Chapter 11: Zoho Survey

Zoho Survey is an intuitive survey tool that makes capturing feedback fun and insightful. Gaining regular, good-quality feedback is often a challenge for many businesses. However, with Zoho Survey we have an amazingly simple solution that will transform the way that your business collects feedback from customers, suppliers, partners, and employees.

As with other Zoho apps, the value gained is increased exponentially by integrating with Zoho CRM. In this chapter, you will learn the basics of survey creation and integration, looking at real-life examples that may inspire your own thoughts and ideas on how to implement Survey yourself.

The topics covered in this chapter include the following:

• Getting started with Zoho Survey
• Integrating surveys with Zoho CRM
• Use case – customer feedback at the end of delivery/project

So, let's start at the beginning.

Getting started with Zoho Survey

In this section, you will learn the basics of survey creation, which is best illustrated by a working example. The survey we shall create is a simple training course evaluation to be completed by delegates upon the completion of a training course.

Let's start by creating the survey and adding questions.

Creating your survey and adding questions

The process of creating a survey is simple and involves using an intuitive drag and drop interface. This can be achieved by completing the following step:

1. Open Survey by navigating to https://survey.zoho.com/.
2. Click on Create Survey.
3. Note that there are numerous templates available to browse and use; however, we will focus on creating one from scratch as shown here:
   

   Figure 11.1 – Creating a new survey

4. Click on Create.
5. To add questions to our survey, select a question type and then drag and drop from left to right. If you think that you will wish to push the data into Zoho CRM later, then use a question type that exists in Zoho CRM such as text fields and picklists. Note that if integrating with Zoho CRM (to update/create a record), you will see the complete survey response within a related list in Zoho CRM, so mapping is only required if you wish to trigger workflows or generate reports. A full list and description of available question types can be found at https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/survey/survey-builder/question-types.
6. So, assuming we are going to integrate this survey with CRM later, let's begin with the delegate's first name by adding a short-answer question and making it mandatory as shown here:
   

   Figure 11.2 – Adding a short-answer question to capture the first name

7. Repeat step 6 to add further questions to capture last name, course, and trainer details as well. Later, in the Integrating surveys with CRM section, we will explore how we can pre-populate these fields if we already know this information:
   

   Figure 11.3 – Our survey with the delegate name, course, and trainer questions added

8. Now we are going to use a Matrix Rating Scale question type that will allow us to capture feedback on multiple aspects of the course in a way that will keep the time it will take the respondent to give the feedback to a minimum. Add each aspect to the Choices section as shown here:
   

   Figure 11.4 – Creating a matrix question with ratings

9. Now you may wish to add another similar matrix to obtain feedback on the trainer by completing the fields as follows:
   

   Figure 11.5 – A matrix question to capture feedback on the trainer

10. Now drag and drop a long-answer question onto the survey, which we will use to gather some comments on how we can improve the course:
    

    Figure 11.6 – Adding a long-answer question to obtain some qualitative feedback

11. Finally, let's get an overall rating. There are a few ways you can ask this question, for example, matrix, dropdown, or slider; however, we've chosen a number Datatype field for this example. This will allow us to compare scores, average scores, and break scores down by course and/or trainer later when we integrate with Zoho CRM. Add this question by completing the fields as illustrated here:

Figure 11.7 – Adding a number question with validation, allowing only values between 1 and 5

Once you have added your questions, you may wish to preview the survey by clicking Preview in the top-right corner. Here, you will see how the survey will appear on multiple device types, including desktop, mobile, and tablet:

Figure 11.8 – A preview of the survey on a desktop device

Once you have added all the questions you need, you may wish to add some branding and personalize some of the other settings and the appearance of the survey.

Settings and themes

The SETTINGS and THEMES options can be accessed from the main menu under SETTINGS and THEMES. Further information about this can be found here:

https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/survey/design/settings/articles/survey-settings

https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/survey/design/themes/articles/survey-themes

Figure 11.9 – Personalizing your survey using SETTINGS and THEMES

Once you have made your changes to the appearance, you are ready to launch the survey.

Publishing and sharing your survey

You may publish your survey by clicking Launch from the same menu as in Figure 11.9. Before clicking Publish, it is worth checking the Restrictions tab on the sub-menu on the left in case you wish to add an end date and prevent multiple responses.

Once the survey is published, you will see a number of options available to share the survey; however, the two most common ones are sharing by email or sharing on your website (as a button or popup). So, now that we have looked at creating and sharing our survey, it's time to look at how to increase the value of our survey exponentially by integrating with Zoho CRM.

Integrating surveys with CRM

There are two key benefits gained from integrating surveys with Zoho CRM.

Firstly, we can automate the sending of a survey to a contact using a workflow that will send the survey to the right person at the right time. The second key benefit is that by pushing all or some of the results back to Zoho CRM, we are able to provide access to this information to our wider team and use this data to trigger workflows and follow-up actions. The feedback we gain will be helpful to the marketing, product, delivery, and customer service functions and help your business to build stronger relationships with current customers, which will help retention and repeat purchase opportunities.

