DIY Client Surveys For Expat Entrepreneurs

Posted on 10. Feb, 2010 by Emmanuelle Archer in Blog, Expat Entrepreneurs
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Are you considering doing a survey to help you make better business decisions? For example, are you wondering if your clients would rather pay for an eBook or a teleconference?

If you just need a few straightforward questions answered, don’t go to the trouble of hiring a market research firm. You’ll save tonnes of money by conducting your own survey.

Surveying people from a different cultural background is a bit of an art, as I learned while working as a market research specialist for a multinational corporation. Here are a few guidelines to help you design and conduct a successful survey anywhere in the world.

3 tips for DIY surveys

1. Survey enough people

You need to thoroughly map out where you’re going to find enough respondents for your survey, or your efforts will fizzle faster than you can say “On a scale from 1 to 10”. If you don’t know many people yet in your host country, advertise your survey via social media and on message boards. Make sure that the respondents belong to your target market, or you may end up with biased results.

25 – 30 answers for each question should give you pretty accurate results. Keep in mind that people may skip a question here and there, so you may need more respondents than that to get valid results for each question.

That’s for a basic survey, where you only look at the overall results. If you need to analyse the data more finely (by gender, age, employment status, etc), you’ll need many, many more respondents to get enough answers from each subgroup, for each question. Ask a market research firm for advice if you’re not sure what you’re getting yourself into.

2. Take cultural traits into consideration

Back when I worked in market research in France, our department had to beg the German head office to stop designing surveys that were 53-questions long. Apparently the German public was willing to answer page after page of extremely detailed questions, but our French customers visibly had other priorities in life, and our return rates were laughably low. Price paid for overlooking cultural differences: huge amounts of money wasted on a survey that was all but useless in France.

What cultural traits do you need to take into account when you create your survey? Are there any topics that are considered taboo or highly personal in your host country? For example, many Europeans are reluctant to talk about money, so expect them to skip questions about their income, or give biased answers about their financial habits.

Make sure that your questions are culturally appropriate. It makes sense to ask North Americans about the “experience” of purchasing something from your website or visiting your shop – shopping is seen as entertainment, and expectations are high when it comes to customer service or user-friendliness. The same question may seem irrelevant to a Bulgarian or an Egyptian, who doesn’t have the same expectations of a trip to the store.

3. Keep it short and simple

What is the one question your survey should answer for you? I know it’s tempting to try to gather as much information as you can while you have your respondents’ attention, but really, a good survey can only focus on one issue.

Are you going to take immediate action on all the data you’re collecting? If not, eliminate the unnecessary questions.

Yes/no and multiple choice questions work best. You can also use a scale from 1 to 10 to measure interest or see if people agree with certain statements, etc.

Use an online tool like Survey Monkey to create your own web-based surveys. You can also hire business students to do the data processing for you. It’s a relatively small expense that will save you a lot of time, and with a bit of luck, you’ll even get pretty pie charts in the bargain… (not sure anything can top these two, though:)

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Emmanuelle

Images by NickPiggott (top) and johnbullas (bottom), via Flickr Creative Commons