HR & Engagement Writer
1
The Best Survey Tools for Gathering Feedback in 2024
6 min read
Published: Feb 10, 2023
Revised on: Mar 1, 2024
Here’s our curated shortlist and our reasons for liking each company; please click into each company to get more details:
- Survey Sparrow
- Easy to use interface and intuitive survey builder
- Conversational, chat-style surveys that feel more engaging
- Lots of customization options for branding and personalization
- Helpful features like logic jumps, piping, and conditional questions
- Good customer support and onboarding process
- Assembly
- Easy to use and intuitive interface. Many reviews mentioned Assembly is simple, easy to navigate, and user-friendly.
- Good customer support. Reviews mentioned Assembly's support team is responsive in resolving issues.
- Rewards redemption process is smooth. Users liked the gift card and other reward options that can be redeemed with points.
- Integrates well with Slack and Microsoft Teams. The integration makes giving recognition quick and seamless.
- Good for employee recognition and engagement. Reviews highlighted Assembly's peer-to-peer recognition features that help boost employee morale.
- AskNicely
- Easy to use and intuitive interface. Many reviews mentioned how simple it was to set up surveys, import contacts, and view results.
- Automation features like workflows and pre-set templates save time. Reviews highlighted the ability to automate sending surveys and follow-ups.
- Great customer support. Multiple reviews praised the responsive and helpful AskNicely support team.
- Integration with tools like Salesforce, Intercom, Slack. Integration was called out as a major plus.
- Provides actionable customer feedback and insights. Customers said AskNicely gave them valuable feedback to improve products and services.
- Google Forms
- Easy to use interface. Many reviews mentioned that Google Forms is very intuitive and easy to use, even for those without technical expertise.
- Good for basic data collection. It's a simple, free tool that works well for basic surveys, polls, and data collection needs. Good for individuals and small businesses.
- Customizable. There are options to customize forms with different themes, fonts, images etc. Allows for some branding.
- Integration with Google products. Seamlessly integrates with Google Sheets, Docs, Drive etc. making data organization and sharing easy.
- Real-time collaboration. Multiple users can work on and share the same form. Useful for getting team input.
- Jotform
- Easy to use drag and drop interface for building forms
- Lots of customization options for branding forms and tailoring to specific needs
- Ability to integrate forms with other apps like Google Drive, PayPal, MailChimp, etc.
- Useful features like conditional logic, file uploads, payments, and e-signatures
- Good selection of templates to quickly create professional looking forms
In a digitally interconnected world where user feedback reigns supreme, the quest for the finest survey tools becomes pivotal. As we stride into 2024, the landscape of feedback collection tools continues to evolve, offering an array of sophisticated options tailored to diverse needs. The importance of robust, intuitive, and versatile survey platforms has never been more pronounced, driving businesses and organizations of all sizes to seek out the optimal tools for gathering invaluable insights. Exploring the realm of survey tools reveals an amalgamation of innovation, functionality, and user-centric design, redefining how feedback is harnessed and utilized.
What Is a Survey Tool?
A survey tool in this context refers to any online software that helps to collect data or insights from a target audience via quizzes, surveys, and feedback forms.
These tools are perfect for gauging short-term and long-term opinions on relevant data points. For businesses, surveys can help gather customer and product feedback, conduct market research, and measure employee engagement. Beyond these, they can also work for marketing campaigns, product optimization research, and acquisition and retention strategies. The success of online surveys stems from their ability to reach a wider audience at a lesser cost than personal interviews and their capacity to target specific niches.
What Features Make a Good Survey Tool?
When choosing the right survey tool, there are several features to consider.
- User-Friendly Interface: An intuitive and easy-to-use interface is essential for the survey creator and respondents. Drag-and-drop functionality, clear navigation, and simplicity in design enhance usability.
- Versatile Question Types: A good survey tool should offer various questions (multiple choice, open-ended, rating scales, etc.) to accommodate different survey needs.
- Customization Options: Ability to personalize surveys with logos, colors, themes, and customizable templates to align with brand identity or specific survey requirements.
- Response Collection and Management: Efficient data collection mechanisms, options for anonymous responses, and tools for managing and organizing responses (filtering and exporting data) are crucial.
- Mobile Responsiveness: In today's world, ensuring the survey tool works well on mobile devices is essential since many people access surveys via smartphones or tablets.
- Logic and Skip Patterns: Advanced features like conditional logic or skip patterns allow for a more tailored survey experience, where respondents see questions based on their previous answers.
- Security and Privacy: Strong data encryption, compliance with data protection regulations (such as GDPR), and secure storage of responses are vital for protecting sensitive information.
- Analytics and Reporting: Robust analytics tools that provide real-time insights, graphical representations, and exportable reports help in understanding survey data effectively.
