Few people enjoy filling out surveys, which can be a real problem for marketers wanting to collect customer preferences and opinions. Though often a bit tedious and boring to your clients, surveys offer many insights to marketers that ultimately improve user experience in the long run.
So how can marketers influence better survey response rates and higher-quality responses? Here are some best practices for breathing new life into one of the most practical customer research tools:
Target Your Customers Where They Are Most Engaged
If you’re asking users to take a survey with no tangible reward, make it as easy as possible for them by meeting them where they are browsing. If your customers are primarily engaging with your brand on Facebook, offer them the option to complete services natively within the platform. If your social media sites aren’t a frequent hotspot for users, send a survey via email. If you’re planning to ask more general questions, Twitter and Instagram polls are easy survey tools that provide many answers while engaging your customers.
Make Your Survey a Conversation
A lack of empathy in how companies ask for data is a major turn-off to potential survey takers. Conversational Artificial Intelligence (AI), such as chatbots and voice assistants, help combat this problem by offering a more personal, conversational experience for survey takers. If AI is not available, small improvements like short videos or photos can help make the experience feel less sterile. Rather than creating another boring survey, spruce up your surveys with visuals, simplified wording, and quiz-like formats.
Consider Offering Educational Rewards Over Financial Rewards
Financial incentives can be effective in bringing in survey takers, but it’s not always economical, can be detrimental to your brand and can skew results. Instead of attracting the wrong crowd with monetary prizes, offer tools and resources of genuine value that will improve user experience and reflect positively on your brand. Incentives such as free trials, access to resources like podcasts and e-books, or preferential customer service support can all make a lasting impression on your users.
Make Your Survey as Quick & Easy as Possible
Marketers are at the mercy of their subscribers for getting survey results, so surveys should be formulated with user-experience in mind. For example, respondents are more likely to answer simple yes or no questions rather than answering open-ended questions. Also consider breaking up longer surveys and ask a few questions at a time more often. Time commitment is a huge factor in survey responses, so always offer an estimated completion time so survey takers know into what they are getting themselves.
Like all businesses, your brand is driven by customer data. So instead of deploying another dull survey, optimize your survey for the best user experience to elicit valuable feedback that can drive your product and company in the right direction.
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