Are customer surveys effective?

Customer surveys are the norm today. After a support call, companies ask customers for their feedback. Websites bribe visitors with sweepstake entries to get them to fill in product questionnaires.

This flood of feedback requests is leaving many customers with ‘survey fatigue‘ – a sense of boredom and resentment with taking surveys. This feeling is lowering survey response rates and quality. Customer Thermometer reports that ‘only 9% of people take the time to answer long surveys thoughtfully’. Nearly 70% say that ‘they have abandoned a survey before finishing it’.

If consumers are tired of customer service surveys, should companies continue to send them?

The answer is ‘yes’ – as long as you create surveys with the customer experience in mind.

Surveys don’t just help your company. Customers also appreciate them, as long as you don’t overwhelm them with feedback requests. According to a 2019 Microsoft report, 89% of consumers want companies to ask them for input. To customers, surveys are a sign that you’re willing to listen and learn.

Done well, a customer satisfaction survey is an honest approach to authentically improving customers’ happiness.

Why customer surveys are worth using

No one wants customer feedback to come at the cost of irritating customers. The key is striking the right balance as to how many surveys you send.

Finding this balance is worth it, as there’s a strong business case for customer surveys. Gartner reports that 80% of companies that see year-on-year growth use customer surveys to collect data about customer experience. Compare that with just 58% of the non-growth companies that use customer surveys.

And while people claim to hate taking surveys, Microsoft says that 77% of consumers see brands more favourably if they actively use surveys for customer outreach, and accept customer feedback.

So how can your company navigate asking for feedback without overwhelming your customers?

It’s all in how you approach surveys in the first place. Don’t view surveys as obligatory transactions to collect data. Treat them as opportunities to deepen your relationship with your customers via meaningful experiences – with the added bonus of measuring customer satisfaction.

How to create surveys that your customers will actually want to take (with eight examples)

Make surveys as enjoyable as possible by designing them with your customer in mind. This user-focused approach will help you encourage survey responses and maintain a strong brand image.

1. Clearly define your goal

To get the most value from your surveys, identify what you hope to learn from the feedback.

First, determine the customer experience touch-point that you want to improve. This might be anything from improving retention to reorganising your Help Centre.

Focus on a single problem. This narrow perspective will also help you stay productive. It’s much more difficult to collect and implement feedback about multiple issues at the same time.

Match your survey method to your goal. You can use a variety of survey types to unlock specific kinds of customer feedback:

1. Customer satisfaction (CSAT) rating

   
   Measures how helpful your customer found a support experience to be, or how satisfied your customer is with your product or service

2. Net Promoter Score℠ (NPS) survey

   
   Measures how likely a customer would be to recommend your product or service to a friend

3. Churn survey

   
   Helps you understand why your customer is cancelling a service

For a more in-depth look at different ways to collect customer feedback, take a look at our guide to three types of customer feedback (and how to collect them).

2. Write crystal-clear, unbiased customer survey questions

According to the Pew Research Center, the quality of survey data depends on how well your questions are crafted.

A high response rate will be wasted if the responses are based on vague or biased questions. A successful survey means not only writing good questions but also organising them to create an engaging questionnaire.

With that in mind, aim to write non-leading questions that are easy to understand. Make sure that your customer feedback questions meet these criteria by reviewing this checklist.

• Could this question be misunderstood? If it’s possible that the customer could read it in different ways, adjust your phrasing. Choose words that communicate the intended meaning of the question.
• Does the question contain confusing terminology? Aim to write for a Year 9 reading level. Keep your words simple and avoid jargon.
• What assumptions does this question make? Be aware of your own biases and how they’re expressed through your writing. Avoid generalisations and use objective language.
• Is the wording objectionable? Language evolves as people find new ways of representing themselves. Adapt your phrasing to the standards of the communities you’re describing.
• Is the wording loaded or slanted? If it seems like the question is forcing the respondent into an answer that doesn’t reflect their opinion accurately, remove non-neutral and unnecessary wording.
• How personal is the wording? If the question might make your respondents uncomfortable or embarrassed, tweak the wording so that it makes what you’re asking about seem normal or acceptable. Be clear about asking for an opinion versus asking for general statements.

Need question-writing inspiration? We’ve created an excellent collection of ideas for customer satisfaction survey questions.

3. Send surveys on relevant channels

Your customers aren’t going to bend over backwards to fill in your survey. Make it as easy as possible for them to send meaningful responses by carefully considering where to send the questionnaire.