- Integration and Compatibility: Integration capabilities with other platforms (like CRM systems and email marketing tools) and compatibility across various operating systems and browsers enhance usability and accessibility.
- Customer Support and Training: Reliable customer support, tutorials, and documentation are essential for users to maximize the tool's potential and troubleshoot issues.
What Are the Benefits of Survey Tools?
Survey tools offer a range of benefits for businesses with a comprehensive solution for the following:
- Data Collection Efficiency: Survey tools streamline data collection by automating the process, allowing for quick and widespread distribution, and efficiently gathering responses.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Online survey tools eliminate the need for paper, printing, and manual distribution, reducing costs associated with traditional survey methods.
- Reach and Accessibility: They enable reaching a broader audience, including geographically dispersed individuals, and allow respondents to participate at their convenience from various devices.
- Customization: These tools offer flexibility in designing surveys, allowing for the customization of questions, formats, and styles to suit specific research goals.
- Data Analysis: Many survey tools come equipped with analytics features that help in analyzing responses, generating reports, and visualizing data patterns, simplifying the interpretation of results.
- Time Efficiency: Quick deployment of surveys and rapid collection of responses accelerate the data-gathering process, enabling faster decision-making.
- Improved Accuracy: Built-in validation features and data integrity checks can reduce errors and ensure higher-quality responses.
- Anonymous Responses: They allow respondents to answer anonymously, which can encourage honesty and authenticity in their feedback.
- Integration Capabilities: Many survey tools integrate with other software and platforms, facilitating seamless data transfer and analysis.
- Feedback Loop: Continuous feedback through surveys fosters engagement, helps in understanding audience preferences, and aids in refining products, services, or strategies.
Top Survey Tools for Gathering Feedback
Pricing
$19.00 per user/month
- Free version
- Free trial available
- No Seat Minimum
Known as “the all-in-one omnichannel experience management platform,” Survey Sparrow allows customers to go beyond “just surveys.” It has: All of these help in transforming your workflow.
Pros:
- Ability to share surveys via a link, email, QR code, or even embed it in posts
- 1500+ App integrations with Zapier
- Microsoft, Google Analytics, and Slack integrations are available
- It supports over 50+ languages on the platform
- Reporting and Analytics dashboard present
- Get a full demo here
Cons:
- There are some limitations to its reporting feature
Pricing:
- Contact Survey Sparrow for pricing information
Best Suited For:
- Small and large teams
Pros
- Easy to use interface and intuitive survey builder
- Conversational, chat-style surveys that feel more engaging
- Lots of customization options for branding and personalization
- Helpful features like logic jumps, piping, and conditional questions
- Good customer support and onboarding process
Cons
- Expensive pricing, especially for smaller businesses or teams
- Limited free plan with only basic features
- Reporting and data analysis functionality could be more robust
- Occasional bugs or glitches with the software
- Limited ability to customize survey appearance without code
2
Assembly
Pricing
$2.80 per user/month
- Free version
- Free trial available
- Seat Minimum: 1 User
Elevate your company’s feedback culture with Assembly’s all-encompassing workplace and collaboration software. Using its diverse collection of tools, Assembly helps to improve communication, collaboration, and productivity in the office. It also has features that help with collecting and analyzing feedback from employees. A perfect example is Assembly’s surveys, which can track employee engagement, opinions, satisfaction levels, onboard new hires, and conduct exit interviews.
Pros:
- Assembly requires no upfront commitment before trying their software. In other words, you can try it for free
- It is perfect for organizing all your people and workflows in one place
- There are customizable and adaptable workflows that you can adjust to your company’s changing needs
- Full automation of any survey - set when it should go out, who gets to respond and have access to the results
Cons:
- There is no version history on the free plan
Pricing:
- $3.50/per member/month
Best Suited For:
- All types of teams
Pros
- Easy to use and intuitive interface. Many reviews mentioned Assembly is simple, easy to navigate, and user-friendly.
- Good customer support. Reviews mentioned Assembly's support team is responsive in resolving issues.
- Rewards redemption process is smooth. Users liked the gift card and other reward options that can be redeemed with points.
- Integrates well with Slack and Microsoft Teams. The integration makes giving recognition quick and seamless.
- Good for employee recognition and engagement. Reviews highlighted Assembly's peer-to-peer recognition features that help boost employee morale.
Cons
- Limitations in analytics and reporting features. Some reviews wanted more detailed analytics and user statistics.
- Creating flows and automations can be tricky. Reviews noted workflows and automations are sometimes hard to setup.
- Limited customization options for recognitions. Users wanted more ways to customize recognitions with images/GIFs.
- Lack of mobile apps earlier on. Reviews mentioned lack of mobile apps made it hard to use when not by a computer.
- Confusion due to branding changes. Reviews noted frequent name changes of the reward units was confusing initially.
