Table of Contents

• The objective of performing survey
• The reason you should conduct a survey
• How to decide the most appropriate online survey tool?
• Below are the examples of self-asking question for choosing the most proper survey tools:

Here are the list of online customer survey tools. You will find both free online customer survey tools and the paid one.

Before I share the online survey tools, I will explain you:


1. Goal to perform a survey.

2. Why you should implement online survey?

3. How to choose online survey maker/creator/tool that is suitable for you?

4. Best practices conducting survey / online survey.


This article is closely related to several articles in this blog, you can read them for more understanding. They are:

Performing customer listening program : example of simple way to conduct customer listening programs.

Things must know in customer insight : you can take a survey for obtaining customer insight.

Customer feedback for building customer loyalty : one of action can be performed in customer loyalty program, getting customer feedback.

The power of asking in marketing activity : beside physically meet with customer, you can do an online survey.

Marketing survey analysis with spreadsheet : It is can be done if you develop online form in Google Forms, then perform analysis with spreadsheet. In this case, I use Microsoft Excel.

The survey of customer satisfaction : article that is discussing about customer satisfaction survey.

Tips of  marketing online survey : these are marketing online survey tips.

Now, let’s continue reading this article.

The objective of performing survey

There are many goals, and each company has different goal. They are:

1. For getting the insight and feedback in customer loyalty program.

2. For achieving appropriate data from customer, so that you can develop new product or new service which is proper to customer’s need.

The conclusion: a main goal to conduct the survey is for obtaining data, afterwards you can analyze them, draw a conclusion, and make a strategic decision.

The reason you should conduct a survey

This section is for answering the question “why you must perform a survey?”. If you have known the basic objective for running a survey, I think you know the answer. But I will share you the simple answer below:


It is important to develop a product or a service that provide customer’s need and want. May be you will ask, “why I should provide a product which meet customer’s need?”. I have written a lot of things which are related to this subject. You can search this on the search box. The next question is “how do you know customer or people’s need?”. Here is the answer, you can get this valuable information through customer survey, both offline survey and online survey.

The second reason is, if you have obtained the info that people’s want or prospect’s need, you can easily anticipate it and improve your product or service accurately based on their demand.

The third reason is, once you know customer’s feedback (both negative sentiment and positive sentiment), you can maintain or even improve your quality of product (or quality of service), make an improvement and innovation, so that you will obtain loyal customer and you will easily get new customer.

Basically, there are more reason why you must run a survey, but above are the most reason that I have met.

How to decide the most appropriate online survey tool?

You have understood the importance of conducting a survey for your business. The next question is, How you choose the most suitable online survey tool for you.

The best way to choose online survey tool that is suitable for you through self-asking or self-assessment. Why? Because you are the one who really know your condition. So you can decide your online survey tool based on your condition, such as: your goal, your budget, your resources (human resources or financial resources), your media to distribute your survey or media to engage the customer, your current marketing platform or marketing tools, and so on.

Below are the examples of self-asking question for choosing the most proper survey tools:

1. What is my ultimate goal conducting the survey?

2. Who are targeted respondent can I get?

3. Is this tool provide me an easy way to get and reach the respondent?

4. Beside basic features which are offered, does this tool grant me particular question type to follow certain survey methodology?

5. How much money I can spend for this tool? How much is the price of this tool? Is the price per respondent or unlimited respondent?

6. How many targeted audience I will get? How much the amount of disk space (storage) this tool provide?

7. What is the distribution channel of the survey? (like web, mobile, email, social media, etc)

8. What are the features that I must consider for the effectiveness utilization of this tool? (like security, multi-platform integration, tracking system, reporting, and so on).

Best practices to perform online survey

1. Proper approach to respondent.
For example: respect respondent’s time and do not push him to fill as soon as possible, when approaching your respondents inform them purpose of the survey, reason to participate, the respondent’s data will be kept confidential, inform estimate timed for completion,  etc.

2. Define exact goal and objective.

3. Define a clear KPI and metrics.

4. Identify your target audience/respondent.

5. Associate the linkage between the question (customer feedback or respondent’s answer), metrics, and your well-known goal.

6. Keep your survey short and straightforward.

7. Choose the right time for the right respondent in approaching, delivering, and getting the feedback.

8. Share the result / summarize to respondents.

9. Show and inform the respondents what are your actions / improvements that are related to survey’s result. This make the respondents feel valuable and respect you, so they will enthusiast to participate customer survey in the future.

The list of online customer survey tools

Finally, you are reaching to the last section. In this section, I show you not only online survey maker or online survey creator, but also survey tracking, reporting, and so forth.

I will mention if there is free version, so that you can try it first. But, you can also try it for free for limited time in paid version.


1. PHPForms

There are free version for limited user (only 2 users) and limited form (only 3 forms). This tool is useful for people who does not understand the coding, you only copy the code and paste the code into your website.


2. Qualtrics

You can use Qualtrics for customer satisfaction survey, voice of customer, marketing research, website feedback survey.


3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey provide basic version for free, but limit the question for ten questions only, then you can only have 100 responders. If you want unlimited questions and many responders, you have to use paid version.

4. Survey Gizmo

There are several features you can utilize with Surveygizmo, they are: survey, form, poll, quiz, mobile surveys, survey branding, distribution, action, collaboration, security, reporting tools, and integration.

5.EmailMeForm

There is basic plan for free version. The free version has only one theme, three reports, and 100 MB storage. EmailMeForm offers easy drag and drop interface for creating a form. The interesting feature from this tool is, you can accept payments in the form you created on your web.

6. GutCheck

On demand qualitative research tool. There is alternative to try instead of performing online customer survey, you can do qualitative research with GutCheckit. They provide some solutions, such as: concept screening and improvement, ad copy screening and optimization, package screening and refinement, and shopper insight by doing customer exploration and understanding.

7. Kontactr

By using this tool you can create contact form and integrate it directly to your website (just copy and paste the code to your web) for free.

8. Polldaddy

You can create surveys, polls, quizzes, and ratings with this tool. There is free version for personal using with no white label surveys (there is Polldaddy branding).


9. QuestionPro

Beside paid version, QuestionPro offers free version for creating online survey.

10. Formstack

The interesting feature from this tool are, drag-and-drop fields, conditional fields logic, publish your survey to social media site like in Facebook tab on Facebook page, and mobile responsive form.

11. Wufoo

Wufoo is online form builder with cloud storage database. With wufoo you can process online payment on your form (stripe, paypal, etc), integration with other other platform/tool (twitter, mailchimp, salesforce, wordpress).

12. Jotform

Jotform is form builder, one of the tool you can try before you buy it. Because Jotform offer free version. With starter plan for free you only have 1 user account and 100 MB storage. You can create form, survey, and can integrate payment processor (paypal, stripe, etc)

13. Google forms

Finally, this is the tool that I usually use for making feedback form, quizzes, survey, poll, and more. All features can be created for free. 

Why I like this tool? Because, I can use this form and free to use our logo, brand, pictures, and so on.


After design, build, and generate the code, you can directly embed it to your website, or distribute the URL of your form, and integrate it to docs, sheets, and slides.

You can see the responses automatically on the Google sheets.