Compliance with the GDPR - for some companies, this is a slogan that keeps you awake at night. The number of procedures and approvals related to the entry into force of the Regulation on the Protection of Personal Data and Data Security may be overwhelming, especially if, before the entry into force of the Regulation, the company was not very interested in the protection of the personal data, and did not take any steps to do so.

But the GDPR is not as terrible as it is thought! In Startquestion, we have always put the security of our clients' personal data at the top of our priority list (see for yourself) and we want to help you with that. That is why we have prepared a process thanks to which the management of consent expressed by the website users, clients, etc. will be really simple.

Step by step, we will explain to you how to prepare a consent questionnaire, send it to the relevant respondents and manage the collected consents so as to be sure which of the clients has consented to a specific type of action and data processing.

You can use the manual when preparing various types of approvals, including:

· the consent to marketing communication,

· the consent to subscribe to the newsletter,

· the consent to the processing of the data for the purpose of making a purchase (for example, in an online store),

· the consent to the processing of the data in order to provide services.

Let's go!

To begin with, you need to create a form in which you will put the content of the consents (or consent) and give the client the option to mark the selected variants. The consent to send marketing communications may look like this:

Creating a consent form is no different than how any other online survey is created. Due to the characteristics of this questionnaire, however, we will give you some tips which will further facilitate and accelerate the creation of the survey:

We would like to remind you that you can also use a ready-made research template prepared by our experts. You can find all the information on how to add questions to the survey, divide it into pages or take care of its aesthetic appearance in our Guide.

The purpose of the consent form is to make your work faster and easier. That is why we will tell you not only how to quickly create a GDPR-compliant questionnaire, but also how to send consents to customers in the most optimal way.

The simplest solution is to import contacts (e-mail addresses) from the internal company system, for example, CRM. All you have to do is download a document with the name and surname and e-mail address of the clients from the program and upload it to Startquestion. The contacts will be automatically saved and you will set up the entire sending process in just a few minutes.

Detailed instructions on how to import contacts can be found in the article in our guide, in the section: Send to the imported list.

Now that you have imported your contact list to your Startquestion account, it's time to send the GDPR form to your clients. It is very simple - all you have to do is to set up the sending once and create the content of the invitation to participate in the survey (using a ready-made template), and then, thanks to a few clicks, the sending will be automatic.

There are a couple of things you should pay attention to when sending:

1. creating the content of the invitation, which will be displayed in the e-mail containing the form

The form containing the consents to the processing of personal data imposed by the GDPR is a specific type of questionnaire. Therefore, remember to inform the respondent about the purpose of the survey in the content of the invitation or the introduction to the survey. Read on in a dedicated article to learn how to create the perfect survey invitation and how to choose the best sending settings.

​2. making sure that it is sent to selected (or all) contacts only

After importing the contact list from the file, you can decide that the GDPR form will be sent to all or only selected customers (for example, only those who are to receive the newsletter).

3. setting the sending of reminders to mark the GDPR consents

It is known that you want as many clients as possible to consent to the processing of personal data. Therefore, after sending the first invitation to the form, it is necessary to repeat the request, i.e. send a reminder, encouraging filling in the survey.

You can create the reminder content based on a ready-made template. Startquestion also allows you to automatically send reminders to contacts who have not completed the survey yet So you do not have to worry that you will send a message by mistake to those who have already opted for consent to the processing of personal data or that you will skip someone.

You can learn how to set a reminder for your form in our guide.

These are all the steps you need to take when submitting the form. However, there is another issue that may be of interest to you, making sure that the invitation e-mail is sent from the company's internal mail server.

This is not mandatory, but it may help to better understand your survey. Why? Because the client asked for consent to the data processing gives it for your products, services and brand. So it would be good if such a message was sent by you and not by an unknown sender

Fortunately, in Startquestion sending an invitation from your own e-mail address is simple - just follow the instructions in the article.

Startquestion allows you to export the results of collective, single fillings, as well as filtered results in the selected way. You can use the possibility of exporting the results, you can save the data collected in the form with the consent of the GDPR on the hard drive of your computer. From there, you can upload them directly to the company's internal system, for example, CRM system and thus collect all of the consents for the processing of personal data in one place. Thanks to this solution:

· in the internal system, you will see not only whether the client has given the consent required by the GDPR, but also what kind of consent it was,

· you will be able to address the re-dispatch of the consent request only to those customers who have not given it yet,

· you will be sure that all of the company's activities are conducted in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR and you will have proof of it.

Startquestion enables the export of results to various formats: XLSX or CSV and SPSS (for collective results), or XLSX, CSV and PDF. That is why you can select the type of export to the system requirements of your CRM or other needs or hardware requirements of the company. In a separate article in our tutorial, you can read about how to export the results to the selected format.

If you are not sure how to create a consent form in a way that guarantees compliance with the GDPR, please contact us and chat, e-mail or telephone. We also encourage you to set up a free account on Startquestion.com, where you can try out the functions of our platform for 14 days, including creating a form with GDPR approvals based on ready-made templates.