Surveying at the right frequency, with the right survey design, is what keeps your customers responding and free of survey fatigue. In this guide, we outline what survey fatigue is, what causes it, and how to avoid it so you can make the most of your feedback program.

What is survey fatigue?

Survey fatigue is when respondents are no longer interested in completing your surveys due to the volume of surveys or the effort it takes to complete them. This type of fatigue can lead to lower survey response rates, inaccurate data, or abandonment of the survey altogether.

Types of survey fatigue

The two most common types of survey fatigue are caused by (1) the sheer volume of surveys or (2) the survey itself.

• Pre-survey fatigue: Respondents who are over-surveyed can experience fatigue that manifests before they take your survey, causing them to skip it entirely. This type of survey fatigue can impact your open rate.
• Mid-survey fatigue: On the other hand, respondents may begin your survey but drop off before completion due to the effort it takes to answer the survey questions or the survey itself. This type of survey fatigue can affect your completion rate.

In fact, 70% of people said they’ve abandoned a survey before completing it. And with only 9% of respondents taking the time to answer long surveys, it’s more difficult than ever to get potential respondents to complete your survey.

What can cause survey fatigue?

There are a number of reasons why respondents might lose interest in taking your surveys. 

1. Lack of audience segmentation

Customers constantly receive marketing emails from different brands: fatigue from generic, unspecific surveys about their experience can add up. When customers receive personalized, well-designed surveys, they’re shown that you value their experience and time.

By segmenting your audience and personalizing surveys based on those segments, you’ll show customers you care by asking them about a specific product they purchased or their experience with a support representative instead of sending out a boilerplate survey asking broad questions.

2. Poor survey design

Surveys that lack a clear purpose, are visually bland, or are too long can cause fatigue due to poor design. Asking the right questions and avoiding biased questions are two ways to improve your survey design and avoid survey fatigue.

You can also customize your survey with your brand colors, add an introductory message, and tailor the survey Thank you page to take your survey design to the next level.

3. Not taking action

While asking for employee and customer feedback is important, the most critical part of the equation is taking action on feedback. If respondents don’t believe their input will have an impact, they may be less inclined to respond to your surveys.

For example, if you receive feedback stating customers are unhappy with your checkout experience but it’s never improved, your surveys don’t serve a greater purpose. This is why having a goal and action plan for your survey program is so important.

How to avoid survey fatigue

Now that we’ve discussed survey fatigue and its causes, let’s examine the strategies you can use to combat it.

1. Ask the right questions

Including the right questions in your survey can prevent respondents from experiencing survey fatigue. Here are some do’s and don’ts for successful question design:

Do:

• Ask direct questions. Make sure your questions are clearly worded and free from ambiguous language.
• Ask multiple-choice questions. When respondents are given different answer options to choose from, it’s much easier for them to answer the question.
• Ask one question at a time. Avoid double-barreled questions that ask two questions in one. These questions confuse respondents and skew your survey data.
• Ask questions that are relevant to the respondent. Use conditional skip logic to avoid asking users questions that don’t apply to them.

Don’t:

• Include long or repetitive survey questions. Just like long surveys, lengthy survey questions can contribute to survey fatigue. Respondents could also get frustrated by repetitive questions in your surveys.
• Ask too many open-ended questions. Including a mix of open and close-ended questions keeps the survey interesting and requires less effort from respondents than a survey with only free-response questions.
• Use acronyms or business jargon. Make sure to provide definitions for acronyms and terms that your respondents may not be familiar with.

TIP: Take a look at the different types of survey questions in our guide with examples you can use in your next survey. 

2. Adjust your survey timing and frequency

Since over-surveying is a prominent type of survey fatigue, fine-tuning when and how often you survey respondents is paramount. Your survey frequency will depend on the type of feedback you’re looking to collect:

• For B2B and SaaS product feedback, you can survey 2 weeks to 1 month after implementing a new product or feature.
• For transactional feedback based on a specific point in the customer journey (like a customer support inquiry or demo), you should send your survey within 24 hours of interacting with the customer. 
• For consumer product feedback, it’s best to send your survey up to 7 days after the product is in hand. 
• For relationship feedback via NPS, CSAT, or CES surveys, you can survey every 30, 60, or 90 days. 
• For employee feedback, you can also survey on a 30, 60, or 90-day basis. 

TIP: With Delighted AI, you can automate survey delivery and customize how often respondents are surveyed within a given time period – AKA survey throttling. Based on the time period you choose, no one will be sent multiple surveys within that time frame. 

3. Set expectations for how long the survey will take

Lengthy, time-consuming surveys are a recipe for survey fatigue. To avoid surveys that are too long, you’ll want to test your survey before sending it and time how long it takes to complete. A survey that takes more than 10 minutes is likely too long.

Then, highlight how long the survey will take respondents in the introduction – they’ll be more inclined to take your survey if they know how much time it will take.

4. Incentivize survey completion

If your customers aren’t responding to your surveys, another way to engage them is by offering an incentive for survey completion. Some examples of incentives to give respondents who complete your survey include:

• Entering survey respondents into a raffle for a prize (like a gift card or cash)
• Offering a discount code for future purchases 
• Rewarding survey completion with freebies or a free trial

By being thoughtful about when, how, and what you ask in your surveys, you can prevent survey fatigue. Designing surveys with fatigue in mind allows you to gather more useful data that will help you drive better experiences for your customers and employees – and better outcomes for your business.

