Most businesses rely on customer feedback to identify scaling points and match their growth to the needs of their customers. It’s an excellent way to spur growth without slowing down, since you’re expanding your business with ready demand. Businesses, small and large, have relied on surveys to pique the minds of their customers for ages. The method has proven reliable for many years. But, in recent years, businesses have reported mixed results from customer surveys, begging the question of whether the surveys are worth the trouble and still hold a mine of information that businesses can act on.
Are Customer Surveys Relevant?
Customer surveys, though traditional, are still a relevant part of modern marketing. However, studies have shown that customers are less responsive to long surveys, with only 9% taking the time to answer long surveys. A majority suffer from what is called survey fatigue.
You can solve this by having short surveys with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answers for your customers. These are long enough to provide your business with the information it needs to adjust, adapt and grow, but short enough for the consumers to tolerate them and complete the survey.
Benefits of Customer Surveys
Businesses can use customer surveys to achieve different goals. It’s all in how you work the survey and the types of questions you ask. The most common benefits you stand to gain by using customer surveys include the following:
Identifying the areas you need to improve
The primary purpose of a good customer survey is to get feedback from your customers. Some feedback can help you identify customer pain points and areas you need to improve to make your business model more appealing to the customers. The survey can also be a great source of ideas on improving your services.
Know how your business compares to your competitors
It’s easy to get caught up in your success and ignore what’s happening around you. Some of the titbits you get from customers in a survey can tell you what they think of your business compared to its competitors. Asking a simple question like “On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you rate our business compared to our competitors?” can provide perspective on how you’re doing and give you possible areas to work on.
It helps build brand loyalty
Providing feedback is a show of loyalty, and you need to work on the relationship too. Offering good services is not enough. You need to show your customers that you care about their opinion, what they think about your business, and how you can make it easier and better for them.
Clients want to feel that their opinion matters. They’re likely to stick around if you make them feel this way. A customer survey is a great way to get feedback that you can act on.
You can keep up with the market
Some industries change so quickly that you might miss out on some of the action. A customer survey can get you caught up on what is new in the market and what resonates with the customers best. It can save you from investing in services and products that don’t yield the best results and enhance your chances of improving the customer experience when working with your brand.
Your Guide to Optimising Customer Surveys
Whether a customer survey works for you or not depends on how you craft it and its length. You need to be straightforward and know the right questions to ask. Some of the considerations to have in mind while crafting the survey include the following:
- Clearly define your goal – Let your customers know what you’re trying to achieve with the survey. They can give better responses when they know what the end goal is.
- Make the survey questions crystal clear and unbiased – Ambiguous questions can leave the customers feeling confused and frustrated. It could easily cause them to abandon the survey. Also, you want the customer to feel unpressured to give their opinion, so the questions shouldn’t be leading.
- Send the surveys on relevant channels – Using the proper survey channels is as important as asking the right questions. You need to know the customers or clients you’re targeting and which channels they’re most likely to use.
- Keep it short – The longer the survey, the more likely customers will abandon it at some point. You have better chances with a short survey.
- Offer rewards – Let the customers know what is in it for them if they complete the survey. Offering rewards is a sure way of increasing the survey completion rate.
Customer surveys are just one of the things a business can use to understand customer behaviour and satisfaction. At Oracle Tree, we can help you optimise your customer journey process and every touchpoint you have with your customers. Contact us for more information on our full range of services and your no-obligation consultation.
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