Coming Soon: New and Improved Backer Survey

To ensure a smooth production and post-campaign fulfillment process, creators need to promptly, accurately, and comprehensively gather detailed information from backers. The information collected in these surveys helps creators address crucial questions about manufacturing costs, shipping charges, and selecting the best fulfillment partners so they can make the most strategic decisions for their successful campaign.

As we seek to continue advancing the journey of bringing an idea to life beyond funding, we wanted to examine every touchpoint for both our creators and backers. We've heard from creators that they need better data collection tools to support their production and fulfillment processes. 

That's why today, we are previewing a suite of new features and tools shaping a New Vision for Kickstarter including an upgrade to our Backer Survey functionality. 

In this blog, we are giving our community a sneak peek at what’s to come by the end of June to help you plan your next campaign accordingly.

A First Look at Backer Surveys

During candid conversations with creators and our Community Advisory Council, the one common theme that emerged was that our surveys need improvement. The current survey tool is not streamlined enough to meet the evolving needs of our creator community in 2024. Currently, our survey tool is repetitive to use, as creators need to create a survey for each reward instead of configuring one survey for all backers. This should not be burdensome, as it is one of the most important aspects of your crowdfunding campaign and thus … it’s time for an upgrade. 

We want to make it easier for creators to use our surveys and more effective at helping them translate backer responses into actionable data for their production and fulfillment decisions. So, we're excited to announce a few upcoming enhancements to our survey tool. 

Backer Surveys, formerly known as Rewards Surveys, is one of the upcoming upgrades coming to the Kickstarter community. It incorporates several notable enhancements from our previous survey iterations and these improvements are designed to simplify and streamline the backer survey process, facilitating creators' efficient gathering of the necessary information to fulfill rewards.

4 New Features of Backer Surveys

Simplified Setup

You can forget about dealing with multiple surveys and say hello to a single easy process. One of the most requested improvements about the new Backer Survey is that it makes setting up surveys a breeze. Creators can set up their survey questions just once for all backers, so there's no need to create separate surveys for different rewards. This smart feature saves creators time and effort by making data collection more efficient, allowing you to enter production with fewer headaches.

Comprehensive Reporting

The new tool enables creators to build thorough item surveys that cover all items, including add-ons. This means that relevant questions will be displayed based on backers' pledge quantities and add-ons, streamlining the survey process for both parties. Backers will only see questions that are pertinent to their specific pledges.

SKU Generation & Management

Managing item variants, or SKUs (Stock Keeping Units), can be a challenging task for creators, especially those working on complex projects.  The new Backer Survey makes this process easier by generating SKUs based on item variants that can be effortlessly managed by creators. This not only saves time and resources but also improves coordination with manufacturers. With accurate SKU counts, creators can ensure smoother production and fulfillment processes.

Improved Address Collection

Creators will have the ability to collect backer shipping addresses via the Backer Survey. All backer addresses will be editable until creators decide to lock their backers addresses for fulfillment, which they can do for all backers with the click of a button.

What’s Next?

This new and improved Backer Survey is just step one in a suite of post-campaign tooling enhancements on our roadmap for this year. While the current offering focuses on data collection, our team is already deep at work on additional features that will be rolled out in the coming months. 

We are currently testing this enhanced Backer Surveys experience with a diverse group of Creators of all sizes and from various regions and categories to address the different aspects involved in bringing your idea to life. 

As we work to enhance the feature until it’s ready for widespread use, we want to keep our community in the loop so you can make the most informed decision for any upcoming campaigns or ideas you’ve been noodling on.

FAQ

What is the Backer Survey?

The Backer Survey represents a series of upgrades to Kickstarter's existing survey functionality, prioritizing features highly requested by Creators. It improves data collection for fulfillment and production-related information from Backers, addressing their need for structured, item-level data.

What happens to data I’ve collected using the current Reward Surveys system?

If creators have collected survey responses via Reward Surveys, they will retain access to that data in the Backer Report and backers will retain access to their responses. There will be no changes to your access of survey data you’ve collected via Reward Surveys.

I have already used reward surveys for my campaign. Will I be able to also use the new backer survey?

Unfortunately, creators cannot use the new backer survey if they have already used the reward survey for a project. If you'd like to use the new Backer Survey, we encourage you to wait to send your surveys until the new tool is live in late June.

I am planning to launch a campaign for the new Heartstrings & Hardbacks Open Call in July. Will this feature be available by then?

Yes, this upgrade will be available for all Creators in late June. 

How does the Backer Survey improve upon the existing survey functionality?

The Backer Survey maintains current functionalities such as collecting backer addresses and asking custom questions, while expanding capabilities to include collecting structured data and SKU quantities essential for manufacturing and fulfillment needs. It also allows Creators to set up surveys once for all Backers and collect responses about all backed items, including add-ons.

What benefits does the Backer Survey offer for Creators?

Creators can now streamline survey creation, manage SKUs more dynamically, and utilize structured data easily for a frictionless experience from pledge to delivery. They can generate SKUs, manage them via a SKU-based production report, collect backer addresses, manage addresses via the backer report, and retain the ability to ask project-level open-ended questions.

What benefits does the Backer Survey offer for Backers?

Backers can provide their addresses and any answers to questions via an upgraded experience on web and mobile. Backers can update their addresses seamlessly until a creator locks addresses.  within a designated post-campaign time period. 

Does the new survey functionality include the ability for my backers to add items to their pledge post-campaign?

Not yet - these upgrades to the Backer Survey are focused on data collection. We are continuing to build new post-campaign functionality to address additional creator needs, stay tuned for more.