Ready to design your next survey? Start by gathering feedback with our free online survey tool.

The post Survey fatigue: What it is, why it happens, and how to avoid it appeared first on Delighted.

Below, we cover what multiple choice questions are, types of multiple choice questions, examples, tips for writing them, and the advantages of including them in your surveys.

What are multiple choice questions?

Multiple choice questions ask respondents to choose from one or more options from a list of provided answers. These survey questions are usually either single select (one answer) or multi select (multiple answers). They’re the most common type of survey question since they’re not only easy to answer, but also produce quantitative data for the survey creator to analyze.

6 types of multiple choice questions with examples

Now that we’ve covered the definition of multiple choice questions, let’s look at the common question types you can use in your surveys with examples of each.

1. Single select multiple choice questions

Single select multiple choice questions are questions that allow respondents to select only one answer from the list of options. A popular type of survey question, single select questions are highly effective in determining a respondent’s primary preference among a set of choices. 

2. Multi select multiple choice questions

As a survey creator, you might want to ask questions that allow multiple answers: that’s where multiple (or multi) select questions come in. Multiple select questions give respondents the ability to select more than one answer. This may also include an “other” option in case none of the predetermined answers fit.

You can create your own multiple choice questions using Delighted’s free survey maker and choose between single or multi select answer options during the survey design process.

3. Star rating multiple choice questions

A star rating multiple choice question asks respondents to rate a question, usually about a product or service, using a range of 1-5 stars. The visual rating scale is universally recognized, allowing anyone to effortlessly give a response indicating a favorable (more stars) or unfavorable (less stars) experience.

4. Thumbs up/down multiple choice questions

Thumbs multiple choice questions are a type of dichotomous survey question, meaning there are only two possible answers: thumbs up, indicating yes, or thumbs down, indicating no.

These questions are designed for fast, easy responses – perfect for straightforward evaluations. They also work well as screening questions: for example, you could ask your customers whether they’re aware of a certain product feature, and then dive deeper with a different set of questions depending on how they answer.

5. Smiley face survey multiple choice questions

Smiley face multiple choice questions are another type of visual survey question. They make it easy for customers or employees to select a rating because they elicit an intuitive response, i.e., they can place an emotion behind it.

6. Numeric scale multiple choice questions

Another common type of multiple choice question is a numeric scale question, also called a Likert scale question. These can include a 5 or 7-point scale as the answer options for respondents to choose from.

Some examples of survey types that use this multiple choice question format include Net Promoter Score (NPS), Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), and Customer Effort Score (CES). Delighted’s customer experience solution includes options for 5-star, Thumbs, Smileys, NPS, CSAT, and CES and you can distribute these surveys via email, link, web, or in-app.

Or, create fully customizable questions using the free survey maker, Delighted Surveys, and distribute via link.

Tips for writing multiple choice questions

Want to start drafting multiple choice questions for your next survey? Use these tips to get started:

• List at least three answer options. When it comes to the number of alternatives, include at least three different options from which the respondent can choose. The only exception to this rule is dichotomous survey questions, such as Thumbs. 
• Include an “other” option in case none of the choices fit. Giving respondents flexibility with an additional “other” option can decrease the likelihood they skip the question altogether if none of the provided answers resonate with them.
• Get more context on answers with open-ended follow-up questions. Want more clarity on why a respondent answered the way they did? Follow up the multiple choice question with a free response option so that respondents can explain their choice in more detail.
• Make sure all of your answer options are simple and easy to understand. If your questions are confusing, respondents may be less inclined to answer them. This can then lead to nonresponse bias – when a surveyor does not respond to your survey or survey question because they are unable or do not want to complete it – resulting in skewed or unusable survey data.

Advantages of multiple choice questions

In many ways, multiple choice questions are considered the gold standard by most survey creators thanks to their advantages over other question types.

Advantages like:

1. They’re quick and easy to answer

Multiple choice questions are useful in customer and employee surveys as they are simpler than most other types of survey questions for your audience to answer. They use the close-ended question format to get quantitative data from survey respondents. Sometimes with open-ended questions, respondents simply don’t know how to answer and it takes time for them to type out their thoughts. 

You remove the uncertainty (and time spent) around the answer to the question by providing specific options – making both the respondent’s job easy and the data you collect straightforward.

2. They can reveal new insights about your products or services

Given their pointed nature, multiple choice questions are a great way to gather information about an existing hypothesis or idea. For example, they can help you make new product decisions, understand how you can improve your customer service experience, and decide where to advertise to reach your target audience. Then, you can use how your audience responded to choose the next steps in your long-term business, product, or marketing strategy.

3. They are great for collecting specific, quantifiable data

Survey creators can distill findings from large sets of data with clear-cut answer choices. There’s no room for irrelevant information since the answer options are already provided for respondents. That way, you’re able to get right to the information you need. 

4. They’re optimal for mobile devices

Many respondents prefer to answer surveys right from their mobile devices, so why not make it easier for them with the simplest question-answer format? Multiple choice questions are optimal for phone and tablet users since all it takes to respond is a couple of taps.