Consider your outreach strategies to ensure you reach your customers in places where they’re already thinking about your products and services:

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  In-product – If you have a digital product, you can automatically trigger a survey prompt after a certain period of usage. If you sell physical goods, you can insert a survey invitation into the packaging of the product.
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  Website – Find out how visitors feel about their site experience with a one- or two-question embedded survey. Ask about the page’s performance and if there are any areas that could be improved.
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  Email – For tips on writing email survey invitations, from what to include in your subject line to the right phrases to use, take a look at this resource from MailerLite.
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  Text – SMS surveys are a quick, convenient, interactive way for customers to review their experiences. You can send surveys via SMS using any number of survey platforms, including integrations with Zendesk.
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  You’re more likely to get responses if you combine text and email survey invitations. A Gallup survey found that when companies combined text messages with email to send surveys, participation increased across all groups.
  So don’t be afraid to use a combination of survey delivery methods. Sending reminders via different channels – while keeping feedback fatigue in mind – may be the nudge that customers need to fill in your survey.

  4. Keep it short

  
  Sixty per cent of people say that they won’t take a survey that takes longer than 10 minutes to complete. So if you want a high response rate, keep your survey brief.
  If your customer has already taken time out of their day to contact you for help, don’t add to the problem with a cumbersome questionnaire. For customer support scenarios, stick with a one-click survey. When a ticket is closed, only ask one survey question: Was the solution helpful?
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  Even if you have several questions, aim to keep the survey as short as possible. Most surveys should only take a few minutes to complete.
  Set expectations by letting people know how long the survey will take to complete. You can include this information in your survey invitation or on the opening screen of your survey. It also helps to provide a progress bar so that people can see how many questions they have left to answer.

  5. Offer rewards

  
  Encourage responses by giving customers an incentive to complete the survey. You might offer a monetary reward – cash, cheques, money orders, gift cards or vouchers. Or consider offering an actual gift, such as a free pen or notebook.
  Some companies even give charity donations in exchange for survey responses. This is a powerful way to appeal to people who have a strong desire to help others.
  The customer research tool SurveyMonkey donates 50 cents to charity for each response to their Audience market research tool.
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  If you offer donations, choose a charity that aligns with your audience’s interests and your organisation’s values.

  6. Provide a variety of questions

  
  Have you ever abandoned a survey because you couldn’t answer a ‘required’ question? You’re not alone.
  Designing a survey with required questions is risky. You will, of course, receive meaningful feedback from the people who do respond. But there’s a good chance that your overall response rate will be low because customers were intimidated.
  Collect a wide range of input by making your survey questions optional. After all, it’s better to receive partially filled-in questionnaires from many customers than completed ones from only a handful. You’ll have more information to work with when trying to decide how to improve your product and brand.
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  It also helps to use a mixture of open-ended and closed questions. Try to have more of the latter so that customers can move through your survey quickly. Questions with yes/no, multiple-choice and rating answer options all take only a few seconds to answer.

  7. Give your customers options

  
  Give customers control over their survey experience so that they can feel confident about the accuracy of the information they’re giving you.
• • Let customers skip irrelevant questions by making them optionalFor multiple-choice questions, offer an ‘Other’ option. Let customers write their answers in their own words.
  • Use inclusive wording and options in demographic questions

  • Let customers offer more details concerning their answers to closed questions by following up with open-ended questions

  • Let your customers select the channel on which they wish to take the survey. Give them the option to set preferences for future surveys or to opt out of survey requests via specific channels.

  
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  8. Always follow up

  
  Ultimately, people take the time to answer surveys because they want to see that they’ve helped make a difference. Don’t just send an obligatory ‘thank you’ email once they’ve completed your survey – close their curiosity loop by informing survey respondents of the changes you’ve made as a result of their feedback.
  Many companies (including Zendesk) release quarterly or annual reports announcing what they’ve learned from their customer surveys and the changes that they’ve made in response.
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  To demonstrate their commitment to working with their customers to protect consumers’ health, food-safety firm Merieux NutriSciences publishes their report as an infographic.
  Other companies, such as lead-generation platform OptinMonster, send their results to customers via email.
  ‘Customers feel valued when you tell them the results because they can see that you heard them and acknowledged them,’ says OptinMonster co-founder Sayed Balkhi. ‘Plus, if you send them the results, it increases the likelihood that they’ll respond to future surveys.’

  Build strong customer relationships with CX-friendly surveys

  
  At Zendesk, we’re big fans of customer surveys because they help us improve in a number of areas – customer satisfaction, marketing and employee productivity, just to name a few. In fact, the insights we’ve gained from customer surveys have led us to expand from a humble help desk platform to a unified support suite, sales suite and CRM platform.
  Don’t be shy about asking for feedback. Surveys are a powerful resource for finding ways to improve and grow your brand. And if you’re considerate of your customers’ time, they’re often happy to share their input.