Multi-Survey in One

One of the greatest benefits of using an online survey is skip logic. Depending on how the individual answers, they are skipped to different questions in the survey, avoiding questions that are deemed not applicable due to their previous answers. We showed an example of how this is used a few days ago in the article titled “ Disqualification Logic – Should You Allow Respondents to Go Back ” where we discussed the use of qualification question to decide who can move on in your study.

But another benefit of skip logic is that you can use it to perform multiple research studies at once. Let’s use the example in the previous article once again. Q: Which of these is your favorite product? a) Product A (Competitor) b) Product B (Your Company) c) Product C (Competitor) d) Product D (Competitor) Now, perhaps you wanted to run a study about how customers that love your product will support various changes you plan to make in the future, so in the initial survey, those that use competitors are filtered out through the skip logic sequence, since they are not applicable for the study.

But you don’t have to filter them out. Instead, you can have them take a different study – perhaps a study based on why they choose a competitor’s products over your own (as an example). Because skip logic is seamless, the sample will not know that they didn’t qualify for the initial study.

For them, as the user, they’ll simply move on to the next question, which happens to be a question about competitor’s products. The value of this is that you will not have to find a new sample to run a separate study, and anyone that takes your survey has the potential to qualify for part of the research you’re running. It can allow you to know more about the competition, and may help you save money, as you don’t have to pay to have people run separate surveys or deal with additional datasets.

You still have to be concerned with basic research principles – for example, sample size, which may be affected by allowing users to split off into other surveys that are running independently. But you are also making sure that every time you run a survey you are getting the maximum amount of data possible to learn from. By using skip logic correctly, you are able to achieve a great deal of information from a “single survey,” and the sample you use will not have any idea they are missing out on another part of the study.