How to Create a Survey Results Report (+7 Examples to Steal) (2023)

Do you need to write a survey results report?

A great report will increase the impact of your survey results and encourage more readers to engage with the content.

In this article, we’ll look at tips on presenting a survey summary and writing up the content.

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What Is a Survey Report?

A survey report compiles all data collected during a survey and presents it objectively. The report often summarizes pages of data from all responses received and makes it easier for the audience to process.

How Do You Present Survey Results?

The best way to present survey results is to use visualizations. Charts, graphs, and infographics will make your survey outcomes easier to interpret.

For online surveys, WPForms has an awesome Surveys and Polls addon that makes it easy to publish many types of surveys and collect data using special survey fields:

• Likert Scale (sometimes called a matrix question)
• Net Promoter Score (sometimes called an NPS Survey)
• Star Rating
• Single Line Text
• Checkboxes
• Multiple Choice (sometimes called radio buttons)

You can turn on survey reporting at any time, even if the form expiry date has passed.

To present your results, create a beautiful PDF by clicking Print Survey Report right from the WordPress dashboard:

Now we understand a bit more about presenting survey results, let’s look at some of the content you could write to go with them.

How to Write a Survey Results Report

When you present your survey results, you’ll have a small space to get the reader’s attention. You’ll want to use as many tricks as possible to keep them engaged.

Here are the techniques we’ll talk about in this article:

Let’s walk through some tricks and techniques with real examples.

1. Use Data Visualization

We already talked about ways to collect data and format the results visually.Adding a chart to a survey results report helps to bring it to life.

A well-design chart will also add impact and reinfornce the story you want to tell.

Examples of Survey Visualizations

Pie charts are perfect when you want to bring statistics to life. Here’s a great example from a wedding survey:

Pie charts can be simple and still get the message across. Here’s another great example from a homebuyer survey introduction:

You can easily add pie charts like this using the WPForms Surveys and Polls addon. It has powerful survey reporting features that are unique to WPForms. That’s why it’s the best survey plugin for WordPress.

If you want to customize the survey visuals for your introduction, check out this neat feature. WPForms automatically changes the color of your pie chart when you click different visualization types at the top, so it’s easy to get a pie chart or bar graph that looks great:

This handy feature will save tons of time when you’re composing your survey results.

If your survey is made up of open-ended questions, it might be more challenging to produce charts. If that’s the case, you can write up your findings instead. We’ll look at that next.

2. Write the Key Facts First

When you’re thinking about how to write a summary of survey results, remember that the introduction needs to get the reader’s attention.

Focusing on key facts helps you to do that right at the start.

This is why it’s usually best to write the survey introduction at the end once the rest of the survey report has been compiled. That way, you know what the big takeaways are.

This is an easy and powerful way to write a survey introduction that encourages the reader to investigate.

Examples of Survey Summaries With Key Facts

Here’s an awesome example of a survey summary that immediately draws the eye.

The key finding is presented first, and then we see a fact about half the group immediately after:

Using this order lets us see the impactful survey responses right up top.

If you need help deciding which questions to ask in your survey, check out this article on the best survey questions to include.

3. Write a Short Survey Summary

Your survey summary should give the reader a complete overview of the content. But you don’t want to take up too much space.

Survey summaries are sometimes called executive summaries because they’re designed to be quickly digested by decision-makers.

You’ll want to filter out the less important findings and focus on what matters. A 1-page summary is enough to get this information across. You might want to leave space for a table of contents on this page too.

Examples of Short Survey Introductions

One way to keep a survey summary short is to use a teaser at the start.

Here’s an example introduction that doesn’t state all of its findings but gives us the incentive to keep reading:

And here’s a great survey introduction that summarizes the findings in just one sentence:

In WPForms, you can reduce the size of your survey report by excluding questions you don’t need. We decided to remove this question from the report PDF because it has no answers. Just click the arrow at the top, and it won’t appear in the final printout:

This is a great way to quickly build a PDF summary of your survey that only includes the most important questions. You can also briefly explain your methodology.

4. Explain the Motivation For Your Survey

When you create a survey in WordPress, you probably have a good idea of your reasons for doing so.

Make your purpose clear in the intro. For example, if you’re running a demographic survey, you might want to clarify that you’ll use this information to target your audience more effectively.

The reader must know exactly what you want to find out. Ideally, you should also explain why you wanted to create the survey in the first place. This can help you to reach the correct target audience for your survey.

Examples of Intros that Explain Motivation

This vehicle survey was carried out to help with future planning, so the introduction makes the purpose clear to the reader:

Having focused questions can help to give your survey a clear purpose. We have some questionnaire examples and templates that can help with that.

Explaining why you ran the survey helps to give context, which we’ll talk about more next.

5. Put Survey Statistics in Context

Including numbers in a survey summary is important. But your survey summary should tell a story too.

Adding numbers to your introduction will help draw the eye, but you’ll also want to explain what the numbers tell you.

Otherwise, you’ll have a list of statistics that don’t mean much to the reader.

Examples of Survey Statistics in Context

Here’s a great example of a survey introduction that uses the results from the survey to tell a story.

Another way to put numbers in context is to present the results visually.

Here, WPForms has automatically created a table from our Likert Scale question that makes it easy to see a positive trend in the survey data:

If you’d like to use a Likert scale to produce a chart like this, check out this article on the best Likert scale questions for survey forms.

6. Tell the Reader What the Outcome Should Be

Now that your survey report is done, you’ll likely want action to be taken based on your findings.

That’s why it’s a good idea to make a recommendation.

If you already explained your reasons for creating the survey, you can naturally add a few sentences on the outcomes you want to see.

Examples of Survey Introductions with Recommendations

Here’s a nice example of a survey introduction that clearly states the outcomes that the organization would like to happen now that the survey is published:

This helps to focus the reader on the content and helps them to understand why the survey is important. Respondents are more likely to give honest answers if they believe that a positive outcome will come from the survey.

You can also cite related research here to give your reasoning more weight.

7. Export Your Survey Result Graphs

Now you’ve created beautiful graphs in your survey summary PDF, you’ll want to use them again in the main report.

By exporting visuals, you can also use them in marketing materials like:

• Presentation slides
• Infographics
• Press releases
• Blog posts

WPForms makes it easy to export any graphic from your survey results so you can use it on your website or in slides.

Just use the dropdown to export your survey pie chart as a JPG or PDF:

And that’s it! You now know how to create an impactful summary of survey results and add these to your marketing material or reports.

Bonus Tip: Export Data for Survey Analysis

WPForms is the best form builder plugin for WordPress. As well as having the best survey tools, it also has the best data export options.

Often, you’ll want to export form entries to analyze them in other tools. You can do exactly the same thing with your survey data.

For example, you can:

• Export your form entries or survey data to Excel
• Automatically send survey responses to a Google Sheet

We really like the Google Sheet addon in WPForms because it sends your entries to a Google Sheet as soon as they’re submitted. And you can connect any form or survey to a Sheet without writing any code.

The Google Sheets integration is powerful enough to send all of your metrics. You can add columns to your Sheet and map the data points right from your WordPress form.

This is an ideal solution if you want to give someone else access to your survey data so they can crunch the numbers in spreadsheet format.

Next Step: Make Your Survey Form

To create a great survey summary, you’ll want to start out with a great survey form. Check out this article on how to create a survey form online to learn how to create and customize your surveys in WordPress.

You can also:

• Learn how to create a popup WordPress survey
• Read some rating scale question examples
• Get started easily with a customer survey template from the WPForms template library.

Create Your Survey Now

Ready to build your survey? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. WPForms Pro includes free survey form templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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