Contributed by Annabel Maw, the director of communications at JotForm, a full-featured online forms platform for easy data collection and management.

Why would a small business want to survey its customers? Because surveys reveal what customers are really thinking and what they really want. The simplest way to learn about someone’s shopping preferences―along with their values, priorities, opinions, and beliefs―is to simply ask them. Companies go to great lengths to guess what customers desire, but they could use surveys to gather far better data with a fraction of the effort.

With surveys, you get statistically significant and reliable insights. Respondents answer anonymously, which means they’re more likely to offer honest, unguarded opinions. Surveys can help businesses learn more about customer feelings regarding specific products or services―or to help them gauge customer satisfaction. They could also survey employees to study engagement, potentially using a survey to ask about target demographics. The importance of data in business is clear, and that makes it worthwhile to survey anyone and everyone as often as possible.

Ways to Conduct Surveys (and Common Survey Mistakes to Avoid)

Countless survey tools make it easy to build and administer a survey. Look for tools that allow you to customize the look of the survey with your brand’s colors and logos. You should also be able to customize the different fields within the survey: multiple-choice, drop-down, short answer, star-rating, etc. Back-end features that help you analyze and report on survey data are helpful, too.

Choosing the right survey tool is important, but it’s just as crucial to avoid two common survey mistakes:

1. Asking the wrong questions of the wrong people can prevent you from getting many good insights.
2. Most people won’t complete your survey unless you properly incentivize them.