We can integrate the survey as follows:

1. Open the Survey editor/builder and then click on the Hub tab.
2. Click on INTEGRATE next to Zoho CRM:
   

   Figure 11.10 – Integrate your survey with Zoho CRM

3. Select the module with which you wish to integrate (this will usually be a module relating to a contact, so leads, contacts, or a custom module):
   

   Figure 11.11 – Select the CRM module to integrate with – in this example, Delegates

4. Next select one of the following Sync types:

   - Add record: Add a new record even if there are duplicates.

   - Update record: Update an existing record in Zoho CRM. If you send your survey through Zoho CRM and wish to pre-populate answers (for example, name and email), then also check the Prepopulate survey answers with information from Zoho CRM box.

   - Add/update record: Create a new record or update an existing record (it does not have the option to pre-populate).

5. Now let's map our Course Evaluation survey to a custom module in Zoho CRM where the following fields will be pre-populated from Zoho CRM to the survey:

   - First Name

   - Last Name

   - Course

   - Trainer

   The remaining fields shown in the following mapping table will be pushed into Zoho CRM when the respondent completes the survey. You will need to set Sync Type as Update Record and check the Prepopulate survey answers with information from Zoho CRM box:

   

   Figure 11.12 – Integrating some of the survey questions with a custom module in Zoho CRM

6. Once you have set up the mapping as shown in Figure 11.12, click Save.

Now that we have integrated the survey, we need to set up an email template within Zoho CRM so that we can share a link with each delegate to ensure that the completed survey is matched back to each respective delegate record.

Sharing the survey from Zoho CRM

We create this email template including the survey link within Zoho CRM as follows:

1. Navigate to Setup | Customization | Templates| Email | New Template.
2. Create the name, subject, and body of your email as you wish, then click on the survey icon on the far right of the toolbar as shown here:
   

   Figure 11.13 – Inserting your survey link in Zoho CRM

3. Now complete the pop-up box, selecting the survey from a list, and then add the text to display as shown here (note that the survey link is added for you automatically). Click Insert:
   

   Figure 11.14 – Inserting a survey link into your email

4. Now test your integration by creating a new delegate record in Zoho CRM and then from within the record, click Send Email | Select Template.
5. Select your email template and then click Send.
6. Open the email when you receive it, then complete the survey.
7. Now open the CRM record and check that all fields have been pushed back as expected and that you can view the full survey response as a related item:

Figure 11.15 – A delegate record in Zoho CRM, the fields within the Evaluation section having been completed within the survey and integrated with the record

Finally, once you are happy with everything, you will need to create a workflow to automate the sending of your email. Please refer to Chapter 6, Game-Changing Workflows and Automations, for information on how to do this using the course date field as your trigger.

Congratulations, you have now grasped the basics of Zoho Survey and learned how to achieve an effective two-way integration with CRM. You should realize also that the scope and possibilities for this within your business are significant. However, to further illustrate the value and simplicity of this, we shall consider one additional use case.

Use case – automate your customer feedback and build a constant source of quotes and testimonials

One of the best ways we can use surveys with Zoho CRM is to gain customer feedback when or shortly after we have delivered our products and/or services. It is a great way to measure how the customer feels about dealing with our business as well as building a pool of quotes that can be used by marketing in future to help attract more customers.

To achieve this, we will need the following components:

• A survey
• An email template associated to a workflow to trigger sending the email

Let's start with the survey, which is created in the same way as described earlier in this chapter. This survey starts with a Net Promotor Score (NPS) question followed by a couple of questions to give the respondent opportunities to provide a testimonial and also suggest how the service could be improved.

Finally, the checkbox will obtain permission to use the quote in subsequent marketing material. So, you get lots of value from just four questions that will only take the respondent up to a minute to complete – meaning you should get a high response rate. This customer feedback survey, including an NPS question, is shown here:

Figure 11.16 – Example survey that should deliver a high response rate and lots of value

Once you have created the survey, you need to create an email template in Zoho CRM. As we typically do not need to integrate the results back to CRM for this one, we can simply use the survey link within the Launch tab in Surveys.

Finally, create a workflow in CRM that will be triggered based on a user updating the stage of an opportunity or by a Date field (Delivery Date or similar). An example of this is displayed here:

Figure 11.17 – An example workflow that will send the email containing the link to the NPS survey automatically when the stage is updated to Complete

Further information on the NPS survey question in Zoho Survey can be found here:

https://www.zoho.com/blog/survey/track-customer-loyalty-with-the-net-promoter-score.html

Once you have created a couple of surveys with/without integration with Zoho CRM, you should start to feel comfortable with the process and, in time, should be able to create many other surveys that will help your business to gain feedback.

So, let's end the chapter with a brief recap!

Summary

In this chapter, you have learned how to create a survey using Zoho Survey. You have gained an understanding of the benefits of integrating a survey with Zoho CRM and the different ways in which this can be achieved.

You have worked through a couple of example surveys and workflows that can be adopted by your business immediately or adapted slightly for future use.

Finally, you should now appreciate the simplicity and far-reaching possibilities that Zoho Survey (with Zoho CRM) offers and should now realize that gathering insightful feedback from clients and other network partners should be a pleasure and not a chore.

In the next chapter, you will learn about Sales IQ, another great application from Zoho that integrates with Zoho CRM and other Zoho apps to help provide you with real-life business intelligence that will help your marketing team.