Pricing
Contact sales for pricing
According to AskNicely, well-trained and experienced employees can be as much as 50% more productive than new hires. And that’s why they’ve created a tool that allows you to gather feedback and engage your employees in ways that matter. At its core, AskNicely is a software that helps businesses codify their culture in employees, resulting in improved customer experiences.
Pros:
- Stunning and aesthetically pleasing design
- Integrates seamlessly with most work tools
- Customizable analytics dashboard
- There are multiple features and use cases available
Cons:
- You have to contact the sales team for a quote before committing to the product
Pricing:
- Contact AskNicely for pricing information
Best Suited For:
- All types of teams
Pros
- Easy to use and intuitive interface. Many reviews mentioned how simple it was to set up surveys, import contacts, and view results.
- Automation features like workflows and pre-set templates save time. Reviews highlighted the ability to automate sending surveys and follow-ups.
- Great customer support. Multiple reviews praised the responsive and helpful AskNicely support team.
- Integration with tools like Salesforce, Intercom, Slack. Integration was called out as a major plus.
- Provides actionable customer feedback and insights. Customers said AskNicely gave them valuable feedback to improve products and services.
Cons
- Limitations with customization and segmentation. Some found it tricky to target surveys to specific groups.
- Steep learning curve initially. The interfaces took some time for new users to fully understand and utilize.
- Price. A few reviews thought the cost was high, especially for smaller businesses.
- Survey fatigue if overused. Customers warned about annoying users by sending too many surveys.
- Data visualization lacking. A couple reviews wanted more options for visualizing and manipulating data.
Pricing
Free- Free version
- No Seat Minimum
Google Forms is a free but powerful software platform where users can easily create, edit, and share surveys online. Its competitive edge is that it offers multiple preset questions that users can easily incorporate into their survey. In addition, there is also a real-time visualization feature to monitor survey responses. Finally, Google Forms can export survey results to Google sheets or other relevant tools for analysis.
Pros:
- Access to 15GB of cloud storage
- Ability to share survey data and collaborate in real-time across Google products. I.e., From Google Forms to Google Sheets and Docs
- File-sharing options cut across links, email, and website
Cons:
- Limited customization options
- Limited customer support on the free plan
Pricing:
- Free with a Google account
Best Suited For:
- Small teams
Pros
- Easy to use interface. Many reviews mentioned that Google Forms is very intuitive and easy to use, even for those without technical expertise.
- Good for basic data collection. It's a simple, free tool that works well for basic surveys, polls, and data collection needs. Good for individuals and small businesses.
- Customizable. There are options to customize forms with different themes, fonts, images etc. Allows for some branding.
- Integration with Google products. Seamlessly integrates with Google Sheets, Docs, Drive etc. making data organization and sharing easy.
- Real-time collaboration. Multiple users can work on and share the same form. Useful for getting team input.
Cons
- Limited customization.Many reviews wanted more options for custom CSS, themes, layouts etc. The design options are basic.
- Limited question types. Does not have some advanced question types like Likert scales or matrix questions.
- Data privacy concerns. Being a Google product, there are worries about data privacy and security.
- Requires internet access. Cannot be used offline. Reliant on internet connectivity.
- Basic data analysis. Data analysis, reporting and visualization capabilities are basic. May need other tools for advanced insights.
5
Jotform
Pricing
$34.00 per user/month
- Free version
- No Seat Minimum
Jotform, the no-code survey app, is famous for good reason. Users can create, distribute, and analyze surveys, forms, and PDFs with its clean, intuitive interface. But that’s not all. Users looking to do more can also generate leads or payments on Jotform. Its wide range of features makes it perfect for conducting surveys and running a business.
Pros:
- In addition to conducting surveys, you can also use Jotform to generate leads, collect payments, and more
- Access to a vast library of templates, survey builder, and questions
- User-friendly and intuitive operating system
- It has data exporting and reporting analytics capabilities
Cons:
- There’s the Jotform logo on the free plan
- The basic plan offers only 100MB of storage space
Pricing:
- $39/month
Best Suited For:
- All types of teams
Pros
- Easy to use drag and drop interface for building forms
- Lots of customization options for branding forms and tailoring to specific needs
- Ability to integrate forms with other apps like Google Drive, PayPal, MailChimp, etc.
- Useful features like conditional logic, file uploads, payments, and e-signatures
- Good selection of templates to quickly create professional looking forms
Cons
- Limitations of free plan like number of forms, submissions, storage space
- Steep pricing jump from free to paid plans
- Lack of phone support, relying only on email and forums for issues
- Form builder can feel overwhelming initially with many options
- Restrictions on features like conditional logic, calculations in free plans
6
Typeform
Pricing
$25.00 per user/month
- Free version
- No Seat Minimum
Typeform is the answer to the question of whether surveys can be fun or not. As the gold standard for beautiful, thoughtful, and well-designed forms, quizzes, and surveys, Typeform personalizes the survey experience for its users. They also go one step further by equipping users with the tools for building brand identity, loyalty, and presence of mind — all of which help with growth. If you’re looking to run beautiful, one-of-a-kind surveys, then Typeform is your tool.