Ready to create and customize your own survey questions? Start surveying in minutes with Delighted’s free survey maker. 

The post Multiple choice questions: Types, examples, and tips  appeared first on Delighted.

Wondering what the customer lifecycle is, its stages, or how to manage it at your organization? In this guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know.

Jump to:

• What is the customer lifecycle?
• What is customer lifecycle management?
• Customer lifecycle stages
• Importance of understanding the customer lifecycle
• How to manage the customer lifecycle

What is the customer lifecycle?

The customer lifecycle refers to the 5 stages consumers will ideally go through to become a loyal customer: awareness, consideration, purchase, retention, and advocacy. This process includes when the customer first purchases from you and, eventually, how they describe your brand to others.

Unlike the customer journey that is measured end to end, the customer lifecycle is ongoing in nature. And while customers may drop out, they might also cycle back in at some point in the future. 

That’s why understanding the customer lifecycle – and how to manage and improve it – can make or break your overall customer experience.

What is customer lifecycle management?

Customer lifecycle management is the process of gathering insights at each stage of the customer lifecycle, assigning metrics to track the success of those stages, and taking action to improve the experiences of your customers. In other words, it’s the work your company puts in to manage experiences at critical customer touchpoints.

Customer lifecycle stages

Now that we’ve covered the definitions of customer lifecycle and customer lifecycle management, let’s take a look at the 5 customer lifecycle stages to optimize.

1. Awareness 

During the awareness stage, customers become, well, aware of your company or brand. This can happen in a variety of ways, including reading an article or blog post about you, seeing you mentioned on social media, catching an ad or commercial online or on TV, hearing a friend recommend your products or services, and so on.

As with any first impression, it’s important that a customer feels positive or intrigued by what your company has to offer – enough so that you’ve captured their attention and they move on to the next stage.

TIP: When a potential customer signs up for your newsletter or signs up for an account, send a quick email survey with Additional Questions to gather key data on how they found you and use the information to make strategic updates to your marketing outreach. 

2. Consideration 

In the second stage of the customer lifecycle, customers start to consider what you have to offer versus other companies or brands. Does your product or service meet their needs? Does it fit into their budget? 

At the consideration stage, customers will analyze the answers to these questions, as well as seek out external validation. This type of validation includes customer reviews and ratings, testimonials from your existing customers, as well as anecdotes from friends, family, or people they trust online (e.g., influencers or celebrity spokespeople).

Customers will likely have questions at this stage, so it’s also important that you readily provide the answers they’re looking for. Publishing content about your company on a blog or social media, sharing reviews on your website, or providing practical tips for comparing products can all help expedite the consideration stage if customers can quickly find the answers they need.

TIP: Sending a CES (Customer Effort Score) survey to customers after initial conversations can play a crucial role in determining if you’re making it easy for your customers to compare solutions and products.

3. Purchase 

When a customer reaches the purchase stage, it means you’ve done something right. Your customer has agreed to pay you for your product or service. 

While this is a great milestone, it’s also a vital step in the customer lifecycle. Because once the customer has your product in their possession (or you’ve completed the service), new opinions and attitudes will form – and you want those opinions and attitudes to be ones of happiness and customer satisfaction.

TIP: Find out if your customer was satisfied with their purchase or purchase experience with a customizable CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) survey. Send the survey immediately after purchase or delay send time by one week to allow the customer time to get acquainted with the product.

4. Retention 

Now that a customer has made their first purchase, the goal is to keep them coming back. In other words, you want to retain them as a customer.

There are several ways to approach customer retention. For example, you can keep the relationship going by sending email newsletters and content relevant to their interests or past purchases, coupons or discounts, or other incentives.

Another way to retain customers is to ask for their feedback with surveys. Specifically, you can measure customer satisfaction and loyalty with CSAT and NPS (Net Promoter Score) surveys. Doing so will help you understand if they have any issues that you might be able to address and understand why they would or wouldn’t be willing to purchase again.

5. Advocacy

When customers reach the advocacy stage of the lifecycle, it means they’re actively promoting your brand to other people they know – whether by word of mouth, writing reviews, or raving about you on the internet. This level of brand advocacy can be hard to achieve, so you want to nurture your relationships with these loyal customers.

One way to do this is through rewards and referral programs. But an even more powerful way is to ask about what’s meaningful to them by utilizing NPS surveys or binary Yes/No surveys like Thumbs or Smileys surveys.

Customer surveys allow you to collect, analyze, and act on customer feedback – a critical three-step framework for understanding customer loyalty and nurturing the relationships with your brand advocates.

TIP: Yes/no surveys give you immediate insight into what is working and what might need improvement. For example, if a customer at the advocacy stage suddenly stops buying your products, but is willing to share the reason why their loyalty has dwindled, this is a pivotal opportunity to address the issue – and hopefully, repair the relationship.

Dive deeper into their answer by adding up to 10 Additional Questions, such as “What can we do better?” and “What is one thing that would improve your experience?“ to have specific examples that can be used in action-planning.

Importance of understanding the customer lifecycle

Understanding the stages of customer lifecycle management helps companies improve customer experiences. Pinpointing what’s going right or wrong at each stage of the lifecycle can help you optimize the former and address the latter to ensure that you’re continuing to attract and retain customers.

