# 5 Key Survey Software Features | Capterra > Looking for more information about survey software features before purchasing? Check out the five features users rate the most important and top products that offer them. Source: https://www.capterra.com/resources/key-survey-software-features --- Analytics, Data, & Business Intelligence # 5 Key Survey Software Features and Top Products That Offer Them Written by: Saumya Srivastava Saumya SrivastavaAuthor Writer Experience Since November 2021, I've been a writer for Capterra, providing expert insights to help small businesses find the right software solutions.... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/ssrivastava/) and edited by: Lindsay Page Lindsay PageEditor Content Editor Experience I have been an editor at Capterra for three years, specializing in editing data-driven research and tech trends reports for small a... [See bio & all articles](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/lindsay-page/) Published July 23, 2024 12 min read Table of Contents - [1\. Customizable questions](#1-customizable-questions) - [2\. Survey builder](#2-survey-builder) - [3\. Customizable fields](#3-customizable-fields) - [4\. Reporting/Analytics](#4-reportinganalytics) - [5\. Question branching](#5-question-branching) In today’s data-driven world, are you using the right online survey tools to collect responses and analyze results? Or, do you find yourself spending too much time sorting through mountains of survey data and manually identifying actionable insights?  If you, as a data analyst or researcher, relate to the second question, it is time to invest in a [survey tool](https://www.capterra.com/survey-software/) that structures your survey questions and assesses the responses to provide actionable insights into the business's sales and marketing data. We recommend familiarizing yourself with the online survey software tool's key features to evaluate whether it’s the right fit for you. To help with your search, this article highlights five key online survey software features based on the ratings given by verified software users. We also include the highest-rated survey software for each feature. ## 1\. Customizable questions The feature in an online survey tool allows data analytics and research teams to design single or multiple surveys that precisely target the required information. It offers a variety of question types, such as multiple choice, Likert scale, dropdown menus, open-ended, rating scales, and matric questions, to cater to different data collection goals. The feature allows customizing the answer choices, and layout to match the survey design or brand voice. Users can control the order of answer options, set up survey logic and branching based on previous answers, and allow images, video, or audio clips to be included in answers. ### What business problems does customizable questions solve? The customizable questions feature helps data analysts and researchers solve the following challenges: - **Unstructured or scattered data:** Responses that lack a predefined format can be challenging to sort and analyze based on specific data requirements. Customizable questions allow users to focus on particular details with pre-set rules to skip or jump to linked questions based on the previous answer. This helps uncover specific insights hidden within the unstructured data. - **Irrelevant responses:** Tailoring questions to specific topics or audiences eliminates irrelevant answer choices that might confuse respondents or tempt them to choose random answers. They also reduce the chances of them abandoning the survey due to frustration. However, when questions are directly addressed to the required information, respondents are more likely to provide accurate and relevant answers, leading to simplified data analysis.  - **Reduced engagement:** Allowing respondents to select or answer questions relevant to their interests and needs offers a more personalized experience. This makes them feel valued and more likely to invest time in responding. Relevant questions spark curiosity and encourage respondents to think critically about their choices, fostering a more profound engagement than generic, one-size-fits-all questions. ### How users benefit from customizable questions Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of customizable questions feature describing how it helps them: _“Being able to ask the right question in the right area of our forms or apps plays a great part in reaching the customer. it also helps us to have the right information when it comes time for us to help the customer when they are in need.”_ _“Customization of questions is absolutely necessary for creating surveys, quizzes, polls, etc. that capture any user's unique goals, which led them to the platform.”_ _“I am able to possess the capabilities to include personalized questions that are not present in the existing templates. This feature empowers me to inquire about specific aspects that I deem crucial, enabling me to effectively gauge the company's performance and success.