Survey vs Feedback – What is the Difference?

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Originally Posted On: Survey vs Feedback – Major Differences + 5 Quick Tips (surveystance.com)

A survey is generally a series of specific questions that are asked as part of an overall survey whereas feedback is a collection of information and is tied to specific questions rather than entire surveys. Surveys are usually pushed to the user asking for them to answer a series of questions compared to feedback that is usually received more naturally where the user is sharing their feedback.

Feedback is the collection of information. This can be specific to a company, product, person or experience.  Feedback is generally collected by asking a specific questions such as, How was your experience today? Feedback is usually received in a more natural format and more open ended. Response rates can be much higher when asking for feedback since it’s more natural. One Click Feedback can drive an even higher response rate since it’s quick and easy to complete.

A survey usually consist of a series of questions that are being asked. This could be related to collecting feedback or doing research on a specific topic. Surveys are usually pushed to the end user and asked to answer specific questions. Survey data is more in-depth and detailed, however, the response rates are typically much lower than feedback response rates.

While there is a clear difference between Survey vs Feedback there are many similarities they share.  A Feedback Survey is a type of survey that is designed to get feedback from a user. This can be a customer, employee, etc. The feedback survey is structured to gain insight into a product or service from the end user. Feedback survey is sometimes referred to as a customer satisfaction survey.

• When drafting a Feedback Survey it’s important to ask the right questions.  If you ask misleading or confusing questions then you can expect your survey results to be exactly that. Customer satisfaction survey questions are most effective when they are short, concise and relevant.
• Use tools like ‘conditional logic’ to ask follow up questions depending on how previous questions were answered. This will help make all survey questions relevant.
• Don’t change the survey questions too often. Feedback data is useless without relative sense. This means that if the average score on a survey is 80%, this could be very good if historically it’s been 70%, or this could be very bad if the average has been 90% in the past.
• It’s all about the Frictionless Feedback. The harder you make it for customers to complete your feedback survey the fewer response you can expect. Furthermore, the feedback you do receive will be extreme (very happy or very angry).
• Create the same Feedback Questionnaire across multiple channels. Not all customers can be expected to share feedback the same way at the same time. Meaning if you send out a survey via email 2 days after they purchase, this might only attract a portion of the customers to share their feedback.

Surveys are only valuable when you ask the right questions. That’s why building and deploying a useful and helpful survey to gather feedback is no small feat.

Although surveys and feedback have differences, they also share similarities. A feedback survey is a combination of both. It aims to collect information from your customers or employees in an efficient way.

Businesses can benefit from a feedback survey because they can gain valuable information from their client’s experience and they can improve their performance based on the client’s responses. A popular example of this is our restaurant customer satisfaction survey where quick feedback is collected directly at the point of sale.

A good feedback survey asks the right questions to get efficient results.

For additional information on survey vs feedback and how SurveyStance helps companies collect customer feedback, please check out our SurveyStance Blog.