Nobody is better qualified to provide you with that direct feedback than your current customer base. To manage customer lifecycle challenges and improve your CX strategy, you need to first engage your customers, and then focus on addressing their needs based on the feedback you’ve gathered throughout their time with your brand.

Start by looking at the lifecycle as a whole. That way, you can understand what proportion of your customers are at each stage and whether there are trends in how (and how many) people move between the different customer lifecycle stages.

For example, you may realize that a vast majority of your customers reach the initial purchase stage, but you’re only able to retain very few beyond that. You can then develop a more effective conversion process to increase the number of people who buy from you multiple times and over a longer period.

While it’s critical to understand your holistic customer lifecycle, it’s equally important to look at each stage individually and learn from your customers about what you can do better next time. Gathering feedback, as well as understanding and acting upon the insights you receive from your surveys at each stage of the customer lifecycle will help you do that.

How to manage the customer lifecycle

Finally, let’s cover some of the steps you can take to manage the customer lifecycle at your organization.

1. Identify your target customer base

Knowing who your products and services are for will help you attract the right people. Measure metrics like website visits, click-through rates in your emails, and so on, to know if your marketing campaigns are working to attract your target audience.

2. Share content that matters to your customers

Try sharing content that’s relevant and interesting to your ideal customers. This also means publishing content wherever your customers are – whether that’s on your company’s blog, social media channels, or elsewhere.

Need ideas for content? Ask your customer service teams for common pain points and wins, then create content that helps solve their problems and celebrates what’s working. This is also an opportunity to leverage marketing automation tools, i.e., technology that manages multiple processes and campaigns across different platforms.

3. Improve your customer support

Good customer service means listening to and taking action on how your customers feel about your business. And that sometimes means evolving and adapting your business to meet their needs and desires.

How much does this matter to your business? 52% of global consumers say that most of their customer service interactions are fragmented, and 70% of customers claim to leave a business after one poor customer service experience. Therefore, enhancing your customer service is one of the most valuable things you can do for your company.

4. Provide self-service resources

Build a knowledge base with articles that can help customers learn more about your product or answer common questions without having to reach out to your support team. Or, publish blog posts that educate and inspire. All of these proactive, self-service resources help your customers help themselves – freeing up their time, as well as yours, when a question or issue arises. 

5. Ask for customer reviews and testimonials

More than ever, companies are leveraging the power that real faces and real people have in creating a strong sense of trust with newcomers to their brand. In fact, customer testimonials are so powerful that they can motivate even the most hesitant shoppers to buy.

Strategically placing customer testimonials on your website and throughout your marketing campaigns can help you get more qualified leads, boost sales overall, and ultimately help increase revenue.

6. Measure the customer experience

Customer surveys allow your customers to share how they feel about their interactions with your brand, and in turn, allow you to pinpoint where along the customer journey people experience friction – and take action on that feedback. 

Over time, you can boost critical metrics such as customer loyalty, retention, and engagement by demonstrating that you listen to and improve experiences based on customer feedback. 

Start collecting feedback in minutes with Delighted’s easy and powerful survey templates.

The post What is the customer lifecycle? Definition, stages, and tips appeared first on Delighted.

An employee survey hands the mic to employees and empowers them to share critical feedback as to what’s working – and what isn’t – about their work experience. This feedback then allows you to pinpoint problems, take data-driven action, and make a positive impact on company culture and employee happiness.

Haven’t surveyed your employees before or feel unsure about how to ask the right questions? This guide has everything you need to know about designing and conducting your first employee survey.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• What is an employee survey?
• The importance of employee surveys
• Common types of employee surveys
• How to create an employee survey
• Following up on employee survey feedback
• Additional resources for employee surveys

What is an employee survey? 

An employee survey is a tool used to measure employee attitudes, beliefs, and feelings. Employee surveys can be used to ask employees for feedback on various topics related to their experience at your organization, including their engagement level, overall satisfaction with their job, their intent to stay at your company, or why they’ve chosen to leave. 

The importance of employee surveys

Employee surveys are one of the most effective ways to understand how employees think, act, and feel in your organization.

Sending employee surveys is also essential to: 

• Improving business growth. By surveying employees, employers can measure employee engagement and find out why team members might not be as engaged as they used to be. These insights can inspire organizational improvements that increase engagement and boost productivity. According to Gallup, businesses with highly engaged employees double their odds of business success and see a 23% uptick in profitability.
• Increasing employee performance. Surveys give employees a voice so that they can comment on things like company culture, work-life balance, and the work environment, as well as offer suggestions for improving the employee experience. Why does this matter? Workplace belonging – a feeling when employees are supported, happy, and free to be themselves – leads to a 56% increase in job performance and reduced attrition.
• Maximizing manager effectiveness. Surveys allow employees to drive the conversation anonymously without the risk of feeling judged or scared to express their opinions. With honest employee feedback, managers can make internal changes to their performance and day-to-day employee experiences, improving their team culture and leadership standards.

Common types of employee surveys

Before you can begin surveying your employees, you’ll need to determine what type of employee survey you need based on your objectives. Whether you want to improve your onboarding experience or measure employee satisfaction, the following survey types will help you gather the employee feedback you’re looking for.

