The A-Z Of Anonymous Surveys

Some respondents to your surveys from your audience or customers may be hesitant to provide their real names or other identifying information. Additionally, there are instances where it is unnecessary to request certain details, such as names or addresses. Moreover, there are use cases and geographic locations where it is inappropriate to gather personal information. This is where anonymous surveys can come in incredibly useful.

From a business perspective, tracking survey respondents’ identities is often unnecessary. Instead, their target remains to furnish honest answers from the participants. When people are asked questions, they should respond honestly so the company can get closer to the truth. Using these facts, the company may improve its procedures and fix its flaws.

Our discussion will cover anonymous surveys, including their definition, methodology, and more. So, whether you want to conduct a confidential survey for your company or you’re trying to decide what kind is right for you, stay tuned to uncover.

What Are Anonymous Surveys?

If a survey claims to be anonymous but yet ends up collecting personal identifying information about the responder, it is not anonymous. These surveys don’t ask for respondents’ identifying information or personal details to protect their privacy. 

These questionnaires can be used to solicit responses from staff, patients, or consumers about confidential matters.

Why Do Businesses Need Anonymous Surveys?

Businesses demand anonymous surveys for more than just providing honest and truthful responses. The following section outlines the reasons why businesses switch to conducting anonymous surveys:

Honesty

The reasoning underlying respondents’ candour in anonymous polls is straightforward: when people feel secure revealing the truth, they do so. True responses will give you a clearer perspective on the situation. Survey takers appreciate anonymity because of this reason.

Privacy

An anonymous survey provides protection of personal information while yet providing reliable information. You’ll be able to collect the data you require while guaranteeing respondents that not even survey managers will have access to their individual responses. Because of this, anonymous surveys have a higher response rate.

Increased Response Rate

Anonymous surveys are the best way to collect sensitive, personal, or otherwise difficult-to-disclose data. If respondents are assured anonymity, they are more inclined to fill out the survey, increasing the response rate for polls that might have otherwise received few votes. 

Most survey platforms on the market today allow you to send email reminders to those who haven’t yet responded, preserving confidentiality.

TAKEAWAY TIP: While conducting these anonymous surveys, authorities should remain vigilant about additional identification factors like IP address and contact information to maintain their privacy and also to use them in follow-up studies. They should be kept under garb to generate unbiased survey results.

RELATED: Top Survey Question Types To Win Higher Response Rate

Best Tools To Create An Anonymous Survey

Here are five of the best tools for conducting anonymous surveys. They are equipped with the latest technology and are feature-rich, technologically advanced, and user-friendly.

SurveyPoint

When it comes to making confidential surveys, SurveyPoint continues to be the go-to tool. When using the platform, senders can be prevented from accessing responders’ private data. It has every conceivable function built in, such as real-time data generation, dashboard integration, and advanced analytics. 

You can even get a free trial of all advanced features when you sign up. Brownie points these cutting-edge features are available for a low monthly fee.

SmartSurvey

It assures the participants that their answers are confidential, which results in generating honest feedback and improving response rates.

The platform’s ISO027001 certification guarantees the confidentiality of user responses to surveys. By conforming to the General Data Protection Regulation, SmartSurvey ensures that survey takers will always have access to their data should they request to see it.

SoGoSurvey

In their anonymous surveys, SoGoSurvey ensures total protection of private data. Survey senders cannot access respondents’ IP addresses or email addresses. 

The platform of SoGoSurvey is designed so that the administrator of a survey cannot see the personal details of respondents. It is a one-stop solution to derive HR or legal feedback. The platform is backed by embedded logic and top-notch 24/7 support.

Google Forms

Yes, many people don’t know it but google forms can also be used for anonymous surveys. In the settings tab, if the form is restricted to collecting the respondent’s email, it becomes anonymous. Apart from that, everyone knows how easy it is to work with Google. It is accessible to all types of users. Moreover, it is a free web-based application.

RELATED: It’s Official! Google Surveys Will Soon Be Discontinued

Jotform

Jotform provides the option to limit submissions based on a user’s name, email address, or other identifying information. The privacy settings on Jotforms make it simple to utilize them as anonymous surveys. Jotform’s simple integration features are well-praised.

The form is Google analytics competent and can track underlying events. Custom CSS, answer piping, CRM integration, Google reCAPTCHA, etc remain its other prominent features.

How To Create Anonymous Survey Forms?

Follow these steps to create your customized and effective anonymous survey forms.

Create a survey

You can use any online form builder tool you like. Typically, you can build it from scratch or use pre-built templates.

Add questions

When you’re through making your survey, you can add questions by clicking “Add Question” in the panel of the form builder. Since maintaining respondent anonymity is a top priority, you should use closed-ended questions whenever possible in your survey design. Therefore, select Choice Options from the menu bar and make your selection.

Customize your survey

Once you have your questions and page layout set up, you can also modify the survey’s appearance to meet your specific requirements. Using SurveyPoint’s in-built tools, you may give your survey a more polished look by changing the colour scheme, font, background, etc. 

You can share it on various platforms

After fine-tuning your survey’s user appeal, you can preview it and share it with your respondents. There are many sharing options available on the sidebar. These options can help you even better to customize your forms, embed links, and share them on your website, social media, etc.

To Conclude

One survey approach that has been shown to be effective in many various fields of business, politics, academia and so on is the usage of anonymous questionnaires. Not only does this get more responses, but it also helps eliminate problems that could occur from knowing who is responding.

In an election, for instance, while voters’ identities may be known, the candidates they voted for remain anonymous. The same holds true for a survey of your staff or students, protecting them from any potential reaction because of your own human frailties.

These surveys have helped businesses improve customer offerings, foster a positive work environment, and increase employee satisfaction.

If you’re just starting out or on a tighter budget, SurveyPoint is an excellent option to explore. To top it all off, it provides a secure environment for all collected information, which is essential for any reliable survey.

Heena Shah – Content Writer at Sambodhi