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for customizable questions _Analysis performed July 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable questions feature rating 4.82/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable questions feature rating 4.81/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable questions feature rating 4.79/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 2\. Survey builder Survey software features a survey builder that allows users to create and customize online surveys or questionnaires. It provides a drag-and-drop interface for building the survey step-by-step, without requiring any coding knowledge. Users can change the look and feel of the survey with themes, logos, and color schemes to match the brand identity. They can also control the survey layout by adding images, videos, or multimedia elements. The survey builder enables users to preview the created survey on multiple devices before publishing and sharing it with the team members for collaborative work and feedback. ### What business problems does survey builder solve? The survey builder feature helps data analysts and researchers solve the following challenges: - **Lack of coding skills:** The feature lets users drag and drop sections or elements across the survey template. They can also leverage the template library to select a pre-designed template for the required topic (customer satisfaction, employee feedback, or market research). These templates provide a solid foundation and can be easily customized to fit the specific data collection requirements. - **Miscommunication among team members:** Users can share the created surveys with team members via a preview link. This allows them to brainstorm and make any changes to the template over a voice call or leave comments in the template. The feature also helps keep all the team members updated on the latest template changes, reducing misunderstandings or overlapped changes.  - **Complex survey design:** Surveys that are complex to navigate when finding questions, especially with branching or skip questions, can confuse and lead to abandonment. The survey builder features multiple tools to create sections and accurately branch or skip questions so that the respondents can spend time answering the questions instead of fetching them based on logic. ### How users benefit from survey builder Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of survey builder feature describing how it helps them: _“I can easily build surveys and collect all information about my leads e.g email addresses,telephone, location, age, occupation and finally their opinion on my product. This aspect is very important.”_ _“I had a very specific survey to create for a research project that included short answer fill-in, choosing options from a list, and rating statements from 1 to 5. I was able to create a custom survey to my exact needs quickly and send it out easily. I had no complaints from anyone that the survey was difficult to complete.”_ _“It's a logical, intuitive presentation of options for construction. It's easy to construct comprehensive surveys of varying types. Surveys can be readily modified and tested. The user is able to quickly check the look and "feel" of the survey and adjust it quickly.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for survey builder _Analysis performed July 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Survey builder feature rating 4.85/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Survey builder feature rating 4.77/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Survey builder feature rating 4.76/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 3\. Customizable fields The feature enables survey software users to go beyond standard survey templates with limited field types. They can add specific fields relevant to the topic requirements, such as file upload, date pickers, answer range, or matrices. For example, a customer satisfaction survey about a new product launch can have a field for the specific product name or feature being evaluated. Users can also add open-ended questions for in-depth responses and multiple-choice or yes/no questions. Customizable fields also help personalize the survey experience with follow-up questions, allowing them to add more context to their responses. ### What business problems does customizable fields solve? The customizable fields feature helps data analytics and research teams solve the following challenges: - **Lack of personalization:** Surveys targeting specific audiences show their unique perspective is valued, leading to higher engagement and completion rates. This compels respondents to share their experiences and other hidden insights, which can result in better business decisions based on the respondents' specific needs and preferences. - **Data inconsistency:** Survey software tools' customizable fields feature helps create fields with specific data types to ensure consistent responses. This eliminates variations in how people enter information, such as date formats, abbreviations, or measuring units. Users can also add specific instructions to answer questions, reducing ambiguity for respondents and ensuring they understand the format as expected. - **Limited visibility:** In forced-choice questions, respondents are required to choose one answer option, and the percentages naturally add up to 100%. Lack of customization might restrict the users to predefined answer choices provided by the survey software. This could lead to situations where respondents’ answers don’t perfectly fit the options, causing them to add their own responses or skip, reducing visibility. ### How users benefit from customizable fields Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of customizable fields feature describing how it helps them: _“It allows extensive customization of fields to tailor the CRM to specific business needs. So we can add, modify, and configure fields to capture relevant data, ensuring the system adapts to various industry requirements.”