Employee satisfaction survey

Employee satisfaction surveys measure how satisfied or content employees are with their roles and the organization. These surveys can ask about employee benefits, general job satisfaction, or intent to stay at the company.

An example of an employee satisfaction survey is an Employee Net Promoter Score, or eNPS, survey. eNPS surveys quantify employee satisfaction to help you measure and track how employees feel about your company over time. 

TIP: Not sure what to ask in your satisfaction survey? Check out our guide to employee satisfaction survey questions or jump into our company satisfaction survey template.

Employee engagement survey

Employee engagement surveys uncover employee attitudes toward the organization at large. These surveys gather information on how engaged employees are with their work, whether they feel acknowledged by their manager or leadership, and how they can feel more supported at the company.

TIP: Check out our free employee engagement survey template to measure your staff’s engagement on a regular basis.

Company culture survey

Company or organizational culture surveys measure how well employees believe the company upholds their core values and if employees have what they need to succeed and feel a sense of belonging. These surveys ask about topics including the company mission statement, camaraderie among employees, and resources available to employees. 

Why does good company culture matter? Poor company culture can result in employee turnover, with data revealing that the more positive rating a work culture has, the less likely employees are to consider quitting.

Pulse survey

Pulse surveys are designed to be a quick check-in survey that captures employee sentiment on a frequent basis (think bi-weekly or bi-monthly). They can ask about anything, including the employee’s day-to-day role responsibilities, job satisfaction, and work environment. 

Since pulse surveys are the most frequent method of surveying, many surveyors use pulse surveys at touchpoints across the employee lifecycle to capture in-the-moment sentiment data. That way, employers can be alerted of concerns that might need immediate attention and monitor how organizational changes affect employees in real time.

360° feedback survey

360° feedback surveys get feedback from every direction: the employee themself, their manager, and other team members they interact with. This gives employees and the organization a holistic view of how the employee is doing at the company. Companies often use 360° feedback surveys during a performance review cycle to measure employee performance, skills, and contributions to the company.

TIP: Try our 360° feedback survey template with pointed questions to get a holistic view of the employee experience.

Onboarding survey

An onboarding survey allows new hires to provide feedback on their recruitment and onboarding experience at your organization. When a new employee engages in an efficient and supportive onboarding process, they are more likely to create meaningful connections to the organization, their team, and their role off the bat.

TIP: Take a look at our onboarding survey questions guide or jump directly into our employee onboarding survey template to start surveying.

Exit interview survey 

Departing employees are treasure troves of insightful feedback. Send exit interview surveys to employees who are leaving your organization to gather honest feedback about their reasons for leaving and their experience at the company. Exit interview surveys are a great way for leaders to understand the direction the company is going and identify necessary changes to reduce turnover.

TIP: Quickly implement employee exit interview surveys at your organization with our free survey template.

How to create an employee survey

Now that you understand various employee survey types, you’re ready to create an employee survey that gets you actionable insights. Not sure where to start? Here are 4 steps to create and distribute your employee survey.

1. Choose a topic and goal for the employee survey 

Every effective survey starts with a purpose or goal. Do you want to get feedback on this year’s benefit offerings? Or set up a recurring pulse survey to keep track of employee advocacy? Focus on one or a few topics at a time to avoid confusing employees and potentially getting muddled results. 

TIP: At the beginning of the survey, include a summary of the survey’s goal and purpose so that employees are motivated to participate. Let them know that their answers will be anonymous and explain how the company will use the survey results to improve the employee experience.

2. Ask the right questions to get the information you need

Now that you have your survey topic and goal in mind, you’ll need to select the questions for your employee survey. We’ve included resources on the best questions to ask, as well as question types to avoid.

Types of questions to include in employee surveys:

• Close-ended questions
• Open-ended questions
• Employee satisfaction survey questions

Types of questions to avoid:

• Double-barreled questions
• Leading questions
• Biased questions

To keep the survey engaging, include different types of questions throughout the survey. Delighted Surveys, a free survey maker, includes a variety of different question types including multiple choice, numerical scale, text, and graphic scale.

3. Establish survey length, timing, and frequency

The length of your employee survey, when you send it, and how often you survey can boost the number of survey responses and their quality. 

Survey length

The shorter your survey, the more likely your employees will complete the survey in its entirety. Limit the survey’s length by only including the questions you need answers to. It’s important to note that the ideal survey should take employees 10 minutes to complete, at most.

Survey timing

If you want to gather feedback about a specific experience or event, distribute your surveys soon after the experience (i.e., an employee training or workshop), when it’s still fresh in their minds and the feedback is as accurate as possible.

Survey frequency

Determine how often you need to survey employees and schedule your survey frequency accordingly. Make sure not to survey the same employees too frequently (i.e., weekly or bi-weekly) to avoid survey fatigue.

4. Customize, review, and distribute your employee survey

Before sending the survey to your employees, go the extra mile to show them you value their feedback with a well-designed survey. 

• Customize your survey branding and thank employees. Add brand colors and a logo to make your survey cohesive with your branding. Include a Thank you page at the end of your survey to thank employees for participating and remind them that their feedback matters.
• Review your survey for any errors or confusing questions. After carefully reviewing your survey, test it with a smaller focus group to find any issues before distributing it to the larger employee base.
• Distribute your survey to employees. Choose a distribution method that will ensure a high response rate from your employees, whether that be eNPS surveys via email, web, or Delighted Surveys via link.

