What Is the Best Way To Deliver a Survey?

The way you deliver a survey matters—especially in a work environment. Employee survey distribution presents a unique challenge, especially for companies with non-desk staff. Traditional methods, like sending a survey invitation through email, aren’t ideal for any business with employees who don’t work in offices…but those employees deserve a voice as well. So, how would you distribute a questionnaire for employees of a construction company, landscaping company, or any other hands-on workforce?

The best survey delivery methods make workplace surveys…

• Accessible to as many employees as possible.
• Simple for staff to submit responses.
• Easy to organize and collect data in a single place.

For surveying your staff, look no further than Yourco. Yourco provides a two-way communication platform through text, which helps not only with surveys, but employee onboarding, shift alerts, and company-wide announcements. When you send out a survey questionnaire through Yourco, you ensure that all of your employees have equal access to the survey—and submitting responses is as easy as sending a text message. Keep reading to learn more about survey distribution platforms, and why Yourco is without a doubt the best way to survey a group of employees.

Comparing Survey Distribution Methods for Employees

There are a lot of ways to send out surveys to your staff—each with their own pros and cons. Let’s look at five of the most common methods of survey distribution, as well as their pros and cons.

Delivering a survey through email

PROS: Using email is an easy way to reach a large number of employees. Additionally, email is already commonplace in most work environments.

CONS: Email almost always will favor office employees and exclude non-desk employees. Even if non-desk employees have access to a personal email address, they have inherently less time to access it due to the nature of their jobs. To top that all off, email inboxes get flooded with hundreds of emails daily, meaning surveys easily disappear in the shuffle.

Handing out physical survey forms that employees fill out then hand back in

PROS: When you hand out paper surveys, it’s easy to know who’s gotten the survey. You’re also giving employees something physical, which doesn’t favor those with emails.

CONS: Physical surveys are harder to collect, organize, and compile data from. Plus, there are many steps in the surveying process where submissions can be lost or misplaced.

Conducting a survey through chat platforms like Teams

PROS: Chats are less flooded with items that need attention at work, making it easier to get a survey in front of people and “cut through the noise” of daily work tasks.

CONS: Similar to emails, chat platforms favor employees whose jobs are constantly on their computers or provide them access to chat platforms. Non-desk employees typically do not have access to Teams, don’t pay for unlimited data plans, and don’t have time in their work day to check chat messages frequently.

Creating a QR code for employees to scan, which guides them to the survey

PROS: QR codes combine the benefits of in-person surveys with the convenience of digital surveys—all through the use of a cell phone, which is far more convenient for every type of employee. This survey method provides fairer access and convenience.

CONS: QR codes still have to be scanned by a phone, which means that for non-desk employees, there will need to be a method of physical distribution. Also, QR codes are unfortunately very susceptible to tampering by malicious hackers.

Sending out a survey through a text-message-based platform

PROS: Far more employees have access to a cell phone than a company email. This means that most (if not all) employees will receive the survey in a way that’s convenient for them, without the need for going to a physical place or accessing a digital workspace.

CONS: Text messaging is not always great for long-form, open-ended responses. (They do, however, function well for multiple choice or rating questions.)

Out of all these methods, which survey method is best and why? Ultimately, text messaging proves to be the simplest, easiest, most efficient choice. While each of these methods has their advantages and disadvantages, text messaging is the best way to get survey responses for three reasons: text messaging is…

• Accessible to as many respondents as possible.
• Simple for participants to submit responses.
• Easy to organize and collect data in a single place.

As you can see, these three qualities are the same ones that make an ideal survey platform. Text messages are far more likely to be read than emails and far less susceptible to hacking or tampering.

How To Increase Survey Response Rates With Yourco

With a platform like Yourco, collecting survey responses becomes easier for you and better for your employees. Here are some of the capabilities that Yourco has to improve your surveying experience:

• Create a platform where employees can communicate with you directly via text message.
• Distribute surveys on a platform that reaches all employees equally, no matter their role or shift.
• Send out surveys at pre-scheduled times so employees receive them when they’re working.
• Collect all your survey data in a single, easily accessible place that makes it easy to get results.

Sign up for free today or schedule a demo on our website to see the power of Yourco’s platform firsthand!