Pilot Survey: Definition, Importance and Tips [Questions and Free Template Included]

Would you buy a car without taking it for a test drive?

Would you risk investing in a vehicle that doesn't meet your needs or has hidden flaws?

Similarly, launching a product or research without a pilot survey is like driving blindfolded. A pilot survey is your test drive, ensuring that your product or research is ready to hit the road and perform as expected.

Companies of all sizes and types, as they should, rely heavily on surveys to uncover actionable insights to make smart business decisions & investments. From launching a new product or feature to understanding customer sentiments and expanding to new market segments, survey results play a vital role. And to quote Spiderman, with great power comes great responsibility!arrow

Let's take product launches as an example to explain this further. Every business guide you can find will ask you to conduct a survey to test the product concept, identify pain points, measure demand, and refine your value proposition before you do the actual launch. They're right; you should! 

But, before you spend your time, resources, and money running a survey whose results directly influence your business decisions, isn't it wise to take the survey for a "test drive" with fewer respondents? And that's exactly what pilot surveys are! 

What is a Pilot Survey?

A pilot survey is a small-scale preliminary study conducted before you launch the full-scale survey to see how your target audience will perceive your survey design, including the layout, questions, and survey instructions. 

The pilot survey is carried out on a sample size representative of your planned audience. After completing the survey, the respondents should give honest feedback about their experience participating in it. 

For instance, here's a conversational survey template made with SurveySparrow. Feel free to customize it the way you like!

Market Research Survey Template

Preview Template

Use This Template

As an organization trying to get feedback on your product/service or conducting market research, you can share your survey with other stakeholders in the company or even your employees. The objective of the pilot survey is not just to validate the questions but also to examine your survey functionalities at multiple touchpoints.

In simpler words, it is to test a questionnaire or survey to see if you're asking the right questions in the right order to get the right answers!

Why Conduct a Pilot Survey

We've already discussed how pilot surveys are the preliminary version of your main surveys, which identify and resolve potential shortfalls in the survey design before it is deployed to a larger audience. 

Let's now discuss the key survey design aspects that pilot surveys review to help you collect accurate, reliable, and actionable responses.

Question flow

Assess if the sequence of questions follows a natural progression in a way that makes sense without abrupt jumps or irrelevant sections.

Clarity of questions

Ensure that all your pilot survey questions are not loaded but clear and easy to understand. Verify that the respondents are interpreting them as intended.

Measure response rate

Analyze the effectiveness of the survey and the overall appeal of the topic to understand how well it captures initial interest and encourages participation.

Question completion time

Measure the average time respondents spend on each question to identify any difficulty understanding the question to help you improve question wording or provide additional context.

Survey length

Compare the actual survey completion time to the estimated duration to determine if the survey length is appropriate and whether respondents are experiencing fatigue or disengagement.

Question type effectiveness

Evaluate the suitability of the question types used, such as multiple-choice, open-ended, or rating scales, and their impact on response time and clarity.

Technical functionality

Test the survey's technical aspects, including skip logic, branching, and multiple-platform compatibility, to ensure glitches won't compromise your data collection.

Instructions and guidance

Check if there are clear transitions between different survey sections or topics and whether the survey design and layout are easy for the respondents to navigate.

Cultural sensitivity

Ensure the survey is culturally appropriate and sensitive to the target population's context to avoid biased or insensitive questions and language.

Respondent Experience

Identify areas of improvement in your survey design to enhance the overall survey experience and get actionable responses.

Advantages of Pilot Surveys

While we have already covered how pilot surveys can improve different aspects of your survey, here are a few more benefits.

Maximize meaningful responses

Identify questions that are not performing as expected. For instance, an open-ended question in your survey might make analysis difficult with the same answer reported in different ways or a multiple-choice question without the answer options that respondents need, coming to analysis with "Other" as the most selected. 

It's always better to identify and fix these gaps in the pilot stage rather than end up with thousands of responses you cannot use.

Improve respondent experience

Pilot surveys will help you understand how participants interact with the survey, identify issues, address confusion, and enhance its user-friendliness before distributing it to a larger audience. 

They will also help you create a pleasant and engaging survey experience for your target respondents and increase response rates.

Refine data collection methods

A pilot survey lets you test different question formats, response options, and share surveys via various methods to find the most effective way to gather quality data. 

By addressing potential glitches early on, you can reduce the risk of technical problems during the main survey. From firewall-related issues to disabling the links to your survey invitation emails, test the data collection tools you use in a real-world setting. 