TIP: Optimize your survey design with these 3 tips for surveying employees effectively, provided by Benjamin Granger, Head of EX Advisory Services, Adjunct Faculty at the Qualtrics XM Institute.

Following up on employee survey feedback

Go beyond simply collecting employee feedback by taking action on the insights: create a plan to address negative feedback and communicate that plan to employees to show them you take their feedback seriously. For the areas where your organization received positive feedback, keep up the good work!

A closed-loop feedback system applies to both employees and customers, so make sure to address negative feedback, especially if multiple employees express the same negative sentiment. Closing the loop on employee feedback shows your workforce that you’re committed to continuously improving the employee experience.

Ready to survey your employees? Build your first employee survey today with Delighted’s free survey maker.

Additional resources for employee surveys

For more information on how to optimize your employee survey, take a look at the following resources:

• What is employee experience & why is it important?
• Why and how to improve employee advocacy
• The 7 stages of the employee lifecycle
• 10 strategies for giving and receiving employee feedback
• What is employee engagement?
• How to improve employee satisfaction
• Employee satisfaction survey questions guide

The post Employee surveys: Types, tips, and how-to guide appeared first on Delighted.

By highlighting the positive experiences of customers on your website or other online platforms, you can validate your brand’s awesomeness to potential customers and persuade them to purchase from you. In fact, 78% of shoppers say the presence of social proof – like a positive customer testimonial – increased their likelihood of purchasing from that brand. 

Not sure how to ask for customer testimonials or where you should display them for maximum effect? Don’t worry – we have you covered with all of the essential details about customer testimonials, below.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• What is a customer testimonial?
• Why are customer testimonials so important?
• 8 types of customer testimonials with examples
• How to get customer testimonials
• Testimonial design best practices: Tips for good testimonials

What is a customer testimonial?

A customer testimonial is an endorsement of your product or service from a satisfied customer. Testimonials detail the positive aspects of your brand in the form of written reviews, case studies, social media posts, or videos to increase your trustworthiness to new customers.

Why are customer testimonials so important?

Customer testimonials play a crucial role in marketing as they allow past and current customers to share their experiences and highlight how a business not just met, but exceeded their expectations.

These testimonials also serve as social proof, or the psychological concept of influencing people to follow the actions and opinions of others. When potential customers see positive feedback and success stories from real individuals, it provides them with the confidence that your business is truly loved.

By showcasing these success stories in your marketing materials or on your website, you can attract prospective customers and ultimately increase your conversion rate. After all, nothing convinces new customers more than genuine evidence that others adore your business.

Here’s what research studies show:

• The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer reported that trust in a brand is a top driver of business. Almost two-thirds (64%) of millennial consumers and 60% of Gen Z consumers agree that a good brand reputation may get them to try a product, but if they can’t trust a company, they will soon stop buying from them.  
• The Edelman study also showed that trusted brands benefit from customers’ loyalty. Indeed, 67% of people are more likely to stay loyal to – and advocate for – a brand if they trust them. 
• BigCommerce shared that when a consumer interacts with your review, they are 58% more likely to convert, generate 62% more in revenue per site visitor, and spend 3% more per order.
• Research from Wyzowl revealed that 77% of those who watched a brand’s testimonial said it helped convince them to buy their product or service.

These stats highlight the importance of online reviews and testimonials. Good testimonials help you build (online) credibility, and customers will get the social proof they need to trust you.

8 types of customer testimonials with examples

While all customer testimonials are positive by nature, there are different types you should know about in order to up your chances of attracting as many new customers as possible.

1. Quote testimonials

Whether you are new to the market or a well-established brand, customer quotes are easy testimonials to acquire (more on how to do so in the next section). To grab customers’ attention, combine these quotes with an image of the customer or brand logo, as well as a call to action (CTA), when possible.

2. Social media testimonials

Ask customers to leave feedback on your social platforms after they’ve purchased a product or service. They can tag you, use a unique hashtag, or leave it directly on your page. Embed that social feed of user-generated content on your website, so newcomers can easily see this type of social proof right away.

3. Customer reviews and ratings

In addition to being displayed on your own website, customer reviews can also appear on marketplaces (e.g., Amazon) or review sites (such as Yelp or Capterra). When possible, you can display badges from these sites with an aggregate rating or score to show that you are a trusted vendor. Take a look at an example of a customer review of Delighted on G2 below: 

4. Influencer testimonials

Think of influencers as the celebrities of your industry. An influencer is trusted by your market, so getting an on-the-record endorsement of your company’s offering would be substantial social proof. 

5. Case studies

Case study testimonials are another way to capture social proof and relay it to your audience. They typically include an in-depth explanation of how a customer uses your product with detailed examples of use cases. Case studies are different from interview testimonials in that they convey the analysis and results of using your product or service, whereas interview testimonials focus on a variety of experience topics in a question-and-answer format – usually with little rewrite needed. 

6. Video testimonials

Showcase your customers’ positive experiences with your company using video testimonials. Not only do they tell a story visually, but viewers can see real customers talk about what makes your brand successful in their own words. Check out this video testimonial below from return software and reverse logistics company, Happy Returns. 

