Analyzing Questionnaire Results
Data Analysis
Once you have issued your questionnaire and have a number of responses that you are happy with, you now need to analyze your data: what does it tell you? The first thing to do is to accumulate totals for each question answer for example:
1. Do you prefer…
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Hamburgers: 58
Hot dogs: 37
Sandwiches: 30
Other: 25
Total: 150 people interviewed
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2. How often…
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Once a month: 65 Once a week: 40 Twice a week: 25 Once a year: 15 Other: 05 Total: 150 people interviewed |
From your results, you can produce analytical diagrams such as:
- Bar Charts (above)
- Histograms
- Pie Charts (above)
- Line Graphs
- Frequency Curves
- Scatter Graphs…etc
It is then down to you, or your marketing team if you have one, to decide what these figures mean and what you are going to do about it. For the above example, it shows that a majority of the people prefer hamburgers but yet there is a significant number to show a high demand for hot dogs. It would therefore be advisable to open a hamburger stall, which also sold hotdogs!
You may also decide to break up your analysis to find patterns by splitting your results into the peoples age groups or location that have resulted from your questionnaire. You may further split your results into the times when you issued your questionnaires: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday…and so on. By doing so, you can identify the age groups that will bring most sales and even the locations and times that will further bring most business.
Producing diagrams to help analyze results is ideal for numerical data but for those questions that are ‘open’ are harder to interpret as they give unique and diverse answers. There is no common way of analyzing these results and so you should use them in a way that you will benefit from them. It may be that you use the comments as advice when designing the product/service or to find a link between the comments made and the numerical results.
Analyzing data is very intensive and by using a number of analytical tools, you will find patterns and findings that will help you determine a marketing plan that is accurate and feasible to assist your future success. Take time when analyzing the results as this is where many people fail as they do not bother to make detailed conclusions on their findings.
Summary
Questionnaires are commonly overlooked because businesses cannot find the time or the funding to implement them. The small level of understanding is also a reason why people avoid questionnaires, but they do not realize the unique and fresh source of information they provide to assist with the business’ future success strategy.
There are several ways that questionnaires can be distributed and may be determ ined by the type of bus iness you are in. Do not shoot blind-folded: target those people in the market that your questionnaire is directed at but at the same time, be sure that your sample is as random as possible in order to obtain an unbiased and varied response.
The types of questions you ask should be relevant so that you can obtain results that will be useful to you. Be fair and general with your questions and do not lead people into giving specific answers that are not accurate and truthful: you will only be misleading yourself. Keep the questionnaire short and have a reasonable balance between open and closed questions so that interviewees/recipients will engage their interest and co-operation. Your attitude to delivering the questionnaire personally will be reflected in the interviewee therefore it is important you show enthusiasm and commitment to the task in order to get a good response.
Converting all responses into numerical data and further into diagrams and charts, will help analyze the data in which you can draw conclusions on your findings. Analyzing the data is a task that requires good analytical skills so that you can interpret data accumulated from the questionnaire and turn it into a proposed strategy for the marketing plan.
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