate the user and may still end up without a response. To avoid this scenario, you should:
- Trigger in-app surveys based on specific user actions or events to reach users at key moments within the app.
- Launch surveys on specific app screens within the mobile app to assess each user’s journey.
- Segment and target the right mobile users based on traits, device type, and operating system.
- Avoid launching surveys in the middle of critical tasks or at times when the user is likely to be busy.
Personalize surveys according to your users’ needs
Avoid generic, catch-all surveys. A good survey should directly match the target user’s needs and circumstances.
Although this may seem like a small matter, it isn’t. If respondents think a survey fits their circumstances, they’ll feel their response contributes to a better user experience. Otherwise, responding to the survey may feel like a chore.
Now, it’s important to note that there are different methods for personalizing surveys. Some include:
- Addressing users directly: This is the most basic form of personalization. It involves including the user’s name in the introduction or within the question if you have that information.
- Dynamic question logic: This involves using conditional logic to show or hide questions or comments based on a user’s response. For example, following a CSAT survey, you can ask satisfied users to leave a public rating while asking dissatisfied users to elaborate on their concerns.
- Contextual triggers: Triggering surveys when a user takes/completes specific actions or events within the app. For example, when conducting a CSAT survey for a feature, it is best to target users who have previously interacted with it.
- Segmentation-based targeting: Send different surveys to different user segments, with questions tailored to their specific needs or interests.
Unlock Authentic Feedback with Tailored Mobile Surveys
Gamify your surveys to ensure completion
As is the case when adding gamification elements to other parts of your app, the goal of gamification in a customer feedback survey is to make it more engaging and less boring.
Considering this, you don’t need to overcomplicate things. For example, you can include progress bars to motivate users to complete the survey. Or, you can offer badges upon completion to show appreciation for the user’s time.
If you want to spice things up, you can even add gamification elements to the survey questions. For example, you can use interactive elements like sliders, star ratings, and drag-and-drop options to make answering questions feel more engaging than simple radio buttons.
Before deciding on the ideal gamification elements to include, however, there are some factors to consider:
- All gamification elements should be optimized for mobile devices and be easy to interact with.
- Remember that this is a mobile app feedback survey, not a full-fledged game. Your primary goal is still to gather feedback.
- Consider whether gamification elements will resonate with your target audience. If yes, identify and use elements that best suit their demographic.
- Ensure gamification elements aid your data collection efforts and enhance the perceived value of completing the in-app survey.
Offer meaningful incentives to increase the response rate
While incentives can dramatically boost survey participation, they must resonate with your target audience to be effective. A misaligned or thoughtless incentive can actually harm response rates and data quality.
The key is strategic alignment – your incentive should serve both your immediate survey goals and longer-term product adoption objectives. Though traditional rewards like gift cards or discounts can work, product-focused incentives typically deliver better ROI by transforming survey participants into engaged users. For SaaS users, a meaningful incentive could be offering premium features or extended trial periods.
A step-by-step process for creating mobile surveys with Userpilot
Let’s translate all of this theory into practice.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating your own mobile in-app surveys using Userpilot, a platform that helps you quickly build and deploy surveys to mobile phones and tablets.
Step 1: Log in to your Userpilot dashboard and choose a survey template from the library. Userpilot’s templates contain pre-written survey questions and can be formatted to your taste.
Step 2: If you choose to create from scratch, you’ll have to select from different question types, depending on the data you want to collect. You’ll have 5 options:
- Open text: Open-ended questions that allow respondents to type in free-form text. It is ideal for gathering qualitative data where detailed feedback, opinions, or suggestions are required.
- Likert Scale: Measures respondents’ opinions or feelings on a scale (e.g., smilies, stars, numbers, etc.). It is ideal for collecting quantitative data.
- Multiple choice: This presents respondents with a list of options from which they can select one or more. It is ideal for gathering categorical data or breaking down complex topics into smaller, mutually exclusive options.
- Single input: Allows respondents to enter a single piece of information, like a number, date, or short phrase. You can use this option to collect specific data, like age, zip code, etc.
- Text/URL Prompt: Although this option can be used for general qualitative feedback, it’s ideal when you need the respondent to provide a URL.
Step 3: Next, head to the Style tab to customize the survey appearance. You can customize the primary color, background color, border width, and fonts. Ensure your customization aligns with your branding.
Step 4: To define your target audience, head to the “Audience” tab and select All Users, Saved Segment, or Custom Conditions. You can also set it to Only Me to see how it appears.
Step 5: This is the final step before deployment. Once you’ve defined your audience, you can choose how you would like the survey to be triggered.
Step 6: After deploying your survey, visit the Responses tab to view and analyze your survey responses and prioritize improvements.
From mobile data to tangible results
The journey from creating effective mobile surveys to reaping tangible results is dynamic and iterative. Following the principles discussed above will help you craft truly effective in-app surveys.
But the true power of mobile surveys isn’t just about collecting data, it’s about acting on it. Userpilot helps you collect mobile feedback quickly, analyze it for valuable insights, and act on it. Book a demo to learn more.
Unlock Valuable Insights with Userpilot’s Mobile Surveys
FAQ
What questions do you ask in a survey for an app?
Depends on your goal.
If your goal is to understand usability, you can ask, “How easy was it to use [feature]?” Or, you could ask, “What features would you like to see added?” if your goal is to receive feature suggestions. More generally, you can ask CSAT survey questions, like “How satisfied are you with this product/feature?”
So, think of what you hope to achieve with the survey and tailor your questions accordingly.
What is the best survey tool?
“Best” depends on your needs. Tools like SurveyMonkey and Google Forms, for example, are great for standalone long-form surveys. However, Userpilot is an excellent option for in-app surveys.
How can I integrate surveys into my mobile app?
Most in-app survey software, like Userpilot, provides SDKs for Android and iOS apps.
With Userpilot, you’ll need to add the Userpilot dependency to your project file and initialize it (you can find instructions on how to do that here). Once that’s done, you can create, customize, and trigger your surveys based on user actions or other preset conditions.
About the author