_ _“You can create complex survey structures using advanced branching and piping features. This enables you to present tailored questions based on specific conditions or to carry over previous responses to subsequent questions.”_ _“Being able to customize these templates and fields allows me to stand out from my competitors. I've built a solid working platform that allows me to never think twice about my reports. I just inspect, and note what I'm seeing.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for customizable fields _Analysis performed July 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable fields feature rating 4.75/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable fields feature rating 4.65/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Customizable fields feature rating 4.59/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 4\. Reporting/Analytics This survey software feature enables users to translate raw data into simple formats, such as charts, graphs, and tables. This visual representation helps team members to identify trends, patterns, and key findings within the survey responses. The software also offers pre-built reports for common survey types, such as customer interactions or employee engagement. These reports automatically generate relevant charts and insights, saving time on data analysis and sorting. Users can leverage the drag-and-drop functionality to personalize the dashboard and monitor key performance indicators for reports downloaded in various formats such as CSV or Excel. ### What business problems does reporting/analytics solve? The reporting/analytics feature helps data analytics and research professionals solve the following challenges: - **Data fog:** Businesses handle an overwhelming amount of data (data fog) that can be difficult to understand and utilize manually. Reporting and analytics features in survey software help sort and clean this complex data into charts and tables to highlight trends, patterns, and relationships between different variables.  - **Inefficient resource utilization:** Analyzing the survey metrics—such as participation rate, open rate, or completion rate—for different distribution methods helps indicate areas that perform well or need improvement. This includes topics or questions that don’t resonate with the target audience, or are too long or complex to understand, resulting in a waste of time and effort for both analysts and respondents.  - **Difficulty measuring ROI:** Reporting features allow tracking key metrics beyond just response rate. These include website traffic changes, sales conversions, customer retention rates, and support ticket resolution rates. Users can analyze these metrics over time to check if their efforts are paying off in the form of business growth and revenue. The feature allows calculating the cost of conducting surveys against the quantifiable benefits to demonstrate the true value. ### How users benefit from reporting/analytics Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the reporting/analytics feature describing how it helps them: _“Able to compare statistics and campaigns from previous ones we have published, which helps show the best times to publish and post content, which is a nice feature.”_ _“Absolutely wonderful feature. Easy filters make reporting easy. This can be linked to automated emails sent of a frequency we decide to a range of people responsible for monitoring and maintaining the data integrity, action closure with friendly reminders along the way. The product provides easy management reporting.”_ _“Reporting is done with ease and great aesthetically looking reports can be created in a matter of minutes. Great tool for optimizing the time it takes to create time-consuming reports.”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for reporting/analytics _Analysis performed July 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Reporting/analytics feature rating 4.73/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Reporting/analytics feature rating 4.71/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Reporting/analytics feature rating 4.63/5 #### Device Compatibilty ## 5\. Question branching Survey software with a question branching feature, also known as skip login or conditional branching, allows users to tailor the survey experience for each respondent based on their choice of answers. This creates a dynamic flow where the questions a respondent sees are based on their previous responses. Branching enables users to gather more specific data based on respondent segments, leading to richer insights. ### What business problems does question branching solve? The question branching feature helps data analytics and research professionals solve the following challenges: - **Lengthy surveys:** The overall survey length is reduced by skipping irrelevant questions. Respondents can spend time thinking and adding deeper insights instead of navigating and answering relevant questions. This eliminates the confusion and frustration of selecting the right questions, resulting in an increased completion rate.  - **Survey bias:** Most survey respondents answer questions in a way they believe is socially desirable. Branching allows asking sensitive questions pointing to their experience. The feature also helps reduce midpoint bias, where respondents might gravitate toward the middle options (Other, Neutral, or Somewhat Agree). Users can limit answer choices based on previous responses that include midpoints.  - **Lack of accessibility for diverse populations:** Surveys mostly have visual elements, such as pictures, charts, or complex layouts, that can be difficult for visually impaired users to understand. Lengthy surveys can also overwhelm users with disabilities, making it difficult to process information or navigate the interface. Branching can help reduce the survey length and skip questions that are challenging for specially-abled respondents. ### How users benefit from question branching Here are some excerpts from the reviewers of the question branching feature describing how it helps them: _“Great variety of question styles available. Pictures and descriptions allow for additional question info. You can create question sections to organize your survey, keeping in mind that if you remove the heading, the section will be removed.”_ _“We can use logics to branch our questions based on the response of the user, it is very helpful and saves time of the user filling the form also business owner in analyzing the survey.”_ _“I found the Question branching feature really useful and this how it works. If you wish to display or conceal follow-up questions based on the user's response, this option can be helpful. Other dropdown options can be listed and displayed or hidden dependent on the replies of your users. Cool right?”_ ### Top 3 products with the highest ratings for question branching _Analysis performed July 2024_ #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Question branching feature rating 4.81/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Question branching feature rating 4.63/5 #### Device Compatibilty #### Trial/Free Version - Free Trial - Free Version #### Question branching feature rating 4.57/5 #### Device Compatibilty * * * Looking for Survey software?Check out Capterra's list of the [best Survey software](https://www.capterra.com/survey-software/) solutions. ### Was this article helpful? * * * ## About the Authors [### Saumya Srivastava](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/ssrivastava/) Saumya Srivastava is a writer at Capterra. She provides insights to help small and midsize businesses identify the right software for their needs by analyzing over 550,000 Capterra user reviews and nearly 48,000 interactions between Capterra software advisors and buyers. Prior to working at Capterra, Saumya wrote content related to educational and advertising domains. [### Lindsay Page](https://www.capterra.com/resources/author/lindsay-page/) Lindsay Page has been an editor at Capterra for three years. She specializes in editing data-driven research and tech trends reports for small and midsize businesses. She has more than a decade of experience writing and editing for a variety of industries, with expertise in cybersecurity, corporate and securities regulation, and finance. She has been a writer, editor, senior editor, and associate director. ### RELATED READING - [Choosing Project Management Software? Start With This Requirements Checklist](https://www.capterra.com/resources/project-management-software-requirements-checklist/) - [CRM cloud vs. on-premise: Which is better for your business?](https://www.capterra.com/resources/crm-cloud-vs-on-premise-which-is-better-for-your-business/) - [Key Indicators That Your Help Desk Needs a Knowledge Base](https://www.capterra.com/resources/help-desk-knowledge-base/) - [Research Agenda](https://www.capterra.com/resources/research-agenda/) - [Simple Accounting Software: What 'Easy to Use' Really Means According to 1,700+ Reviews](https://www.capterra.com/resources/simple-accounting-software-what-easy-to-use-really-means-according-to-1700/) - [Stop Overpaying: How SMBs Can Cut Inventory Software Costs](https://www.capterra.com/resources/reduce-inventory-management-software-cost/) - [AI in CRM: 5 Steps To Stay Competitive](https://www.capterra.com/resources/ai-in-crm-5-steps-to-stay-competitive/) - [Personalizing Recruiting and Onboarding With the Right HR Tools](https://www.capterra.com/resources/how-hr-software-personalizes-recruiting-onboarding/) - [CRM Compliance: Data Privacy and Security Concerns of AI](https://www.capterra.com/resources/crm-compliance-data-privacy-and-security-concerns-of-ai/) **Key features**: To identify the key features of this article, we asked users to rate, on a scale of “low importance” to “critical,” how important different features are for survey software. The features showcased are those that the highest percentage of reviewers rated as “highly important” or “critical” over the past two years (as of July 2, 2024). **Feature eligibility**: To be included in the set of features considered, a given feature had to have at least 200 user ratings within the past two years (as of July 2, 2024), of which at least 20% must indicate the feature is “critical.” Eligible features were determined from two sources:  1. Our research team’s review of public information about survey software usage, definitions, and associated features. 2. Reviewers’ indication of the features they use for the survey. **Product selection**: To identify the top-rated products per feature, we evaluated user ratings for products that offer each feature. For a given product, reviewers rate each feature on a scale of one to five stars. A given product had to have at least 20 user ratings (between July 2022-24) for the feature in question to be considered.