The insights you gain from your customer service surveys are very valuable to the growth of your brand. To generate helpful survey results, you can t afford to just take the entire process of encouraging customers to answer your surveys for granted.
Survey fatigue is a common problem faced by businesses and partnering call centers in the Philippines when conducting customer service surveys. No matter how eager you are in listening to the opinions of your customers, low response rates can still become a potential challenge. Worse, your surveys may even fail to collect the desired data because they can t keep your respondents interested. Survey fatigue can also give you skewed results because the respondents were just thinking of ending their misery as soon as possible while answering your questions.
Optimizing the physical elements of your survey
The design of your survey can highly influence its response and abandonment rates. That s why it s important to keep it as short as possible. Answering your survey must only take your customers five to 10 minutes. Going beyond this time period can significantly increase the chances of customers abandoning your survey.
If you are using an online survey, you can integrate a visual progress bar that your customers can use to keep track of how far they are from completing the session. You can also use page jumping or branching tools that can automatically show or hide questions depending on their relevance to the respondent.
The structure of your questions also matter to how your customers respond to them. Keep them simple and direct to the point. Language or choice of words must be precise and easy to understand. This helps eliminate the need for your customers to read and think more than they have to. More importantly, avoid asking leading or biased questions. Keep your survey questions neutral to avoid making your respondents feel uncomfortable.
Quantitative question types are easier to answer than qualitative questions. Open-ended questions must only be used to extract the really important details. Using check box or drop down menu can also help customers have an easier time in selecting options while answering your survey.
Going beyond satisfaction measurement
In order to encourage your customers to finish answering your surveys or to at least get them started, they must understand how doing so will benefit them. You must explain that their participation can help you bring real improvements to them. Remind them that their opinions can make a difference. All of these can be done by adding an introductory message to your survey forms or sending your customers newsletters that explain how survey results have guided your business in making improvements.
You may have questions that you want to ask your customers. You may be curious about how they heard about your business or why they ultimately chose your brand. But none of these questions can give real value to your respondents. Focus more on extracting data that are relevant to your services and the overall customer experience. Ask them to rate the friendliness of your staff or how satisfied they are with the quality of your products. These types of questions can make customers realize that you aim to improve the areas that concern them.
Customer surveys are created for a reason. You re not supposed to just use them as yardsticks of satisfaction. Go beyond this goal and use your surveys as opportunities to make sure your customers get what they want. If someone takes time to answer your survey, don t make them feel unappreciated. Send them updates or thank them sincerely.
Survey fatigue can be a serious problem when conducting customer surveys. By proactively strategizing your survey methods, however, you can make sure that your customers will respond to your surveys more willingly and frequently. This will result to more accurate and valuable feedback that your business can use in improving its operations and securing a steady long-term growth.