Best Survey Tools for Events Planners



For any event organizer, the entire cycle of making an event stellar doesn’t end when the agenda has been covered. There are a number of post-event activities that need to be done to analyze whether or not the desired goal was achieved. One of the most critical of such post-event activities is conducting a feedback survey.

An event survey has several benefits that often include finding out what worked and what didn’t, discovering ways to attract more audiences to future events, and improving the overall event quality. And in fact, not just after the event, surveys can be conducted before and during events as well to collect different kinds of data and audience/participant responses. For instance,

  • When planning an event, instead of constantly worrying about being able to cater to the expectations of the audience, event planners can directly ask them about their choices through a pre-event survey. This can help create more value for the attendees.

  • When an event is in progress, a survey makes for a great way to keep the audience engaged. By asking them to fill out a survey and disclosing results through the event (like a poll), you can keep them involved and intrigued.

  • When an event is over, a post-event survey can help analyze the impact created, and the information so collected can be compiled in the form of reports which can be shared with the stakeholders.

Because surveys can perform such a critical function, they should be given keen attention and more time should be given to creating them to analyze events from a 360 degree perspective.

Let’s try to discover some important aspects related to event surveys.

Starting with the audience

Quick question - Have you ever thought who an event survey can and should collect information from?

You might think that the people attending an event are the only ones you should collect responses from. But actually, you can also share the survey with the people from your staff, volunteers, sponsors, and speakers to gain a much wider perspective. Having such a broad audience responding to your survey can offer you key insights into the different ways the event impacts the different people associated with it. You can discover critical things such as how easy it was to make the required arrangements, how difficult it was to approach the speakers, did the speakers find the technology and arrangements up to the mark, and several other things.

As such, with a survey you can find out new ways to make the event more appealing and beneficial to not just those who are attending, but to all those who are involved in making it a success.

How to put together an event survey?

A successful event is all about attendee satisfaction. It may look perfect from your perspective, but what really matters is the view of the participants attending the event. Surveys let you sneak into the minds of your audience.

Here’s how you can create post-event surveys that offer accurate and actionable data:

  • Be upfront
    When asked to participate in a survey, most people opt only because they think they’ll have to answer too many questions and it will take too much of their time. To get them on board, at the very start, let them know how many questions they’ll be asked and approximately how much time they’ll have to give to dedicate. This might help them feel more in control.


  • Include minimum number of questions
    Most surveys are abandoned half-way by participants because they’re too long. To ensure that doesn’t happen with your survey, keep the number of questions to a minimum. Think about exactly which answers will give you the most usable information and only ask that. The best surveys are those which have a maximum of 10 questions.


  • Choose the right type of questions
    There are different kinds of questions that you can use to extract the most value. The best survey tools give you the option to choose from multiple-choice questions, open-ended questions, rating scales, yes/no questions, and more. When deciding what to ask, also decide the manner in which you want your audience to respond. Keep their convenience in mind. For instance, a large number of respondents might be using mobile devices and thus might have trouble with text-box based answers; they might prefer multiple-choice questions that accept answers in the form of radio-buttons or drop-down lists. Such answers might also be better-suited when it comes to creating charts and analysis reports as compared to open-ended answers. But, of course, if you want to give your audience the freedom to give more detailed feedback, you can always provide a ‘further comments’ text-box at the end of the survey to make things complete.


  • Sequence the questions in a natural order
    You might be able to help your audience answer better if you create a narrative through your questions. Start with the pre-event activities, then lead through the happenings of the event, and then put questions related to the outcomes. Not only would it help them make better answer choices, it will help you analyze the entire audience experience better.

    Give the choice to be discreet
    Often, people don’t provide real answers to survey questions for fear of being judged. So if you want them to be honest about their opinions (which is the best strategy), give them the choice to submit responses anonymously. But, of course, do ask them what ‘kind’ of respondents they are. For example, are they event staff, stakeholders, attendees, etc.

Best event survey tools

When you create surveys manually, you not only end up putting in much more time and effort, you can often miss out on critical points of information collection. To overcome this problem, Survey Creation Tools have been designed as the one-stop solution. With such tools by your side, you can make sure you only focus on what you want to ask. All the other nitty-gritty’s like the type of questions, format of answers, etc. are automatically taken care of.

Although there are several paid and free choices available, we’ve compiled a list of best event survey tools out there to save you the hassle of going through multiple lists.