Safeguard ethical requirements

Conducting a pilot survey when developing a survey that aims to protect anonymity or confidentiality or allows participants to withdraw their responses at any time would help confirm that your survey complies with these ethical requirements. 

It would also verify that your processes for handling withdrawal requests are in place and effective, protecting your credibility and reputation.

Identification of unintended biases

Conducting a pilot survey will help you discover potential biases in your survey that could influence the results. The survey questions might unintentionally lead your participants toward a particular answer or overlook a specific demographic group.

For instance, the survey's question flow can also influence respondents' answers.

Question 1: "How satisfied are you with our product's features?"

Question 2: "How satisfied are you with the price of our product?"

If respondents are asked about features first, they are more likely to rate the price positively, as they focus on the product's benefits.

How to Choose the Right Pilot Survey Approach

Before we move on to the top questions to ask in your pilot survey, let's get a brief understanding of the different pilot approaches you may adopt based on your organizational and respondent points of view. Here's a comparison of different pilot survey methods to help you decide which is right for you.

External Pilot Surveys vs Internal Pilot Surveys

External pilot surveys test your questionnaire with a group of respondents not part of the main study. 

You can try convenience sampling, which means recruiting friends, colleagues, or other easily accessible people to participate in the survey. This approach is beneficial for assessing the technical aspects of your survey, such as its design, instructions, and layout.

On the other hand, the participants will be included in the main study for internal pilot surveys. Since the pilot respondents are part of your target audience, this approach provides a more realistic preview of how the main survey will perform.

Participatory pilot surveys vs Undeclared pilot surveys

In participatory pilot surveys, the participants are informed that they're part of the study. This approach allows you to gather in-depth insights into how participants interact with the survey, including their thoughts on question clarity and user-friendliness. 

However, in undeclared pilot surveys, participants don't understand that they are part of a pilot study. This method helps minimize bias and ensure that respondents' answers reflect their genuine opinions without any influence from knowing they are part of a test.

Top 10 Questions to Ask in Your Pilot Survey 2024

Asking some of these survey questions in your pilot survey in addition to the actual survey would help you get relevant feedback from your respondents to improve the quality of answers and survey design.

1. How difficult were the survey questions?
   (Simplify or reword the questions based on the answer.)
2. Were the response options appropriate and exhaustive? 
   (Ensure adequate answer options to choose from and prevent respondents from skipping questions.)
3. Was the survey visually appealing and easy to navigate?
   (Improve respondent engagement and reduce the likelihood of errors.)
4. Did you encounter any technical difficulties while taking the survey?
   (Fix the technical issues from your side.)
5. Are the questions relevant to the topic?
   (Add, edit or remove survey questions based on the answer.)
6. Were there any terms or words you did not know or thought were misused?
   (Identify confusing questions and clarify the wording.)
7. Did you find any of the questions offensive or degrading?
   (Identify inappropriate questions to avoid compromising the validity of your data.)
8. How did you access this survey?
   (Identify the right survey distributing channel for you.)
9. Are there clear instructions for completing the survey?
   (See if the survey instructions you have added are clear or need improvement.)
10. Do you have any suggestions for improving the survey?
    (Get valuable insights into how to improve the survey design.)

5 Best Tips to Run your Pilot Survey Right

Ask direct questions 

The primary goal is to test and refine your survey. Avoid overly complex survey questions, jargon, or long surveys.

Provide clear Instructions

Communicate the survey's objectives and offer clear instructions to help them navigate the survey.

Collect feedback

Encourage honest and detailed responses from your pilot survey participants to create an engaging survey experience.

Experiment

Try different survey-sharing channels such as offline survey apps, email, Whatsapp & more to see which works best for your target audience.

Iterate to improve

Be flexible when iterating your main survey, from rewording questions to editing sections and changing the survey format.

Pilot surveys: A choice or a necessity?

The decision to conduct a pilot survey depends completely on the size and complexity of the survey. For instance, a pretest might be enough to identify necessary changes for an employee engagement survey, particularly for a smaller company. However, a pilot survey is highly recommended for larger surveys, especially those targeting a wider audience, like customer satisfaction surveys. 

Though many perceive conducting a pilot survey as time-consuming, it is actually one of the most effective methods to collect real-time feedback from your target audience. It's easy to set up and inexpensive, and it could save you from the trouble of costly survey reruns owing to invalid responses and technical glitches.

Take your first step by creating a conversational survey with SurveySparrow!