Blog

It’s not always as simple as asking for feedback

In a perfect world, every customer you asked for feedback would answer you. They would give you an in-depth response that answered all your points and laid out a plan for how you could fix their problems. You’d have enough feedback to compile extensive reports with enough data to put your business on the track to dazzle every customer you encounter. But we live in the real world, and feedback is hard to come by. Because people are busy, and feedback seems like another chore to them.

Key takeaways:

• Why customers don’t give feedback
• Why simple is better
• Be timely with your survey
• Showcase your brand

Why customers don’t give feedback

Sure, you want their feedback, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. There are many reasons why your customers aren’t giving you feedback, and we illustrate a few of the most important ones below. The biggest reason behind the lack of feedback is the length of your survey and how much time it takes to answer the questions. Some of the main reasons you may not be getting feedback include:

• Survey is too long: If you find that customers aren’t giving your feedback request the time of day, decide if you’re actually hitting the mark with your survey. Is it concise? Customers don’t have a lot of time, so they’re not going to invest a large amount of it to answer a thirty-question survey. Short and sweet is how you gather the feedback you want. A great way to make a survey shorter is to focus on questions that provide the most data and cut the questions that don’t really make a difference, like name and date.
• Poor customer service: Do your customers know that you truly care about them, or do they feel your care is only words you don’t act on? If they feel that you don’t care for them, then how can you expect them to care enough to leave feedback for you? Find a way to show your customers that you care rather than just telling them.
• Survey confusion: Why am I getting this survey, and why now? You never want your customers to feel confused. You always want to be upfront with them and let them know why they’re getting a survey and what you intend to do with their feedback. If you give them specifics about why they’re being surveyed, your customers will be more likely to respond because they feel they’ve been selected to help your company out.

Make it simple for the customer

Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. How likely are you to fill out a survey that is going to take up your time? You may care about the company sending the survey, but do you care enough to sacrifice more than 15 minutes and to scroll through endless pages of questions? Probably not. In today’s world, simple is better, and there are a few ways you can encourage more feedback through simplifying the process for your customers.

• Via SMS: While you may be accustomed to email surveys, consider other methods for getting your survey in front of customers. SMS surveys tend to get more opens and more reads than any other type of survey, and more eyes on your content means more interaction as well.
• Work surveys into your chatbot: Many businesses are use chatbots, and you can leverage them to offer surveys to your customers at the end of a chat session. This puts your question front and center before they close out the chat.
• Incentivize your feedback: If you’re having issues gathering feedback, consider offering an incentive for the feedback. While you can offer money, consider using another piece of collateral from your company to help drive action, all while the customer feels rewarded.
• Ask at checkout: This is easier if you’re offering products. A purchase survey can capture them at the point of sale when their mind is still focused on your business and your interaction. If you offer services instead, consider a post-call survey. This works the same way, but instead of offering at checkout, you’d offer once when the call ends.

There are many ways to get feedback from your customers and increase your net promoter score, but the main focus to gather more feedback should be making the process as simple as possible. The more hoops a customer must go through, the more likely they will fall off before the end. Don’t spend a lot of time making a survey customers are going to abandon. Instead, focus that time on making a concise survey that won’t detract from their time.

Be timely with your survey

You also must consider when you’re sending the survey. Are customers getting the survey a month after they’ve done business with you? Do you think they are likely to respond when the exchange is so far behind them and more important things are on their minds?

Be timely with your request for feedback. Even if you’re waiting until you have enough responses to compare answers, don’t wait around to send the survey at one time. Survey your customers right after they’ve had an encounter with you and hold on to their answers until you’re ready to go over all the data.

Get personal and showcase your brand

You work hard giving your brand a name and an attitude, why aren’t you using that with every customer interaction? Customers also recognize your brand, so you want that to come through with your survey. Make sure it’s on point with how you talk and present yourself on all your channels. This is an important document that will give you insights into the minds of your customers, but they also love your brand for the personality you give it. Don’t drop the ball with your survey.

Another important reason to use your brand is it tells the customer who they’re communicating with. It makes the survey appear official instead of an ambiguous survey suddenly showing up that could be from anyone, including phishing scams. Branding increases the response rate because they trust you, and they will know they’re not responding to a third party that could do anything with their data.

At CrewHu, we’ve made surveying easy. How? With one, simple question aimed at gathering targeted feedback that your company will benefit from. What’s more? Our surveys make it easier to address customer concerns!