How do you stand out in the sea of marketing messages that your customers receive?
Even more challenging is to get your customers to respond to messages such as satisfaction surveys. Customer feedback is critical to not only ensure brand loyalty, but also enhance product or service performance. Read on to learn six proven best practices for increasing your satisfaction survey completion rates with your customers.
1. Personalize the Invitation to Garner Feedback
To get high satisfaction survey completion rates, it's crucial to begin with an engaging call to action that encourages customers to participate. A survey conducted by The Harris Poll for RedPoint Global revealed that 63% of consumers now expect personalization in their interactions. Whether you're reaching out through email, social media, or other communication channels, it's essential to follow these best practices when inviting customers to provide feedback:
- Address the customer by name
- Reference their interaction or the product/service they use
- Provide context as to why they are being surveyed and how the results will be used to ultimately improve their experience
- Customize the email subject line and email address the email is sent from
- Consider embedding the first question in the body of the invitation email
- Follow up within 10 days with a reminder message to those who have not responded
2. Utilize Your Customers’ Preferred Channel of Communication
If your customers don’t receive your satisfaction survey, they cannot respond to your survey. Savvy marketers recognize the importance of sending the right message at the right time using the right channel. Different satisfaction surveys call for different modes of distribution. IVR and SMS are beneficial when you are trying to obtain immediate feedback from customers, such as after an install/repair appointment to confirm services are working properly. Emails are advantageous when there is a need to provide supplementary content or messaging to provide context.
Customer demographics also play a role in the success of a particular communication channel. For example, elderly customers may be more inclined to respond to phone calls whereas younger customers may prefer to interact via SMS. Regardless of channel, all communications should reflect the company’s brand, provide a consistent user experience between desktop and mobile devices, and limit contacts to appropriate hours based on the customer’s time zone.
3. Keep It Relevant, Keep It Simple, and Keep It Short
Survey design is key to better completion rates. The key to crafting effective satisfaction surveys is to align them with the survey's goal and avoid unnecessary questions. Survey questions should be actionable and relevant. When creating your next satisfaction survey, follow these dos and don’ts:
- Do be mindful of the time it takes your customers to complete the satisfaction survey
- Do aim for satisfaction surveys under 10 questions and take less than 5 minutes to complete
- Do use simple language and utilize one or two response scales for all questions
- Do set expectations about how long the satisfaction survey will take upfront to minimize survey abandonment
- Don’t ask questions that you already have (or should have) the answers to
- Don’t use double-barrel questions and multiple complex question types (e.g., open-ended, ranking, etc.) that take respondents longer to complete
Incorporating these tips into the design of your satisfaction survey will improve completion rates and hopefully help you achieve an average response rate of 33% (or better).
4. Don’t Be a Pest by Over Contacting Customers
Today’s solutions make it easy for different stakeholder groups to survey and market to customers. The challenge companies face is ensuring customers are not lambasted with messages to the point that they get fed up and request to be placed on your “Do Not Contact” list. We need to gain a holistic view of the different ways a customer is being contacted and ensure the timing is reasonable and the messaging is relevant. Customer lists should be reviewed regularly to focus on active customers that have had a recent, tangible interaction (e.g., service activation/upgrade, purchase, support interaction, etc.). Employing these strategies will ensure responses that accurately reflect the experience of customers.
The timeline for contacting customers varies by the type of satisfaction survey.
- For transactional feedback: Send the satisfaction survey immediately after the interaction, when response rates are higher and more accurate
- For feedback about the product/service: Send the satisfaction survey 7-14 days after the customer begins to utilize the product/service
- For relationship surveys: Employ a different cadence of 30, 60, or 90 days for new customers and every 6 or 12 months for existing customers
Regardless of the type of survey, it is recommended that companies limit customer satisfaction survey contacts to once every 15-30 days and only 2-3 times per year to combat survey fatigue.
5. Close the Loop with Respondents
To keep getting feedback from customers, it's important to follow up and acknowledge their input. Successful companies establish a process to combat customer churn by following up with dissatisfied customers. Personal contact by a manager apologizing for not meeting the customer’s expectations and letting them know that their concerns are taken seriously goes a long way – as long as it’s not just lip service.
6. Find Ways to Incentivize Customers for Taking Time to Provide Feedback
The use of incentives to capture customer feedback is a contested practice. Naysayers feel that incentives lead to customers taking the satisfaction survey for the sole purpose of earning the incentive. However, those in favor say it results in more feedback, generating valuable and actionable data for businesses. Incentives can range from an improved customer experience to a more tangible incentive in the form of a prize or discount. Keep in mind it's often more effective to give a small reward to all respondents than offering a chance to win a big prize.
Take Action
Crafting an effective satisfaction survey and optimizing response rates is challenging work. SkyCreek’s Enterprise Communication Platform (ECP) can help. We provide solutions that give companies the power to optimize customer communications and interactions. Our content designer, omni-channel campaign management, and analytics tools are utilized by leading companies to improve their customer experience. Contact SkyCreek today to start putting your survey data to work.
