Gaining insights through surveys
Customer understanding involves learning more about your current customers and why they
buy from you. It can also help you understand any challenges you face with those customers to improve satisfaction and customer retention rate. The information you gather can also help you succeed in future marketing campaigns.
One easy way to gather this information is through feedback surveys. Customers can be
surveyed after a transaction with you, or they can also be selected at random inside your target market, for more general insights. Often, both methods are used for a more complete picture.
In his article “Tips For Gaining Customer Feedback Via Surveys”, Ray Weiss provides some
good insights:
1. First and foremost, keep it short.
Many customers are more than willing to spend a minute or two reviewing a recent product they purchased, particularly for a brand that they respect and enjoy, but the very moment it feels like a project or that the company is asking them to do work, they’re completely out.
Remember that the entire purpose of a survey is to capture insights that can improve your
offering and add value for customers. If the survey is long enough to discourage participation,
you’re left with the exact opposite outcome. You do not get completed surveys, which reduces the value of the data you are collecting. You also subject the customer to a frustrating process, thus undermining the perception of customer centricity. Those happy to participate may walk away disappointed or even upset. Disgruntled customers who were using the survey to voice their complaints now have more reason to distrust your brand.
2. Too much data doesn’t necessarily always do you favors.
In many cases, a twenty five question survey with 1-10 scaling options will not give you much
more relevant, let alone actionable, information than you could obtain by conducting a more
concise, pointed inquiry. If you want more data, ask permission to contact the respondent.
3. Offer incentives to customers for completing the survey.
To engage more customers into filling out a survey all the way to the end, offer incentives that
actually mean something. Many surveys will say something like, “Fill out our survey to be
entered into our monthly drawing where you could win up to $100!” Never, ever to this.
Rather, offer your customers a real, tangible reward for survey completion. If you told me I could gain just a mere $2 for completing the survey, I’d do it every...single...time. The conversion rate for getting customers to complete a survey with this sort of method will skyrocket your returns. Let’s do some quick math here. $100 divided by $2 equals 50 completed surveys!
Finally, remember to place your incentive language in BIG, BOLD letters in your email blast, app or at the very top of the survey.
Putting it all together.
Provide real, tangible incentives at the very beginning of your surveys. Make these offers as
easy to recognize and understand as humanly possible. Next, make sure the actual survey you
do provide to your customers is simple and short. Something with three to seven questions,
each consisting of a 1-5 bubble or check box option to fill in. Then provide a comment section
where customers can expand upon their answers and input additional information.
Keeping on top of market trends and responding to them appropriately requires diligence and
expert support! Let Primavera help you maximize your efforts!