Almost every business that uses Microsoft 365 has Microsoft Forms included as part of their subscription - but we find very few of our customers use it - or even know about it!
If you’ve ever sent out a customer satisfaction survey using a Word document by email that then had to be collated by hand as emails came back in, Forms is going to be a welcome time-saver.
Microsoft Forms is one of the most basic yet useful and powerful apps in the Microsoft Office suite. It allows anyone to create great-looking forms, surveys, and quizzes in just minutes, with no special design or coding knowledge needed.
The manual process of having to collate surveys or quizzes sent back on a Word document or PDF is eliminated. These surveys can be filled out online from any device, and answers are automatically collated for you as they come in.
There are multiple uses for Forms that can improve your business success by enabling you to capture all types of important data more easily. So, let’s see if we can share some common business requirements that Microsoft Forms can quickly and effectively solve for you.
How Does Microsoft Forms Work?
Once you begin using Microsoft Forms, you’ll be surprised just how quick and easy it is to create custom quizzes and surveys. You can create them in just minutes, send them out, and begin getting responses back immediately.
You access forms at forms.microsoft.com. Just sign in with your Microsoft account and you’re ready to go.
Begin a form, survey, or quiz from one of the many templates.
Or you can begin one from a blank form.
You can choose questions from a variety of formats:
- Multiple choice
- Text
- Rating
- Date
- Ranking
- Likert scale
- Net Promoter Score®
You can create different sections of questions, which is helpful if you want to divide a survey into multiple pages.
The survey saves automatically as you add your questions, and questions can easily be edited. You can also add images and videos when adding a new section or a question sub-header if you want to add more explainer text.
Customisation
Forms is designed to be simple for anyone to use, so you won’t find tons of different customisations. However, you can control the background theme of your survey.
You can choose from a preset image or graphic in Forms or upload your image to use as the background for your survey.
Sending Your Form
You have several options for quickly sending your form out to your target group.
When you click “Send,” you can choose from:
- Get a link that you can text, email, or message
- Get a QR code for the form
- Copy an embed code that allows you to embed your form in a webpage
- Email your form out from inside Forms
- Send your form out over Twitter or Facebook
Time-Saving Response Gathering
The biggest time-saver with Forms is when it comes to collating your data. Instead of having to open multiple documents that respondents have emailed back to you, Forms does all the collating for you in real-time.
When you view the responses area of Forms, you’ll find all your responses, how long the survey or quiz is taking to fill out, and a link to export your data to Excel.
How to Use Forms in Your Business
Here are some of the business requirements that Forms can help you accomplish.
#1 Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey
Most organisations will send out a customer satisfaction survey each year to aid with customer retention. An annual survey lets a company know how they’re doing and what they may need to do to improve. It can also give insights into potential new revenue channels to explore.
Increasing customer retention by just 5% can double a company’s profits.
You can increase your chance of getting those surveys back by sending them through Forms. Your customers can fill them out on a computer or mobile device; no having to email back a file attachment.
#2 Workplace Safety Quiz
Keeping employees properly trained in workplace safety is a vital task for every business. You can go through all the details during the on-boarding process, but how do you know the information is being retained?
Use Forms to send out a workplace safety quiz to your employees. This will allow you to see if training is hitting the mark or needs to be enhanced.
#3 Remote Team Sentiment Survey
Many businesses are getting used to working with remote teams. The work-from-home phenomenon isn’t going away after the pandemic ends.
Does your team have the support needed to be productive while working remotely? Is there something else that would help employees feel more connected to your company instead of isolated? Use a Forms survey to gauge remote team sentiment to improve your telecommuting program and increase its success.
#4 Holiday Leave Applications
This is one of the most popular forms to create in Forms as it's a great way to get everyone in the business comfortable using Forms. Awareness then quickly leads to fresh ideas for additional forms, surveys, and quizzes.
Get More Value from your Microsoft 365 Subscription
NetCare can help your Sydney area business explore all the business use cases within Microsoft 365. There are multiple tools inside that platform to save you time and money.
Contact us today to learn more. Call (02) 9114 9920 or .