7. Interview testimonials

Much like case studies, interview testimonials take a deep dive into customers’ experience with your product or service. The question-and-answer format of interview testimonials prompts the customers to provide details on certain aspects of your business – from customer service interactions to the quality of your product. 

Check out this interview testimonial with Delighted + ChowNow.

8. Blog post testimonials

Asking customers to detail their testimonials in a blog post is an excellent long-form format of social proof. Many companies will review products or services in the form of a blog post and compare them to other solutions on the market. 

Whether you ask your customers to write a blog post for you or simply get their testimonial to include in a blog post, your blog audience will better understand what your product offers. 

“Before we started using Delighted, we were sending email NPS surveys that just sat in our customers’ inboxes. Our response rates were so low that we couldn’t get an accurate NPS score with high probability.

We realized we needed to embed the survey into our customers’ normal workflow and make it very easy to give feedback.

With Delighted, a pop-up question appears on the website that our users can complete in a single click.

After maybe 10 days, we had six times the responses that we’d had within the last six months. It made a huge difference, and now NPS is something we actively participate in improving across the whole business.”

– Ido Breger, VP of Product at Cynet

How to get customer testimonials

Ready to put your knowledge of customer testimonials to work? Here’s how to get started asking for testimonials from happy customers. 

Automate customer feedback surveys 

Skip the manual process of sending surveys one by one by automating customer feedback survey delivery. Set up automatic email surveys (with email tracking) to send a few days after a customer order is delivered or purchased so that you have a steady stream of in-the-moment feedback to use for a potential testimonial. 

Or, if you want to automate the entire testimonial process – collecting feedback, requesting permission, and publishing the testimonials on your website – try out a testimonial software.  That way, you can save time and trust that social proof is already embedded into your experience management program. 

Identify promoters with Net Promoter Score surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys ask customers how likely they are to refer your company to a friend or family member. If the answer is “Very Likely,” that customer is considered a promoter. Sending NPS surveys helps you identify these promoters so that you can follow up with them to ask for a potential testimonial. 

Note: Customer endorsements must have certain elements to maintain credibility. Be sure to ask for approval to reference all or some of the following elements:

• Customer name
• Title and business (if applicable)
• Location
• Product or service purchased
• Customer picture
• Brand logo (if applicable)

You can capture this information using Properties in Delighted’s customer experience solution or by creating your own custom demographic questions with Delighted’s free survey maker.

Send customer satisfaction surveys

In general, Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) surveys measure how impressed customers are with their experience with your company and your product or service. Once you know how customers rate their satisfaction with your brand, you can identify satisfied customers to request a testimonial from. 

Ask loyal customers for their input

Your most loyal customers – those that spend the most per order, make the most purchases overall, or have been with you the longest – are great candidates for testimonial requests. Find these customers in your database and reach out to them for their input. You can even offer them a discount code or early access to new products to thank them for their testimonial.

Testimonial design best practices: Tips for good testimonials

Wondering what makes a great testimonial? No matter what type of testimonial you choose, we’ve outlined some common best practices and tips for crafting top-tier customer testimonials.

• Request specific details. Ask your customer about specific products or features and how they helped make their life a bit easier. When a customer provides specific details about the benefits of a product/feature in their testimonial, potential customers who read it can visualize how they too will experience similar benefits. 
• Highlight top features and use cases. If you want the customer to include certain keywords or features in their testimonial, prompt them by including these details in the customer survey question or by asking them directly. 
• Try using “reverse testimonials.” By asking about common customer doubts in the testimonial request, you can prompt them to share their concerns or pain points in your industry and how your product solved them.
• Use the right testimonial software. As mentioned above, comprehensive testimonial software allows you to collect feedback, request publishing permission, and easily publish testimonials to your website. 

Ready to put these testimonial best practices to the test? Get started for free and start collecting testimonials from customers in minutes. 

The post 8 customer testimonial examples and how to use them appeared first on Delighted.

In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about demographic survey questions, including 12 examples to use in your next survey. 

Jump to:

• What is a demographic?
• What are demographic survey questions?
• Why are demographic survey questions important?
• 12 common demographic survey questions and examples
• Best practices for using demographic survey questions

What is a demographic?

A demographic is a characteristic of a person or population. These characteristics are useful in categorizing a large customer base into smaller groups. By understanding the traits and qualities of your customer base, you can make informed decisions regarding marketing, customer service, sales, and customer experience strategies.

What are demographic survey questions? 

Demographic survey questions ask survey respondents for background information to help survey creators better understand their audience. Demographic questions often ask about respondents’ age, gender, race, ethnicity, income, employment status, level of education, marital status, and more. 

By asking demographic questions in surveys, companies can collect demographic information at scale, and in turn, design a market segmentation strategy that allows them to target and reach the right customers.

Why are demographic survey questions important?

Almost every survey includes demographic questions, but what makes them so important? Below, we’ve detailed a few reasons to collect demographic information from your survey respondents.

More accurate buyer personas

A buyer persona is a fictional snapshot of a specific type of customer, their traits, and their goals. You need demographic data – like your customer’s age range or job function – to create accurate buyer personas.

The more accurate your buyer personas are, the better you will understand your customers’ needs, expectations, and buying habits. This understanding then allows you to create customized customer journey maps for each persona so you can then strategize and improve the customer experience at critical brand touchpoints.

