Are your customer satisfaction surveys evolving? Or are you stuck scratching your head wondering why earning consumer feedback is so dang difficult?
Keep in mind, customer surveys are a product of the 1980s. Customer feedback was gathered using paper surveys, in-person interviews, and computer-assisted telephone interviewing (CATI).
Fast forward to 2021 and customer satisfaction surveys are largely conducted online. With the rise of online and email marketing, came new trends within market research.
In fact, market research methodologies are constantly evolving to find innovative ways to earn high response rates from qualified participants.
In this blog post, our customer satisfaction market research firm discusses what could be causing low-response rates and high market research costs for your customer surveys.
Customers Surveys Fail Because They’re Too Long
When writing a customer survey, it is easy to get caught up in wanting to obtain feedback on hundreds of topics.
Typically, a customer survey covers three main areas:
- Overall sentiment about a brand
- Overall sentiment about products and services
- Overall sentiment about customer service reps
However, where a customer survey goes wrong is when brands choose to ask 15 questions for each main topic. This is the perfect ingredient for receiving not enough survey responses.
At this rate, more customers will drop out halfway through the survey than those who complete it.
The human attention span is at its lowest ever. According to research, our average attention span is a mere 8.25 seconds long.
While we know that company surveys for customers will take longer than 8 seconds, it’s important to stick to shorter questionnaires to gather the most high-quality feedback possible.
What customer survey questions are an absolute must? Our team of senior market research professionals gives their opinions in the video below.
💡 The Key Takeaway: The shorter the survey, the better. Keep your customer survey limited to 10 to 15 questions. Respondents are more likely to complete a 5-minute survey than they are a 15-minute one.
Customers Surveys Fail When There is No Confidentiality
Storytime! I once got my haircut and colored at a well-rated salon.
I showed my hairdresser a picture of what I’d hope to accomplish during this session. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say I had to wear a hat for a while.
After my appointment, I received an email to complete a survey about my experience. I was brutally honest.
Working for a market research firm, I understand that constructive criticism is needed for organizations to improve and become more profitable.
Only moments after hitting submit on the survey, I received a phone call from the woman who worked on my hair. I was mortified. I assumed my responses would be kept confidential.
If I knew survey responses were not confidential, one of two scenarios would have happened:
- I wouldn’t have taken the survey
- I would have been less honest in my feedback
Herein lies the importance of working with a third party to execute customer surveys.
While there are many benefits of using a third-party market research firm, perhaps the most significant is to keep the respondent’s anonymity.
In many cases, customer surveys fail because it’s unclear if their identity will remain anonymous.
A customer satisfaction company like Drive Research assures your customers they can be truthful without fear of pushback.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Customers are weary to give their honest opinion of a brand, product, or service if there is little anonymity. A market research company acts as a trusted third party where customers know their responses will not be tied back to them.
George Kuhn, Owner and President of Drive Research
Customers Surveys Fail When Using the Wrong Channels
Think about it: if your customer surveys are not working, maybe you’re not reaching your audience where they prefer to be communicated to.
As I briefly discussed at the beginning of the blog post, online surveys are a popular approach to measuring customer satisfaction.
That's because online surveys are one of the most cost-effective market research methodologies and deliver fast, high-quality results.
While this is the case for most organizations, there is always an exception to every rule.
If you want to learn how to get good surveys from customers, consider the following questions.
Let’s think about your customer for a moment:
- Do they have access to a computer or internet-enabled cell phone?
- If they do, does your target audience have access to an email?
- Are they comfortable using a computer or cell phone to take a survey?
If you answered “no” to any of these questions, an online survey is not the best methodology.
Instead, mail surveys or phone surveys can offer a better return for your customer satisfaction study.
💡 The Key Takeaway: While online surveys are the largely preferred approach to collecting customer feedback, you must consider your target respondent. If they don’t have access to or aren’t comfortable with using online devices, then a mail survey or phone survey may be a better option.
Customers Surveys Fail When Questions Aren't Engaging
A significant amount of time and effort needs to be put into creating interesting questions the customer will answer.
If they’re given a lengthy list of basic questions, they’re likely to exit the survey before finishing it.
In fact, 70% of people said they have abandoned a survey before finishing it.
That’s why it’s essential to make an online survey more fun and engaging for respondents.
Below, we’ll list some of our favorite tips for creating good survey questions.
Scale up your website surveys for customers
If the survey contains multiple scaling questions, don’t just make them “1-10.” This may seem like a small detail, but it matters.
Change the maximum number, or even add in a star rating scale. The more you change up the types of questions, the less participant drop-off you’ll see.
Have fun with it
Show some personality in those questions! Participants will automatically feel more engaged and will likely stick around for the long haul if they see these.
Be professional, of course, but there’s no harm in showing off your relatability by adding in lighter phrases and terminology. When doing this, be sure to avoid any unintentional bias.
Cheer on participants
Going off of our last point, this makes your survey a bit more personalized.
There’s no harm in adding in an “almost there” or other similar phrases when the survey is close to ending.
This will not only give the participant motivation to finish the rest of the survey, but they’re likely to feel encouraged.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Customer surveys fail, at least in some cases, likely due to dry wording. Making questions fun and engaging is a surefire way to keep participants going until the end.
Recommended Reading: 6 Types of Engaging Market Research Survey Questions
Customers Surveys Fail When There Is No Incentive
More often than not, a company survey for customers is missing one key ingredient: incentives and rewards!
I often receive emails from brands asking me to take a survey to offer feedback for their products and services.
If an incentive is offered like a $50 Amazon gift card or a raffle to win a $250 Visa gift card, I’ll take the survey immediately. If the sponsor of the customer survey is not offering a reward for my feedback, I’ll save the email to take the survey later.
Full transparency: I rarely remember to take the survey.
What it really comes down to is that you should offer a reward for your market research.
Customer surveys fail because those taking them simply don’t have enough motivation.
Like it or not, people don’t often give you their time and feedback for free. Perhaps loyal customers will be more inclined to participate in a survey without an incentive, but this heavily skews results.
Recently, our market research firm surveyed our in-house panel to measure the type of incentive most preferred.
Read more about the results here: Market Research Incentives: New Survey Shows What Reward is Most Appealing to Respondents.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Offering customers an incentive to take a survey can lead to less time and money it takes to collect responses. A major reason customer surveys don't work is that no incentive is included.
Recommended Reading: Higher Incentives Can Equal Lower Market Research Costs
Need Help with Your Next Customer Survey? Contact Us.
Drive Research is a full-service market research company specializing in customer satisfaction surveys. Our team partners with brands from across the country to provide end-to-end project management. We offer services such as survey design, fieldwork, and analysis.
Drive Research also takes a consultative approach to our customer satisfaction survey projects. From recommending the best questions to providing expert recommendations for how to take action with your results, we will act as an extension of your team.
Interested in learning more about our services? Contact Drive Research below.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Emily Rodgers
A SUNY Cortland graduate, Emily has taken her passion for social and content marketing to Drive Research as the Marketing Manager. She has earned certificates for both Google Analytics and Google AdWords.
Learn more about Emily, here.
