We are looking at running an on-site survey to gather information from our users - usual sort of thing. However there is a big debate internally about where and how the survey should appear. The options are as follows:

1) Do the standard pop-under when a user exits the site
2) Serve a banner as an eye-blaster after the user has been on the site say 20 seconds, asking them to complete the survey. Clicking on the banner opens the survey. This then gets round the possible problem, that if a user keeps their browser open all day, they will still see the survey maybe hours after going on the website. But this will then affect the user-journey and take the user off our website.

Can anyone offer any advice / comments on these 2 options?

Many thanks!

Caroline

I think Ashley's idea is not bad.  An alternative option could be a link (either text or graphics) which would then either open a new page or a hidden area (div) within the same page which would contain the survey or information you want.

I hope this helps.

regards,

Denis
www.naxtech.com

How about this.

http://4q.iperceptions.com/

4Q employs a two-stage invitation process. When visitors arrive at your site, they will be presented an invitation to participate in a survey after their session. If they accept, a second, minimized window, which contains the survey itself, will be launched and will wait in the background for the visitor to complete his or her session. 4Q surveys are designed to be collaborative brand building exercises, not annoying browsing interruptions.

hope that helps

On 07:55:50 23 June 2008 CWhyatt wrote:

We are looking at running an on-site survey to gather information from our users - usual sort of thing. However there is a big debate internally about where and how the survey should appear. The options are as follows:

1) Do the standard pop-under when a user exits the site
2) Serve a banner as an eye-blaster after the user has been on the site say 20 seconds, asking them to complete the survey. Clicking on the banner opens the survey. This then gets round the possible problem, that if a user keeps their browser open all day, they will still see the survey maybe hours after going on the website. But this will then affect the user-journey and take the user off our website.

Can anyone offer any advice / comments on these 2 options?

Many thanks!

Caroline

Caroline,

Permission based is always best -i e ask them if they are willing to participate and then present the survey if they agree.  You don't say if the users are registered, in which case you could send the survey via email after the visit.

A few other points to consider:

Don't present the invitation or survey at a critical stage in the on-line journey, eg checkout or during an application process. It will distract. 

If you launch the survey from different pages, capture this information, it can be useful in subsequent analysis.

Keep surveys short - long surveys = high drop out and unreliable results.

Write the survey to reflect and test what is important to the customer/user and use language that is appropriate to them.

Cheers

Dave J

www.clicktools.com

On 07:55:50 23 June 2008 CWhyatt wrote:

We are looking at running an on-site survey to gather information from our users - usual sort of thing. However there is a big debate internally about where and how the survey should appear. The options are as follows:

1) Do the standard pop-under when a user exits the site
2) Serve a banner as an eye-blaster after the user has been on the site say 20 seconds, asking them to complete the survey. Clicking on the banner opens the survey. This then gets round the possible problem, that if a user keeps their browser open all day, they will still see the survey maybe hours after going on the website. But this will then affect the user-journey and take the user off our website.

Can anyone offer any advice / comments on these 2 options?

Many thanks!

Caroline

Thanks Chris, that sounds interesting, what is your website URL?

On 10:19:23 30 June 2008 ChrisHandford2 wrote:

Hi Caroline,

I agree with the general consensus that invite on entry and survey after the end of the visit is the best approach. This will ensure that the visitor can continue with the site journey they intended and therefore also provide you with considered feedback on their site experience. This used to be easy before the days of pop-up blockers but is more complex to achieve these days.

The way we implement on-site surveys for our clients is a dynamic DIV layer invite on site entry (shown on entry for 10 seconds to a sample of visitors, eg 1 in 10, visitors cookied so most visitors only invited once in 60 days). If they agree to take part in the survey then a new window is launched that contains a script that checks every few seconds if they are still on the same site - if they have left the site then the survey is launched - similar to an exit survey. If they are not interested then they will not be invited again until cookies are cleared.

Chris

On 07:55:50 23 June 2008 CWhyatt wrote:

We are looking at running an on-site survey to gather information from our users - usual sort of thing. However there is a big debate internally about where and how the survey should appear. The options are as follows:

1) Do the standard pop-under when a user exits the site
2) Serve a banner as an eye-blaster after the user has been on the site say 20 seconds, asking them to complete the survey. Clicking on the banner opens the survey. This then gets round the possible problem, that if a user keeps their browser open all day, they will still see the survey maybe hours after going on the website. But this will then affect the user-journey and take the user off our website.

Can anyone offer any advice / comments on these 2 options?

Many thanks!

Caroline