How to use in-app surveys to collect product feedback

There are several methods available for you to collect product feedback from your users, including emails and external surveys. However, in today's world, response rates may be low unless you adopt a holistic approach to gathering user feedback.

What if I told you that in-app surveys could increase your response rates by up to 6 times?

How?

In-app surveys offer a unique advantage by capturing user sentiments in real-time, right when they're engaging with your product. This immediacy not only increases response rates but also provides context-rich insights that are crucial for making data-driven decisions.

However, the key to unlocking the full potential of in-app surveys lies in strategic implementation. Simply bombarding users with endless survey pop-ups can be counterproductive and even annoying. Instead, a well-thought-out approach that balances timing, relevance, and user experience is paramount.

In this article, we’ll discuss what in-app surveys are, how they can help you gather invaluable feedback, the types of in-app surveys to use, and best practices to follow when creating them.

Let’s get to the crux of it!

What are in-app surveys?

In-app surveys are used to collect feedback directly from users within an application. These surveys are integrated seamlessly into the app's interface, allowing users to provide feedback on their experience, preferences, or opinions while they are actively using the app.

They can be designed to gather various types of information, such as user satisfaction, feature preferences, usability issues, and overall feedback on the app's performance. In the next section, we’ll shed more light on what in-app surveys can help you achieve.

How in-app surveys can help you

As an engineer, marketer, or product manager, you can leverage in-app surveys to help you in the following ways:

1. Real-Time Feedback: In-app surveys provide an opportunity to capture feedback from users while they are actively engaged with your app. This real-time feedback is invaluable as it reflects the user's immediate experience and emotions, providing a more accurate depiction of their sentiments.
2. Feature Prioritization: In-app surveys can help you prioritize features or updates based on user preferences and demands. By understanding which features users value most or wish to see improved, you can allocate resources more effectively and focus on delivering enhancements that resonate with your target audience.
3. Improved User Experience: By gathering feedback through in-app surveys, you can identify pain points, usability issues, and areas for improvement within your app. Addressing these issues based on user feedback can lead to a more seamless and satisfying user experience, ultimately increasing user retention and engagement.
4. Customer Satisfaction: Monitoring customer satisfaction through in-app surveys allows you to gauge how well your app meets user expectations. Positive feedback highlights strengths to celebrate and promote, while negative feedback presents opportunities for refinement and enhancement.
5. Data-Driven Decisions: In-app survey data provides quantitative and qualitative insights that can inform strategic decision-making. Whether it's optimizing app functionality, refining user interfaces, or tailoring marketing strategies, leveraging survey data empowers you to make informed decisions backed by user input.

In the next section, we’ll discuss the different types of in-app surveys and how you can strategically utilize them to achieve your feedback goals.

Types of in-app surveys

This section will discuss the common types of in-app surveys popular companies use to gather feedback from their users.

1. Net Promoter Score (NPS) Survey

NPS surveys measure customer loyalty and the likelihood of recommending the app to others. Users are typically asked to rate on a scale from 0 to 10 how likely they are to recommend the app. Based on their score, users are categorized as promoters (9-10), passives (7-8), or detractors (0-6).

2. Churn Survey

Churn Surveys are presented to users when they are about to leave or uninstall the app, churn surveys aim to understand the reasons behind the user's decision. Questions may inquire about issues encountered, missing features, or overall dissatisfaction prompting the user to leave.

3. Onboarding Segmentation Survey

Onboarding segmentation surveys are presented to users during or after the onboarding process to learn more about who signed up for your product and why. This survey can also be used to gather feedback on their initial experience with the app. Questions may focus on ease of use, clarity of instructions, and overall satisfaction with the onboarding process.

4. Product-Market Fit (PMF) Survey

Product-market fit surveys help you understand what users like, what they’re missing, and what to build next. And at Formbricks, we have built it to be perfectly suited to measure PMF like Superhuman.

5. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) Survey

CSAT survey is used to measure how satisfied customers are with your product. Although this may seem like an NPS survey, the difference is that CSAT measures customer satisfaction with a product or service, whereas NPS measures customer loyalty to your product. You can place the survey strategically at key moments in the users’ journey, so you can peek into users' experiences.

6. Feedback Box

Feedback Box provides a low-friction way to gather feedback that helps catch even the smallest points of frustration in user experiences. For this, you can use automation to react rapidly and make users feel heard. This survey can be placed anywhere within your app but ideally, you would want to place this within the Contact Us page.

7. Customer Effort Score (CES) Survey

CES survey is used to measure how easy it was for a user to a feature in your product - you could ask customers to evaluate an interaction immediately after it happens. You could trigger this survey after the user has completed a task within your app, such as submitting a form, making a reservation, or performing a search. This helps assess the ease of completing tasks and achieving goals.

8. Improve Trial Conversion Survey

Improve Trial Conversion survey helps you find out why users do not convert. With the feedback from this survey, you can make an informed decision about what to change in your offering to make more people pay for your service. You should strategically trigger this survey after a user cancels a free trial.

Read more: Best In-app Feedback Tools In 2024

Best practices to follow when creating in-app surveys

When creating in-app surveys, implementing best practices ensures you gather valuable feedback while maintaining a positive user experience. Here are some best practices to follow:

1. Indicate a progress bar in your surveys to improve completion rate

Incorporate a progress bar in your survey design to indicate to users how much of the survey is remaining. This helps manage user expectations and encourages completion by providing a sense of progress.

Formbrick indicates this for you by default in every survey you create.

2. Pre-segment your users to target the right audience

Segment your user base before deploying surveys to ensure that you target the right audience with relevant questions. Consider factors such as user behavior, demographics, or specific actions within the app to tailor the survey content effectively.

For example, you're the product manager for a fitness app that offers various workout programs, from yoga to high-intensity interval training. Your app caters to a diverse user base, including beginners, fitness enthusiasts, and athletes. Pre-segmenting your surveys can provide targeted insights tailored to each user segment in this scenario.

Formbricks provides you with the following pre-segmentation filters for free.

3. Trigger survey across your users’ journey

Use strategic triggers to determine when to display in-app surveys. For example, trigger surveys after specific user actions or events within the app, such as completing a task, making a purchase, or reaching a milestone. Timing is crucial to ensure surveys are contextual and non-intrusive.

Formbricks enables you to implement survey triggers both on Code Actions and No Code Actions.

4. Personalize surveys to your brand’s taste

Maintain consistency with your app's branding and design aesthetic when creating in-app surveys. Use colors, fonts, and visual elements that align with your brand identity to create a cohesive user experience. This not only enhances survey appeal but also reinforces brand recognition.

You can add custom styles when creating surveys with Formbricks. No coding knowledge required!

Keep Surveys Short and Relevant

Respect users' time by keeping surveys concise and focused on specific topics or objectives. Avoid overwhelming users with lengthy surveys or asking irrelevant questions. Prioritize the most important questions that will provide actionable insights to improve the user experience.

Conclusion

Creating effective in-app surveys requires careful planning, strategic implementation, and a focus on user experience. However, by following the best practices discussed in this article, app developers and businesses can gather valuable feedback from users and drive continuous improvement.

Creating and deploying in-app surveys doesn’t get any easier. Sign up on Formbricks and select one of our numerous survey templates to get started for free.