  • Bitpod Survey

    Bitpod Survey tool is the easiest way to create customized forms and surveys in minutes. Allowing you to conveniently build feedback and feedforward loops, it lets you collect user responses and derive actionable insights. With this one tool in your hands, you can build high-performing surveys that give you the flexibility to choose question types, share surveys, and control survey logic.

    Here’s a look at the best features of Bitpod Survey:

    • Different question styles to choose from
      Bitpod Survey offers support for different types of questions such as single-line/multi-line, multiple choices, Yes/No, rating, image, coding tests, and more. Simply click on the desired question style, fill in the details, and save. Thereafter, you can publish with a single-click when you want!


    • Survey Logic
      Survey logic allows you to control the question flow and decide what should be asked next based on information given in the prior question.


    • Responsive
      Every survey you create is automatically optimized for mobile, giving your audience the flexibility to respond from anywhere and from any mobile device.


    • Invite Participants
      Share your surveys instantly with everyone on your contact list. Reach the right audience by posting your survey on social media or sharing it using email campaigns.


    • Analyze Responses
      Survey analysis & reports help you visualize response trends and make informed decisions. After survey completion, analyze responses and create reports to visualize trends and make informed decisions. You can even set the time and score for each question.


    • Auto-score Tests
      Bitpod Survey lets you set a score for each multiple choice question and compute the total at the end of the survey. You can then display the result at the last page of the survey or email it to the participant. You may also use this feature for creating practice tests wherein the next question appears only when the previous question is answered correctly.


    • Remote Proctoring
      Often, participants in an online test make use of unethical methods to achieve high scores, but this may be unfair to other participants. To put a check on this, you can make provisions like capturing participant images during the test, or keeping tabs on how many times the participant looked elsewhere or switched tabs while answering. Accordingly, the final scores can be computed to ensure fair marking.


    • Geo Fencing
      Another unique feature that you can enable is setting geo-map limits which restrict the geographical area from which the survey can be taken. This ensures that only participants from a certain area can take the survey, and it can’t be forward to random people to collect responses/answers.


    • Set Time Limits
      Setting time limits on individual questions or on the entire survey is also possible. This again ensures that participants submit their own responses, without consulting online resources or taking external help. When a question is time bound, you can analyze if a particular response was submitted too soon or too late, which can indicate suspicious activity.


    • Must Answer Questions
      Depending on the criticality of a response, you can mark questions as must-answer or optional. Must-answer questions will restrict the survey from progressing if the participant hasn’t provided a response.


    Bitpod Survey is an affordable tool that you can use to design great enterprise surveys and extract actionable information from a variety of audiences.

  • Survey monkey

    You might have heard of this tool or seen it on pop-up surveys, Facebook, and YouTube. Survey Monkey is the one of the most popular survey tools out there. Whether it’s a public event, training courses, or a conference, this platform comes with hundreds of expert-approved templates for providing you quick responses.

    Highlights:

    • Inbuilt templates that are customizable according to what you want to ask your attendees

    • Easy click-based sharing

    • Diverse survey questions provided which include “Like” scales and open comments.

    • Online and offline data collection feature which you can access through mobile as well

    • Report generation and data analysis

    The only drawback of this tool is that it can be less lucrative when you want to measure overall satisfaction or re-survey participants after an interval.

  • Typeform

    Offered by a SaaS company, this tool will let you create your own surveys with their customizable templates. Eliminating the artificial look-and-feel, the built-in photo and video libraries will bring your survey to life. It will also help you ask conditional logical questions, making your survey appear more like conversations rather than plain interrogations.

    Highlights:

    • With a unique interface, it lets you display one question at a time on a mobile device.

    • You’ll be able to drag and drop from the field anywhere according to your preference.

    • By syncing it with Google sheets, it can also help you track proceedings on Slack, so whenever someone fills out the survey, you can watch responses and workflow easily.

    • It’s absolutely free and comes with unlimited questions, themes, data export options, and reporting features.


  • Google forms

    This is one of the best online survey tools that brings your survey together quickly and easily via a drag-and-drop interface. With built-in charts that’ll give you a real-time view of responses, you can analyze the data with ease.

    Highlights:

    • As it’s a Google tool, it can be easily synced with other Google products, if you need to transfer the collected data.

    • It logs everything on a spreadsheet and then transfers it to Google sheets for evaluation.

    • One of the biggest pluses of this tool is that it correctly formats the email addresses so that people can get suitable questions for them.


To wrap it up

Survey tools not only let you collect valuable audience feedback, but also help analyze it to design better experiences in the future. In a setting where building a good reputation needs you to consider audience feedback to improve planning and execution, such tools can prove to be of immense assistance.