Surveys are important. We all want to know how we’re performing and what we can do better. As the director of support, it’s my job to know how my department is doing, and to improve any gaps we might have in our processes, solutions, and response time.

How do I do that? With your input — and with a little help from our tools.

Whether you’re running a support department or zeroing in on your learners’ needs when building your elearning courses, here’s how you can create your own survey to solicit input from your users:

Step 1: Create Your Survey

Create your survey with Articulate Quizmaker. You can read about the survey I launched in June on the Articulate support experience. And you can download the source .AQM file to get you started with some ideas for your own survey.

Step 2: Publish to Articulate Online & Deploy to Users

Publish your survey to your Articulate Online account (get a free, 30-day trial if you don’t already have one).

Once your survey is in Articulate Online, you can generate a unique launch button or URL to include on your Web site or in emails. Our survey URL has appeared at the bottom of every outgoing support email we’ve sent for more than a month now:

http://support.articulate-online.com/0283233476

Step 3: Run Reports & Analyze Your Results

Once your survey link is out there, the fun part is collecting your survey data in Articulate Online. You can run regular reports on your responses, then take follow-up action when necessary. In my case, I’ve been following up with those of you who’ve shared feedback — positive or negative.

You can even export your reports to CSV or PDF. Or extract your favorite feedback from the past few weeks to share in a blog post for your shameless self-promotion.

First, from Katherine Ross, Instructor Coordinator at Kidproof (who liked us enough to share a photo):

I spent over 15 years in customer service, so I know a thing or two about it. I would like to say that I found your online support to be absolutely excellent. I didn’t expect to have an answer to my question until Monday at the earliest (it’s now Friday afternoon), but I literally heard back within 15 minutes. I am blown away by the quick response time. Thanks a million!

Support is part of the Articulate difference:

Keep up the great support. This is one huge reason you are separating yourselves from your competitors.

We’re faster than a speeding bullet:

I was very impressed with the timeliness of the response to my question. The entire process took less than 15 min.

We go above and beyond:

I have been extremely happy with everything. You’ve always made every effort to go out of your way to solve a problem.

We help you get your work done:

Without (your) support I would not have been able to complete my project successfully. … If the rest of the support staff is as professional and as knowledgeable as Justin, then you guys are truly a class act.

We’ve also received a handful of not so kind responses, but that’s the beauty of the survey: It’s allowed us to turn the negative into the positive.

Besides, those aren’t as much fun to blog about.