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Topic(s): The Platform Hello Customer Metrics & Methodology

10 Proven ways to Increase your Survey Response Rates

 

Customer feedback is essential to get close to your clients. With good technology you can get the right insights. To gain profitable insights, your response rates need to be as high as possible, because only with a lot of feedback you can collect accurate data. However, gathering enough response, and thus data, is more difficult than it may seem. So often the question arises: how do we increase our survey response rate? Hello Customer shows you how to do it.

hello customer blog response rates


Many organisations are already satisfied when they get a 5-10% response rate. But to us, response rates should be at least 10% and we highly strive to obtain a response rate between 20-40% on the NPS, CES or CSAT-question, i.e.:

  • NPS: “(On a scale from 0 to 10) how likely is it you would recommend [company x] to your friends or colleagues?”
  • CSAT: “To what extent are you satisfied with your recent experience with [company x]?”
  • CES: To what extent do you agree or disagree with following statement: “[company x] made is easy for me to handle my issue"?

Although these metrics are powerful on their own, they should be followed by a WHY question. Why? Because metrics don’t give you the opportunity to take action and without actions you can’t create impact. That is why you need to inform yourself on why a customer is (dis)satisfied. The open feedback question has on average a response rate of 82%, with a minimum of 63%. Do you feel like your company performs less? Don’t panic, you’re not on the titanic!

1. Personalise

Use a personal e-mail address to contact clients, for example kaat@hellocustomer.com. Your customers will feel more connected to an e-mail address that contains a name than an address that just represents your company. Furthermore, personalize when it comes to your customers, use their first name or address your customers with ‘Dear [First Name]’ of “Dear Mr. [Last Name]”, depending on how you communicate with your customers. The manner in which you address clients should first of all be recognisable. That is why I also advise you to implement an appealing, personal title (where it is possible to insert parameters). In that way the customer will notice that the message is not an automatically generated message. And more importantly: the e-mail will not be categorized as spam!

2. Introduction

Refer to an interaction (a touchpoint) or to a general introduction. In this case it is also possible to implement parameters:

· You had an interaction with [Employee name] of the Service Desk

· You visited our [company name] shop on [location], ...

The more concrete, the more personal and the higher your response rates will be!

3. Make your page design feel personal

Your customers are already receiving enough marketing banners and every piece of feedback is another opportunity to interact with your customer. You have to show that you truly care about them and that you want to hear their opinion.

4. Continuously monitor and update your contact lists

The feedback engine’s feature ‘bounced e-mails’ collects e-mails that did not arrive in a customer’s inbox, for example when the address doesn’t exist. That information can be exported to clear your company’s CRM.

5. Everyone hates spam

Make sure you don’t overreach individual customers, to avoid that they get a question every time they interact with you. Our feedback engine’s touchpoint quarantine provides you with this important feature.

6. Send reminders and make a question mandatory

Please don’t copy paste the title of your original message. By adapting the title of reminders, your customers will have the impression to receive a ‘new e-mail’, which increases the chance the e-mail will be opened and answered.

In the introduction you can again state that you really value and appreciate your customer’s feedback and that the comments will be used to improve customer service. In that way you try to engage your customers with your organization and, consequently, you will increase your response rates.

7. Choose your customer's preferred channel

With Hello Customer’s feature ‘ask anywhere’ you can reach your customers wherever they are available, i.e. via e-mail, QR codes, receipts, etc. Customers expect ‘seamless’ experiences. The more friction in the interaction between the customer and the company, the less satisfied they will be. Engagement will in that way be influenced negatively, which will consequently result in lower response rates. By helping your customers via Whatsapp or Messenger (to deliver customer service), ask them about their experience via these channels.

8. Ask only one question on a scale

With NPS, CSAT & CES, surveying takes as much effort as clicking on ‘delete’. Do not insert any form of marketing and provide only one message. Your customer has no time to click on a link to go to the survey and links will only form an extra threshold. Consequently, you will encounter lower response rates. So: focus on your metrics. Do you want to know what metric is right for your company? Don’t hesitate and read our e-book which clearly explains NPS, CES and CSAT.

9. Keep track of your e-mail stats

Most marketers believe that emails sent between 8-10 AM are the most likely to be opened and read by customers. With Hello Customer you are able to analyze each touchpoint to see at what time customers are more probable to read and answer your questions, i.e. via your e-mail stats.

10. Don't forget to say thank you

Acknowledge your customers personally for their effort. Do not send e-mails that are clearly automated. Your customers made the effort to evaluate your company, so make sure you return the favour. It’s all about giving and taking!

 

Voila, you're all set! Ready to build a seamless feedback program?