Unlocking SaaS Growth with Effective User Experience Surveys

User experience surveys are an absolute game-changer for SaaS companies looking to take their growth to the next level.

While analytics data can tell you what users are doing on your website and how they’re using your product, surveys and customer interviews are the key to unlocking the "why" behind their actions.

Get ready to dive into our complete guide to running user surveys and discover the different types of surveys you can use to supercharge your SaaS growth. We'll also share expert tips on how to create effective user surveys, including the types of questions to ask and what makes a good question.

With the insights you gain from these surveys, you'll be able to take your SaaS to new heights!

What is a User Experience Survey?

Before we dive into the use cases and examples, let's explore the fundamentals of UX Surveys.

UX survey gathers both qualitative and quantitative data regarding a user's interaction and experience with a digital product or website. The data collected complements and supports website analytics and UX metrics obtained through methods such as heatmaps, A/B testing, usability testing, and session recordings.

How to create effective in-app surveys

Before creating user surveys, it's important to define your objectives. What kind of feedback are you hoping to collect and how will you use it? Maybe you want to know how users feel about your product with net promoter scores, or maybe you want to gather data to improve a specific part of the user experience.

By being specific, you can better understand which users to target and what questions to ask. You can even tailor your survey to specific customer segments that meet certain characteristics, making them the ideal people to provide you with answers.

There are customer feedback tools like Trackey that can help you create different types of tailored surveys to collect specific data.

Best practices for UX surveys

1. Avoid bias and leading questions

Before you launch your survey, check that you're avoiding bias. Here are a few things to look out for as you state your survey objectives and write your UX survey questions:

- Confirmation bias:

Avoid seeking only the data that confirms your beliefs. For example, instead of asking "Would you be more likely to click this button if it were bigger and brighter?", ask "What factors influence your decision to click a button?"

- Asking leading questions (Framing effect):

Avoid asking questions in a way that prompts a specific answer from your users. For example, instead of asking "What did you love the most about your experience in our product?", ask "What did you like and dislike about your experience in our product?"

- Unbalanced scales:

Similar to the framing effect, unbalanced scales will sway answers by limiting users' choices. For example, "How much did you enjoy your experience on a scale of 1 (enjoyed it a little) to 5 (enjoyed it a lot)?"

2. Mix up your question types

Ensure that you incorporate a variety of question types in your survey to make it easier for participants to complete. Open-field responses can be more challenging for respondents, while multiple-choice questions are less demanding. Additionally, using different question types can yield diverse data, which can enhance your results.

3. Add open-field responses

Open-ended responses require more effort to answer, but they are crucial for gathering context and specific details from respondents. They complement multiple-choice questions by allowing respondents to elaborate on a "none of the above" or "other" response.

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4. Just one thing at a time

Ensure that each question pertains to only one topic. Combining multiple aspects of the subject matter in a single question can lead to confusion and render the data useless for research purposes.

For instance, asking "What are your thoughts on the taste and texture of this ice cream?" may trigger mixed responses from individuals who enjoyed the taste but disliked the texture.

5. Keep it short and focused

The longer your questionnaire, the more likely it is that people will drop out before they get to the end.

Limit the length of your questionnaire to only include necessary information. Additionally, it is recommended to maintain coherence and consistency throughout the survey by focusing on a specific theme rather than incorporating various topics.

6. Be specific

When asking survey questions, it's important to be specific to avoid ambiguity. Instead of asking a general question like "What's your favorite software tool?", which could lead to irrelevant answers, try asking a more targeted question like "Based on the new software tools you've using recently, which one would you say has helped you the most?" This will help ensure that you get the information you're looking for.

7. Keep in mind the question order

Questions early in a survey can influence how a respondent answers later ones, which is why question order matters. To help offset question order bias, you can randomize questions or blocks of related questions so that not everyone receives them in the same order.

8. Let them skip!

Participants may drop out of a survey if they are required to answer questions they do not want to. It is important to allow them to skip questions, unless it is an essential question such as the consent question at the beginning of the survey.

Examples of User Experience Surveys for SaaS products

Check out these amazing user survey examples! We've gone above and beyond to make sure they're perfect for both early-stage SaaS startups and fast-growing scale-ups. Get ready to be inspired!

1. Prospect and customer interviews in the early stage

In the early stages of acquiring users, it's more effective to conduct interviews with customers rather than sending surveys to understand why they chose your product.

These initial interviews serve three main purposes: profiling your ideal customer, identifying which channels to explore for growth, and differentiating your product from competitors.

For example, if you’re selling a B2B SaaS product, you may want to interview a couple of prospects or your first customers to find out:

- What’s the best way to reach them?

Do they have a preference for cold calls or emails? Do they follow specific accounts or read particular publications?

- What are their decision-making criteria?

What are they looking for in a product like yours? What would move the needle or make them go for a competitor?

- What kind of sales collateral are more likely to convince them?

What is their preferred way of experiencing the product? Would they like to watch demos, attend webinars, or try the product before making a purchase?

- What were they searching for when they found you?

