Plot summary: An overview of the best practices for running a global B2B survey for due diligence
Not every global B2B survey for due diligence is created equal. While some companies conduct global research to gain insights into a wide range of business areas, others use the same survey in multiple countries and regions with small changes. If your goal is to gain accurate feedback about how customers feel about your product or service, there’s a lot more work involved than just translating and sending out a survey.
Determine your objectives
With that in mind, let’s look at the best practices for running a global B2B survey.
What do you want to learn? What do you want to do with the results? If there is no clear business objective, it will be difficult for your company to prioritize and act on them effectively.
Establish the scope of your global B2B survey for due diligence
Before you start, it’s important to establish a clear vision of what you’re trying to achieve. Whether you’re working on a research project for your company or creating a survey for your own personal use, take some time to think about the end goal of your project.
Once you’ve done that, consider what steps are needed in order to achieve those goals. Once again, be as specific as possible with these goals—don’t leave them so broad that they lose all meaning or become too difficult to measure over time.
Design a questionnaire and select key metrics
- Decide what your objectives are. You need a clear understanding of your research objectives to successfully run a global B2B survey. For example, if you are looking for feedback on how well the company is doing in different markets, then it may not be necessary to ask about individual products or services.
- Design a questionnaire that is relevant to your research objective(s). The next step is to design a questionnaire that will help you understand your research objective(s). You should make sure that from start to finish, every question in the survey ties back directly or indirectly to one of these key metrics: product/service performance (how well), brand equity (what people think), and growth potential (how much).
Create a sampling plan and recruit participants
You will need to create a sampling plan for your survey. A sampling plan is a document that outlines how the survey will be conducted, including things like:
- how many participants do you want to talk to from each country?
- which countries are included in the survey (and how many respondents from each)?
Once you’ve created your list of countries, decide on a ratio of responses from each country that makes sense for your business needs.
Send the survey and manage responses
You’ve done it! You’re ready to send out your survey and get the responses you need in order to make data-driven decisions.
Now, keep in mind that there are a few more things you’ll need to consider before sending your global B2B survey for due diligence out into the wild.
For example, if you’re planning on using multiple languages for your survey, you can use a survey platform that can automatically translate your questions from English into other languages (such as Google Forms). In addition, if any of your recipients don’t speak English natively or have limited proficiency in it (for example someone who speaks English as a second language), it’s important that all instructions and questions are written clearly so they can understand how to answer them correctly.
Analyze and report results
You can use a statistical analysis tool to conduct the analysis of your data, then report the results in a summary table or written report.
If you follow these steps, your global B2B survey for due diligence will be as accurate as possible
In order for your B2B market research to be actionable and useful for your company, it’s important that all questions are directly related back to one central goal. For example: If your goal is to improve user experience with an online learning platform by improving onboarding flows and reducing drop-off rates across different devices and operating systems—then every question in this survey should support those objectives!
