Getting feedback from your customers can be valuable for many reasons. Not only does it let you know what’s working and what’s not working when it comes to your processes, but it also shows your clients that you value their opinions and want to improve their experience.
While some clients may hold nothing back on sites like Yelp or Google reviews, others may be uncomfortable sharing their candid opinions somewhere considered public. A private survey allows those who may be more circumspect on social media to tell you how they feel, providing valuable insight into your company’s efficacy.
Asking customers for their opinions can lead to increased customer loyalty, which is a valuable commodity. Consumer loyalty studies show that acquiring a new client costs five times as much as keeping an existing one.
How satisfied are your regulars? Are you certain? When you send out a client loyalty survey, you’ll find out. Get the answers you need to keep your consumers where they belong by asking difficult questions regarding customer happiness and loyalty as part of your marketing efforts.
Additionally, surveys can alert you to costly customer service issues. The typical American will tell 16 people about a bad service encounter, and it takes 12 good encounters for a brand to recover from a single complaint.
Customer satisfaction (or CSAT) surveys are one of the most efficient methods for your company to maintain a pulse on how consumers feel in this era of more competitive markets.
What tools can you use?
There are quite a few different survey generators on the internet, from Jotform to Survey Planet. While the goal of many tools will be to get you to spring for paid versions, there are some survey tools you may use for free. Google Forms is among the most prominent free options, with many options, while paid options include SurveyMonkey.
Whether you need a paid or free survey tool comes down to what kinds of features you require and the complexity of your survey.
SurveyMonkey offers free surveys as well as three paid plans. For all of their paid plans, the business offers a large variety of features, including:
- Survey sharing with control over who can view and edit
- Gather comments all in one place
- Let team members analyze, filter, and export results
- Shared asset library for on-brand surveys
- 50,000 responses per year
- Quizzes with custom feedback
- Custom logo, colors, and survey URL
How many questions should you ask?
Too many questions will make your customer less likely to complete your survey. A slowly running page will also put off those with less patience. Generally, it’s best to ask no more than ten questions.
What questions can you ask?
Try to balance open-ended and closed-ended (yes or no, etc.) questions. Open-ended questions allow the customer to share more about their experience with a business, while closed-ended questions are practical for gathering helpful data.
Consider making your survey anonymous. It allows your customer to feel comfortable sharing their honest feedback and builds trust with them. You can add a response space for their contact information if they want to be contacted about their feedback. But letting them stay anonymous will ensure your customers give their honest opinions.
Common mistakes to avoid
Avoid incentivizing too much – You can talk about why it can be tempting to try and incentivize a customer to fill in a survey and that it’s only sometimes helpful for getting honest feedback. When customers feel they will receive something after filling in the survey, they’re inclined to write what they think the business wants to hear.
Let your customer elaborate – Talk about the benefits of providing a space to elaborate more on their feedback. Free-form text boxes allow them to talk about what they would like to see more of, what could be improved, or just to share their appreciation!
Always check your work – Send out a test before you send to your audience
Have a coworker review your work if you are worried about avoiding errors. More eyeballs are always better, especially if you’ve been agonizing over your work. Once the customer survey is done, an invitation email may be issued to invite additional individuals to participate.
Create an appealing subject line.
Make it clear in the subject line of your email that you’re seeking replies to a survey. Avoid using passive voice in the subject line, and use active language.
Write a compelling invitation.
You may include a link to the survey in the body of your email to promote participation.
Give a warm greeting.
A survey should show thanks to the responder individually for their service. Establishing a good tone in the opening paragraph of an email is crucial, so consider beginning with some friendly remarks.
Who and what is the survey for?
Identify the target audience and explain why they are getting this survey. Just as the sample did, explain the relevance of this survey and its findings.
Commitment time
How much time should your clients allocate for this survey? This is critical background information. Customers are busy; consequently, omitting to define the time commitment will result in missed opportunities. For optimum results, strive for a survey that can be done in three to five minutes.
A brief close
Conclude your email by thanking the customer and including your signature.
Create a call to action
A clear call to action is necessary. Try to make it as painless as possible for everyone concerned.
Segment your list
Who should you email the survey to? It might be beneficial to disseminate the survey to all your email contacts. However, send it to a subset of your lists, such as consumers who just made a purchase or those in a specified geographic location. Your replies will be more valuable if you organize your list into groups.
Review and send
Check your inbox. Verify the accessibility of all links and read your information carefully for any errors. After you’ve completed editing, choose a delivery date and time so that your intended recipients will get it at the proper moment. Consider sending a follow-up email to those who haven’t completed the customer survey after a few days.
Collect and review replies
Count up your votes. The next stage is to aggregate all of this information for analysis and utilize it to influence future business choices.
Avoid Leading Questions
You will receive skewed survey results if you pose questions in a manner that either deliberately or subconsciously biases the customer’s accountability. Some individuals, when asked, “How delighted are you with this product?” may respond with an overly enthusiastic “very pleased” because of the word “happy.” You won’t acquire open and honest feedback from your consumers if you ask inquiries like these. If the question was rephrased as “Are you content or unsatisfied with this product?” the customer may then use a numerical scale to reflect their degree of satisfaction.
Make it Mobile-Friendly
Create mobile-ready surveys compatible with any smartphone, tablet, or browser to reach more consumers in today’s mobile-enabled world. With mobile devices, you may capture customer feedback while the incident is still fresh in their thoughts. Data acquired in real-time is 40% more accurate and trustworthy than data obtained only 24 hours later. It is projected that the share of mobile transactions will rise. Enhancing the user experience by making the survey responsive on mobile devices may improve the number of individuals who fill it out.