If the user mentions certain keywords or competitor names, it indicates that they view your product as a substitute for something else.

Once you have a significant number of customers, you can begin gathering this information by conducting surveys.

So when should you schedule these customer interviews?

As soon as possible in the product lifecycle!

If you have a prototype or MVP and you believe your ideal customer is Performance Managers in medium-sized companies, don't hesitate to reach out to a few people with this job title and showcase the prototype.

Waiting too long can be risky, as you may end up investing a lot of time and money into something that isn't needed, wanted, or simply doesn't stand out.

2. SaaS micro-surveys for customer segmentation

These surveys should be launched at the beginning of the user's journey, such as during a free trial. They allow you to segment users based on common traits such as industry, role, team size, and department. For B2B products, focus on good questions that help determine if the user is the end user or decision maker.

For example:

- What is your industry?

- What describes best the department you are working in?

- What is your job title?

- How big is your team?

3. Conduct UX surveys that identify high-value accounts

User surveys can be used for lead qualification or scoring. If you are new and don't have complex CRM or automation flows, SaaS feedback surveys can help segment your customer base. Based on the company size and job titles of respondents, you can categorize them as high-value accounts or leads that are not yet hot prospects.

To do this segmentation, you can ask questions like:

How many hours do you save per week using our product?

How many colleagues are using our product?

Who else (job titles) do you think would benefit from our product?

What product did our solution replace?

Identifying the type of account that finds your product most valuable and understanding how you can assist them allows you to concentrate your marketing and sales efforts on businesses that match your ideal customer profile.

This means that instead of generating content for all potential customers, you can focus solely on the content types and topics that correspond to the pain points of your ICP.

Similarly, you can create ad campaigns that target only companies that fit your high-value accounts.

4. Improving product features with User Experience Surveys

At this point, you'll find question aims such as the reach to product market fit or determining the best pricing.

For the first one, the general guideline is to ask your customers how disappointed would they be if they could no longer use your service starting next week.

So your micro-survey could look like this:

It is essential to time the request for customer feedback correctly to avoid alienating them. Therefore, it is advisable to solicit feedback during the early stages of product development, before the product reaches the mainstream market.

It is important to verify that your pricing model is appropriate once you have determined that your product has the potential for expansion.

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If you began with a free trial model, you may find that the majority of early adopters are not interested in upgrading. Therefore, the following survey will assist you in determining how much users are willing to pay for your product.

This user survey leverages the Van Westendorp’s price sensitivity meter and can be displayed inside the product.

Some survey questions to ask:

- At what price point would you consider our product too expensive?

- At what price point would you feel that you’re getting the best value for money, from our product?

Conducting product surveys it's an absolute must when improving your SaaS, if you want to dive into product surveys and their questions, we recommend you to read our article about this subject with plenty of examples for product managers.

5. Find UX gaps and determine Customer Effort Score (CES)

This online survey serves two purposes:

1. To gauge customers' perceptions of your product and its user experience.

2. To predict customer churn, a product that is easier to use is more likely to retain its customers.

This survey is typically sent after a conversion (such as a purchase, sign-up, or registration) or after a customer has contacted your support team.

These are some questions to ask:

- What were you trying to accomplish with our product today? Did you manage to do it?

- On a scale of 1-5, how easy was using this feature?

- Was was the purpose of your visit today?

- Was there anything that you didn’t manage to accomplish today?

6. SaaS surveys to measure satisfaction

When measuring and keeping track of customer user satisfaction we found two variants.

NPS surveys gauge the Net Promoter Score, indicating the percentage of users likely to become brand advocates. The standard NPS survey question asks, "How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?"

Users choose from a 0-10 scale and are then asked a follow-up question to explain their response.

On the other hand customer satisfaction surveys, also known as CSAT, allow businesses to assess how their customers perceive their product and the experience it provides. The results of these surveys can be used to track customer satisfaction over time, segment users based on satisfaction scores, and identify areas for improving the overall customer experience.

The most common CSAT question is "How satisfied are you with our product?"

7. Surveys to understand why customers churned

This survey is designed to assist you in comprehending the cause of customer churn in your SaaS business. Keep the initial questions straightforward and targeted, and if you want to delve further, follow up with a request for a phone interview.

Here are some sample survey questions you can ask:

- What’s the primary reason for canceling your account/subscription?

Give them some options to choose from, such as “I found an alternative”, or “The price is too high”, or “ I only needed it for a one-time project” etc.

- Can you tell us why didn’t you use our product and what would make you change your mind?

- How can we make our product better? What features would make you give it a try?

- Why did you initially sign up for our product? What happened since then?

Let’s wrap it up …

With UX survey tools you can conduct tailored questions in seconds. Discover product gaps and gain valuable customer insights easily with Trackey's perfectly timed surveys. With Trackey, integrating customer insights into your tech stack is a breeze. Plus, our friendly interface makes the process a pleasure.

I hope you’ll find this post useful!

If you have any questions about user surveys or user surveys, please reach out to us. We are already looking forward to hearing from you!

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