Today, it’s well understood that customers expect organizations to ask for their feedback. However, many organizations fall short in their survey strategies, particularly in their strategy for soliciting and addressing feedback. This trend is especially apparent in Shep Hyken’s recent article, “One in Five Customers Stop Doing Business with You Because of Your Survey,” published in Forbes.
In the article, the CX author and speaker presented a series of intriguing—and potentially alarming—findings from his annual customer experience research survey.
The key takeaway was clear: customers are increasingly frustrated with how many brands ask for feedback.
Many customers stop providing feedback because of poor timing, question overload, and brands’ failure to act on their input. In some cases, customers even leave brands because of their ineffective survey usage.
The great news? Surveys don’t have to be this way! In this post, we explore four key ways to improve your survey strategy and build stronger relationships with customers.
#1: Keep your surveys short and sweet
Most customers are fed up with the endless scrolling and countless “Next Page” clicks in long surveys. In Hyken’s research, they found that nearly 70% of customers refuse to complete longer surveys anymore. Long surveys lead to frustration and survey fatigue among respondents, resulting in incomplete responses or survey abandonment.
Fortunately, with the right survey tools and strategy, it’s possible to create concise surveys without sacrificing the quality of feedback. Here’s how:
- Prioritize the right questions: Focus on asking questions that provide actionable insights. Use survey logic to skip redundant or non-essential questions as the respondent moves through the survey experience.
- Target the right customers: Utilize advanced survey targeting tools to reach specific customer segments or demographics. Panel providers also assist in identifying and targeting the right audience. Whether you’re seeking feedback from a particular demographic or from previous respondents, they can assist in reaching the appropriate individuals.
- Let customers opt into longer surveys: Offer respondents the choice to opt into more detailed surveys. Clearly explain the purpose and time commitment for longer surveys. This way, you can gather in-depth feedback from engaged customers without overwhelming those who don’t have time or interest in taking a longer survey.
#2: Timing is everything
Hyken’s research revealed two interesting statistics about survey timing. First, 84% of customers are more likely to complete a survey if they receive it immediately after a purchase or event. Second, 23% of customers reported that they stopped doing business with a company because of over-surveying.
While eye-opening, these stats aren’t surprising. Reflect on your own experiences as a consumer. How many times have you tried to find information or complete a purchase on a website, only to face repeated interruptions by surveys that you had to close by hitting a tiny “X” button.
The point is that getting survey timing right is crucial for maintaining positive customer relationships and maximizing response rates. Here’s what you should keep in mind about timing:
DO:
- Ask at the right moment: Solicit feedback immediately after a key interaction or event, such as a purchase or customer service call.
- Consider customer context: Tailor your timing based on the customer’s journey and previous interactions with your brand. For example, follow up on a positive review with a survey about their overall experience, or request feedback after resolving an issue.
DON’T:
- Interrupt the customer experience: Interrupting the customer experience by sending surveys in the middle of an interaction can be problematic. For example, during checkout, customers are often busy or distracted, making them less likely to respond positively to surveys.
- Spam customers with surveys: Don’t overwhelm customers with survey requests. At best, they may simply ignore your surveys; at worst, they might stop doing business with you altogether.
#3: Analyze and act on the feedback provided
In the article, Hyken also found that customers are increasingly jaded about the likelihood of brands acting on their feedback. Over 70% of customers assume brands won’t take any action based on their feedback. Even more startling, 37% of those surveyed believe that businesses often do not even take their feedback seriously.
Companies clearly do not take enough action on the feedback their customers provide. This lack of action often results from gaps in how they analyze feedback.
Customer feedback, especially open-text feedback, provides a treasure-trove of intelligence for businesses to act on. However, without the right analysis tools, analyzing open-text feedback is time consuming and hard to sift through.
Tools like Alchemer Pulse simplify this process by turning noisy, unstructured text feedback into actionable insights with AI-powered text analysis to automatically identify sentiment and themes. With real-time alerts, aspect-based sentiment analysis, and advanced text analysis, teams can better understand customer experiences and act on feedback effectively.
#4: Always close your feedback loops
Even when companies act on the feedback their customers provide, they often fail to communicate these actions to their customers. In Hyken’s study they found that 72% of customers said they never hear back from a company after completing a survey.
Closing these feedback loops is the critical component missing from many companies’ survey strategies. Whenever a customer provides feedback, let them know that you have heard it and are acting upon it. A simple “thank you” and follow-up show that your brand is willing to listen and improve. Regardless of whether the feedback is positive or negative, recognize it for what it is—a gift.
However, customers want and deserve more than a “thank you” for providing their feedback, they want to see their feedback drive real improvement. For example, if a customer gives a suggestion or submits a bug report, let the customer know where the issue stands in your roadmap. And once you fix the issue or implement the suggestion, reach back out to inform the customer about the impact their feedback made.
With Alchemer Digital, you can use every survey response as targeting criteria for another interaction. This allows you to quickly reach out and close the loop with specific segments of your survey respondents.
For example, if a large portion of your survey respondents mentioned online ordering as something that needs improvement. You can then follow up with those specific survey respondents after making improvements to the online-ordering process. In your follow-up you can announce the improvements, let the customer know their feedback drove the change, and link to any additional information about the changes.
Conclusion
Customers want to provide feedback and see that their voices lead to meaningful change. When done right, surveys are a powerful tool for understanding and enhancing customer experiences.
On the flip side, when a survey strategy goes wrong, one in five customers may stop doing business with you because of it.
You don’t need to lose customers with your survey strategy. By keeping surveys concise, timing them correctly, acting on the feedback received, and consistently closing the feedback loop, you can turn surveys into valuable opportunities for engagement and improvement. This approach not only helps you gather actionable insights but also fosters stronger, more meaningful relationships with your customers.
At Alchemer, we help our customers do more with feedback. With advanced AI-powered analytics, flexible survey logic, and robust targeting and automation features, Alchemer is designed to help you go from feedback collection to action quickly, driving impactful change along the way.
Ready to see the Alchemer in action? Request a demo today!
Not quite ready for a demo? That’s ok too! Here are some additional resources:
- Customer Stories – See how our customers have used Alchemer to improve their survey capabilities and strategies.
- Alchemer Pulse – Learn how our AI text analytics solution uncovers hidden customer insights and transforms those insights into business impact.
- Integrations – Check out Alchemer’s suite of prebuilt integrations. If you don’t see an integration that you need, don’t sweat it! Our low-code design and architecture allow teams to seamlessly connect Alchemer to almost any platform using our API.
