Personalizing survey questions

So, let's say you wanted to create a survey question that changes based on who is answering the survey.  You can do this using URL Variables and adding in associated tokens in question text and thereby personalize the question text.

To demonstrate how this works, I will run through an example where we will change the question text for two different fictional survey respondents.

Let's say, for example, you wanted to ask customers how they attended the performances they attended but wanted to personalize the question for each respondent.  So let's say Jeff went to a performance of "Wicked" while Mary went to a performance of "The Lion King".  Here's how you would do that.

1 - Create a URL Variable

Step 1 is to create a URL variable associated with the survey.  A URL variable is placeholder that allows you store something in it.  In this case we will create a URL variable called "performance".  While we are creating this URL variable, we will also create a default value of "the musical".  More on default values later.

Once you create your URL variable you will see something like this.   NOTE: You will need to use the URL from your own account as it will have a codes unique to your account.

https://s.surveytown.com/survey/?c=59711231&id=37&performance=[performance_value]

We are now ready to accept the performance on the URL.

2 - Add in the URL Variable into the question text.

Now that we have the URL Variable set, we need to add it to the question text.  So when we create a question we will ask 

"How did you enjoy"... and then we will insert the name of the musical.

To do this in the question text editor we will choose the URL variable and then that will insert the token that represents the value that was passed along to the survey in the URL.

The token will be represented by an open curly bracket "{" and then followed by a closing curly bracket "}".

Step 3 - Personalize the survey URL you give to people

The third step is to personalize the URL you give to people.  So when you send you survey to to Jeff you will send him the link

https://s.surveytown.com/survey/?c=5971&id=37&performance=Wicked

And when you send Mary the link you will send...

https://s.surveytown.com/survey/?c=5971&id=37&performance=The%20Lion%20King

NOTE: the %20 represents the space in the title "The Lion King".

Note in each of the URLs you have substituted the musical they saw in for the "[performance_value]" in the URL.  When we receive that URL, we will do two things

1) We will substitute the variable value in the question text
2) We will store the value as part of the survey response so you can have it as part of your reporting data and you can slice and dice you data using it.

So when you respondent receives the survey it will look like this....

... with the value for the performance substituted.

Now you many be curious as to how you can get URL variables substitute on the link quickly to lots of people.  The best way is to use your email marketing software can substitute custom fields or merge fields on the fly into links you send to people. 

Also, remember when we set a default value of "the musical" above.  Well, if a customer comes to the survey and their "performance=" set to something then "the musical" will be shown instead of "Wicked" or "The Lion King" in our example.  So the question text would say "How did you enjoy the musical?" and that way they can still take the survey and it will make sense to them.

Conclusion

Adding personalization to surveys is a great way to increase response rates because it lets the user know you care about them specifically.