Pros:
- It has various integrations, including Zapier, Hubspot, MailChimp, etc.
- Access to an unlimited amount of questions
- An unlimited number of typeforms
- There is the flexibility for users to customize and personalize surveys, colors, etc.
Cons:
- The basic plan is limited to only one user
- There’s only 1GB worth of storage available to users
Pricing:
- $29/month/billed monthly
Best Suited For:
- Small companies and Enterprises
Pros
- Easy to use interface and intuitive drag-and-drop builder. Makes creating forms and surveys fast and simple.
- Engaging, conversational survey design that presents one question at a time. Improves user experience.
- Visually appealing forms with customization options. Allows matching company branding.
- Advanced features like conditional logic, calculations, and skip logic. Allow personalization and tailored experiences.
- Seamless integrations with other tools like Google Sheets, Slack, HubSpot etc. Streamlines workflows.
Cons
- Limited features on free plan. Need to upgrade to paid plans for more capabilities.
- Steep learning curve to master more complex features like conditional logic. Can be time consuming.
- Higher pricing compared to competitors. Costs add up with multiple users and forms.
- Limited customization options compared to other form builders. Restrictive for some use cases.
- Data privacy controls not as robust as some other survey tools. A concern for sensitive data collection.
7
Zoho
Pricing
$15.00 per user/month
- Free trial available
- No Seat Minimum
Zoho survey makes three promises to its users: They’ll create their surveys in minutes, reach their audience on every device, and view results graphically and in real-time. A quick glance at their G2 reviews indicates that they seem to be keeping their word. With features like unlimited surveys, offline responses, and real-time collaboration, Zoho survey is the tool of choice for businesses looking to transform their feedback game.
Pros:
- Access to over 250 survey templates that users can select from
- Users can access the survey builder in 26 languages!
- Survey results can be exported as PDF
- Collaborative editing and report sharing
Cons:
- Smaller companies have reported that the pricing can be a bit steep for them
- Not the most aesthetically pleasing UI
Pricing:
- Free plan
- Paid plans start at $20/per month/billed annually
Best Suited For:
- All types of teams
Pros
- Affordable pricing compared to competitors
- Easy to use and intuitive interface
- Lots of customization options
- Good integration between different products in the suite
- Helpful customer support
Cons
- Steep learning curve for some products
- Limitations in functionality compared to specialized tools
- Some bugs and glitches
- Slow performance at times
- Lack of native integrations with major third-party apps
Pricing
$16.25 per user/month
- Free version
- No Seat Minimum
SurveyMonkey is, without a doubt, one of the most popular survey tools in this world. With this simple no-code tool, anyone — from novice to expert — can create a survey in seconds. Millions of organizations worldwide use this tool to gather feedback, analyze results, and identify insights that unlock growth and innovation opportunities.
Pros:
- Users on the free plan can enjoy up to 40 free templates
- Extremely user-friendly and intuitive interface
- You can collect responses to the survey via email, web, or social
- Multiple integration options to expand data analysis
Cons:
- The majority of the plans are billed annually
- Audience responses are sold separately
Pricing:
- Paid plans start at $25/per member/per month, and it is billed annually
Best Suited For:
- Small and big teams
Pros
- User-friendly and intuitive interface makes it easy to create and distribute surveys even for beginners.
- Extensive customization options allow users to personalize survey design, branding, questions types etc. as per their needs.
- Powerful data analysis tools provide impactful insights from survey responses through graphs, charts, filtering etc.
- Integration with other platforms like Salesforce, MailChimp, Excel etc. allows seamless data sharing and workflow automation.
- Availability of numerous pre-made templates helps in quick set up of surveys tailored for specific purposes.
Cons
- Limitations in free version like capped number of questions, responses, lack of advanced features.
- Expensive pricing of paid plans can be prohibitive for individuals or small businesses on a budget.
- Restricted survey design and formatting options compared to some specialized survey tools.
- Technical issues like slow loading times, freezing pages especially for longer or complex surveys.
- Customer support response time can be slow or inadequate for resolving complex technical queries.
Conclusion
Surveys create a valuable way for companies to receive feedback internally and externally. Teams can increase employee engagement, satisfaction levels, and general work conditions through them. Businesses can also use surveys for product listening and gauging customer satisfaction levels. Generally speaking, surveys and survey tools are a “cheat code” for improving business bottom lines, and because of them, life has never been easier.
