Customer Feedback Survey Tips

Are you ready to try a customer feedback survey for your agency? Utilize these 10 tips to create a survey that is easy to understand, easy to complete, and that provides you with actionable insights!

Before you build your customer feedback survey, reach out to your co-workers and leadership teams to learn what information would be valuable and actionable. Before creating your survey, it is helpful to diagram the questions you’re asking in order to determine the flow of the survey as a whole. This can save you time in re-arranging and re-assessing once you have created your content.

Be clear and concise. Make it quick and easy for your respondents to complete the survey. A great benchmark is five minutes or less to complete the survey. As you design your questions, ask yourself – “what would I do with this information?” If an action isn’t immediately clear, delete that question! Focus on gathering information you plan to act on.

Take advantage of survey technology to show respondents questions that apply to them based on their previous responses. With this approach, you are able to create a customized survey and gather in-depth data, without exposing each respondent to a multitude of questions that would not apply. If you know their name, consider personalizing the email survey invitation.

Use the language and the tone that your customers would use. If your customers are middle aged professionals, you would use different verbiage than if they are high school students. This will help your respondents to quickly and easily complete the survey, as well as ensure that they understand the question content.

Make the most of every survey by asking your key questions first. This will give you the best opportunity for them to be completed.

Determine which questions are most important for your customers to complete and set those to mandatory – that could be customer contact information and overall experience feedback.  A common survey design mistake is making all questions mandatory, leading to increased abandon rates. So choose those mandatory questions carefully!

Another common survey mistake is to not include a ‘not applicable’ option within your question. By omitting this option, you are forcing your respondents to either select a response that isn’t true (and sacrifice the quality of your data) or abandon your survey entirely.

Before they begin the survey, tell your respondents how long it will take them to complete it. Keep in mind – you’re more likely to receive a higher response rate from a quick five-minute survey, versus a 30-minute survey.

Display survey progress on every screen to encourage your respondents to continue with the survey by showing them how much they have completed and how far they have left to go. If they can see that they only have a few questions left, they will be more likely to continue than if they are left guessing.

Reward your customers for sharing their thoughts with you by offering them an incentive. The amount of the incentive (or quantity of incentive) should increase based on the amount of effort that your customer needs to put forward to complete the survey.

If your customers share opportunities for improvement or experiences that were less than ideal, follow-up with them promptly. Responding to their comments shows them that you care about them and their experience with your agency. Be prepared with a follow-up plan before launching your survey, so you are able to quickly address any areas of concern.

Whether it is a simple ‘Thank You’ message at the end of the survey or an email that is sent to your customers afterwards, it is important to acknowledge the time that they spent sharing their feedback with you. This step is easy to miss, as you focus on their responses, but it is vital in ensuring your customer feels that their time was well spent.