Consider these 7 things to get a good response rate to your survey

Two things are of interest to all companies that carry out satisfaction surveys: how to get the highest possible response rate and, at the same time, as much verbal feedback as possible.

Response rate is an important goal, but at the same time it is important to remember that customer satisfaction surveys are part of the customer experience. Sometimes these two objectives are in conflict. If you design a survey correctly, you can increase both response rates and customer experience at the same time.

Why improve the response rate?

The purpose of the customer satisfaction survey is to find out how satisfied customers are. If only one in 10 customers respond, you only get a partial picture of satisfaction. It may be that one group of customers is over-represented in the results and another group of customers does not respond at all.

Realistic target liability rates vary depending on the industry and the content of the survey. In general, a response rate of 30% is easily achievable. If you can triple the response rate from 10 to 30, you triple the amount of information available. You will be able to make better decisions and the customer data on which those decisions are based will be more representative of your true customer base.

“The response rate is influenced by many factors: industry, customer engagement, the content of the survey, how it is conducted and whether customers feel the need to answer it.”

Based on our experience, we have found that these seven issues in particular have a big impact on response rates. Focus on these and increase the response rate of your surveys:

1. Choose the right time
The right moment also depends on your industry, but it’s usually best to send the survey soon after the customer has been in contact with your company. You’ll get more responses if you send the survey the same day, rather than a week later. If you delay sending one, follow the effect of the time of day and day of week. 

2. Ensure the delivery of your queries
Email addresses and phone numbers change. Please make sure they are up to date or use an external service. Monitor how well your survey invitations are received. If more than 5% are missed, it is important to correct this quickly.

3. Use the right channel for your customer
SMS and email are the most common survey channels. If you’re not sure which method works better for your customers, test it out with a test survey. Send a survey to a small group by email and to another by SMS.

4. Invest in the attractiveness of the survey invitation
Pay attention to the title and the content of the message. The message should be quick to read and give the reader a sense of why it is worth their time to respond.
Personalise the invitation by using the customer’s name, and say that you would like to hear from them about “xx store or xx event”. This will make the response feel more personal. 

5. Don’t ask too many questions at once
Condense your thirst for information and make the questionnaire concise. More people to complete a shorter questionnaire. You can control the length of the questionnaire by using question skipping, so that questions that are unnecessary for the respondent are hidden. Also tell the customer the length of the questionnaire in advance.

6. Provide an excellent response experience
An easy and visually appealing survey will attract higher quality responses and more open feedback. Make sure that surveys are straightforward and easy to complete on all devices. If your response experience is top-notch, you can squeeze in a few extra questions without a problem.

7. Test, test and test again
It is impossible to say for sure what will work best for your business. So before the final version of the survey, A/B test the different steps with a smaller group of recipients and choose the one that works best.

In particular, monitor these issues during the process:
– Which sending time results in the most open enquiry invitations?
– Which headline generates the most open enquiries?
– How many of those who open the survey will move on to the actual survey?
– How many people leave the survey unfinished?

-Sami

Want to hear more?