Features
Surveys are an essential method for gathering real, actionable data about your customers’ needs, preferences, and satisfaction levels. There is no better way to understand how your customers really feel about every aspect of your business. And yet, many businesses get surveys wrong. Many don’t even bother to do them at all. If you want to get the most out of surveys and make sure that you’re collecting valuable information that will help guide your decisions in the future, follow these tips:
You can’t just ask your customers to take a survey whenever you want them to. Getting the timing right is important for getting quality responses from your customers. On the one hand, if you send out a survey at an off time, people may not be interested in answering it and might ignore it altogether. On the other hand, if you send out a survey at too regular intervals (like every week), people will get frustrated with receiving too many surveys and may start skipping past them without even reading them.
So how can we get our timing right?
The first step in creating an effective survey is to determine what kind of survey you want to use. The choice will depend on a variety of factors, including the purpose of the survey, who it is for and how you plan to distribute it.
Here are some things to think about when choosing a survey type:
Yes/no questions are a great way to get your customers talking. They’re quick and easy, so they save you time. Plus, they can help you get to the point and ask the right questions so that you can get to the heart of the matter without having to waste time asking unnecessary questions or getting into details that don’t really matter as much (e.g., how often do they use your product?).
Asking the right questions is key to creating great surveys. Here are a few tips for writing them:
Ask questions that are easy to answer.
Ask questions that are relevant to the customer—and your business goals and challenges.
Ask relevant follow-up questions if necessary (but don’t overwhelm respondents with too many).
How satisfied are your customers with your product or service?
What are their needs, frustrations and pain points?
What are their goals and objectives?
What are the demographics of this group of customers (age, gender, location and so on)?
What is the preferred medium that they use to access information about products and services in general (social media, email newsletters etc.)? For example if they are using social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter then consider using surveys hosted on those channels. If they prefer using email newsletters then you can instead send out an email asking them to fill out a brief survey form. You could also offer incentives such as discounts or freebies for taking part in the survey which would encourage more people to complete it.
What are the most important issues for you?
How do you rate our service?
What could we do to improve our service?
How likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague?
What did you think about our contact center service?
How would you rate the speed of our services? (1 is terribly slow, 5 is very quick) *
How do you feel about the value we have provided (1 is not good enough, 5 is excellent)
When you’re drafting the survey, remember that there are several ways to make it more personal. First of all, you can include a personal message at the beginning of your survey. The message should be written in such a way that it doesn’t feel forced but rather like the person you are sending the survey is talking directly with them.
This can be done by adding a message such as “Hi! I’m so glad you took time out of your busy schedule to help me out with this survey.” Or something similar would work perfectly fine as well!
Another way to add a human touch is by asking for written feedback or suggestions at the end of your survey. This can help improve your product and services further while also creating brand loyalty among customers who love being asked their opinion on things they care about! You may also want to ask them if there was anything else that could have made their experience better so we can continue improving ourselves as an online business as well!
Incentives are a great way to encourage participation. They can be monetary or non-monetary, and you can use them in combination with each other. Here are some examples of non-monetary incentives:
Exclusive early access to new products or features
Coupon codes for discounts on future purchases
Discounts on shipping costs for your next order
Here are some examples of monetary incentives:
Surveys are a great way to learn more about your customers and how they perceive you. They can help you understand what’s working well for them, where their needs aren’t being met, and how to improve your products or service in the future. When done right, surveys are also an excellent opportunity to connect with people on social media: share interesting results from your survey (make sure they’re anonymous unless you have explicit permission) and encourage others to have their say using hashtags like #surveyresults or #learnfromme
