How To Get Your Customers To Take Customer Feedback Surveys (Every Time)

Getting customer feedback surveys is key to growing your business. It can make the difference between delivering mediocre and excellent customer service for current and future clients. However, unless you know exactly what your customers think of your service, you can never really know what or where you can improve to make the experience even better. You’re guessing at best. Customer feedback surveys provide actionable advice straight from the horse’s mouth. Their input is just as important as yours to them. So, with this in mind, here are five ways to get your customers to take customer feedback surveys.

1. Ask Your Customers

This sounds pretty elementary. But here’s the deal: In a world full of automation and chatbots, giving your customers the personal touch goes a long way. It makes them feel valued.  No matter if it’s you as the business owner or your employees, take some and write up some practice emails.  The wording has to be right. It must sound like it’s coming from a person, not a robot. Use personal pronouns like “I” and “you” rather than talking on-behalf of your company. Here are two examples: “We would be grateful for your feedback if you would fill in a quick survey”, and, “I would really appreciate your time if you could fill in a quick survey”. Which one sounds like it’s coming from a person? The second one, right.

And that’s the key. Never lose sight of the human element of your request.

2. Request Feedback At The Right Time

When it comes to customer feedback surveys, timing is everything. You need to still be fresh in their minds when you send the survey – after all, they still need to remember the details. If you do your surveys over the phone, keep hold of them as soon as you’ve concluded your communication. It’s much more likely that they’ll respond to your questions then than if you call up a few hours later when they might be busy. Avoid voicemail too, especially if you’re using a robocall.  How often have you ignored an unknown caller and let the message go straight to voicemail? Your customers are probably doing the same thing. If your business sends email customer feedback surveys, get them out within 15 minutes of the latest service communication. Again, being fresh in the mind is important. The quicker they receive the email, the more likely they’ll respond.

3. Be Up Front With Customers on Survey Completion Time

Bear clear and concise when you explain how long your customer feedback survey will take. That way, they can set that exact portion of their day to complete it. If you checked your email inbox for surveys, it’s likely that they will vary in time commitments; some may take 30 seconds while others may take as long as 20 minutes.  At the end of the day, customers need to know if there’s enough value in completing that survey compared to how long it will take. Here’s an example. “Hi [customer name], thanks for reaching out. Just drop me a line if you need anything – and your feedback helps me make the experience better. Please would you take just 30 seconds to complete the two-question customer feedback survey below? I really appreciate your thoughts.” As you can see, the expectations are clear; the survey takes just 30 seconds and in that short space of time, you can improve their experience in the future. Plus, it only takes two questions. In terms of time cost to value, that’s a massive ROI to your customer.

4. Adjust The Feedback Survey Frequency

Do not spam your customers with invites to customer feedback surveys after every interaction. Use your intuition and customer data to build out a strategy. Here’s an example. Let’s say that you had three conversations over the phone with your customer within the last week, all of which were focused on the same problem. Sending a survey after each of those conversations would leave a negative impression on that customer. They would seem exactly how they are – automated and without thought. So, instead of sending the customer feedback survey out after each conversation, if you’re running an automation tool, make sure that the survey is only sent out once the problem has been solved. That way, you know that your customer has had their needs met, which is the ideal time for sending the survey.

5. Show Customers That You Act On Their Feedback

This is a big deal. It’s all well and good that you actually request the feedback. Acting on it is an entirely different matter. Let your customers know when you’ve made changes to your processes. Let them know that after multiple requests, you now have launched a new communication channel or that you’ve improved the customer dashboard.  This lets them know that their feedback actually matters. When they can see for themselves that you’ve acted on their feedback, they will be more likely to come forth with future feedback and share their experience with others. Many businesses use incentives like coupons and discount codes to generate feedback. Responses to this form of feedback can skew the results.  How do you know that the customer genuinely believes in what they say? Can you be sure that they aren’t just doing it for the reward? People love free stuff. They may not even remember what they put down in the survey. All they’ve done is jump at the chance for a gift card.

Bonus Tip: Use The SurveyStance Customer Feedback Survey Kiosk

The five tips above will help you get more customers to take customer feedback surveys. But there’s an even better way. The SurveyStance Feedback Kiosk is a tried and tested method for getting your customers to take customer feedback surveys. Whether it’s via the simple press of an emoji, or a one-click email signature, there’s no better method out there.

Click here for more information

Check out our Emoji Survey page to get more information.  SurveyStance offers 2 other ways to make it easy to collect feedback.  Emoji based Survey Kiosk & SMS Feedback where customers can text message a dedicated number to provide feedback anytime.