Deeper insight into recurring trends 

Demographic data allows you to sort survey results into categories of your choosing – and identify trends within those categories.

For example, if a product has a sudden uptick in sales, you can use demographic information to understand who’s contributing to this new trend – and use that intel to market to your other segments.

Better understanding of your target audience

By conducting market research and asking demographic survey questions, you gain a deeper understanding of who your customers are now – and who you might want to target in the future.

For example, if you’re launching a new product or service, you want to be strategic about who you’re targeting. Armed with the knowledge of who your current customers are, you can segment your launch to target those with a specific interest or need in what your new product or service offers.

Or, demographic survey insights might reveal a new market opportunity altogether. For instance, if a customer survey reveals that your audience trends towards a predominantly Gen X population but your new product targets Gen Z, you’ll want to consider altering your product positioning and marketing strategies to reach Gen Zers.

Validation of the number of survey responses 

Demographic data helps you ensure that your survey results are fair and representative. Answers to demographic questions will reveal any skewed demographic information, such as an outsized representation of one gender, age group, ethnicity, and so on. 

Especially in foundational or initial surveys, you want to aim for a diverse respondent pool. Then, you can segment your audience to target specific groups.

12 common demographic survey questions with examples

Now that we’ve covered what demographic survey questions are and why they’re important, let’s take a closer look at some common question types and examples of how to ask them.

1. Gender

Gender is one of the most common demographic survey questions. Asking about gender can be as simple as “What is your gender identity?” followed by multiple choice answers. Another option is to ask respondents in an open-ended question format with a free-response box.

Example: “What is your gender identity?”

A. Female
B. Male
C. Transgender
D. Nonbinary
E. Other (please specify)
F. Prefer not to say

2. Age

Age is another common demographic survey question as it helps survey creators identify not only the ages of their customers, but also their generations. Generational data can be of particular interest to your marketing team and strategy, especially regarding how and where to reach the target generation.

TIP: When asking about age, it helps to provide age ranges in your answer options. This makes it easier to analyze survey data based on age groups as opposed to every distinct age. It also allows customers who aren’t comfortable sharing their exact age with you to answer instead of skipping the question.

Example: “How old are you?”

A. Under 18
B. 18-24 years old
C. 25-34 years old
D. 35-44 years old
E. 45-54 years old
F. 55-64 years old
G. 65+ years old

3. Ethnicity

Today, many countries are made up of people with myriad ethnic backgrounds, so it can be useful to survey creators to have a better understanding of this demographic type.

When asking about ethnicity in a survey, there are a couple of best practices to follow: (1) give respondents the opportunity to select more than one ethnicity as many people identify this way, and (2) always provide the option to not answer the question.

Example: “What is your ethnic background?”

A. White/Caucasian
B. Asian
C. Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander
D. Hispanic or Latino
E. African-American
F. Native American
G. Two or more
H. Other (please specify)
I. Unknown
J. Prefer not to say

4. Location

Depending on your business, it may be necessary to understand where your customers are physically located. For global businesses, you may want to know the country, territory, and/or state of residence. For local businesses, you may want the city, town, or zip code.

To make it easy to collect (and later analyze) this demographic information, you can use a drop-down list format, e.g., a list of the 50 U.S. states.

Example: “Where do you live?”

A. United States
B. Mexico
C. Canada
D. Brazil
E. Spain
F. France
G. Other (please specify)
H. Prefer not to say

5. Education

Gathering information about customers’ highest level of education can be useful when segmenting your survey data, building a strong buyer persona profile, or avoiding any potential biases in your survey pool.

Example: “What is your level of education?”

A. Less than High School
B. High school (including GED)
C. Some college (no degree)
D. Technical certification
E. Associate degree (2-year)
F. Bachelor’s degree (4-year)
G. Master’s degree
H. Doctoral degree
I. Professional degree (JD, MD)
J. Prefer not to say

6. Marital status

Marital status can help you better understand the needs and expectations of your audience – especially if your product or service targets one demographic over another.

Example: “What is your marital status?”

A. Married
B. Widowed
C. Divorced
D. Separated
E. Single
F. Prefer not to say

7. Employment

This demographic question allows survey creators to gauge the segment of the population their products and services appeal to and are purchased by.

Example: “What is your employment status?”

A. Full-time
B. Part-time
C. Contract or temporary
D. Retired
E. Unemployed
F. Unable to work
G. Other (please specify)
H. Prefer not to say

8. Annual household income

Asking about annual household income can help you better understand your target audience’s buying power.

Example: “What is your annual household income?”

A. $0-$29,999
B. $30,000-$59,999
C. $60,000-$89,999
D. $90,000-$119,999
E. $120,000+
F. Prefer not to say

9. Political preferences

While a sometimes polarizing topic, knowing your customers’ political preferences can reveal what’s important to them, which can be particularly useful when launching and marketing new products and services.

Example: “Which of the following groups do your political views align with?”

A. Democrat
B. Republican
C. Independent
D. Other (please specify)
E. Don’t know
F. Prefer not to say

10. Family and dependents

While asking about marital status helps you understand your customers on one level, asking about family and dependents reveals even deeper insights about their behaviors and needs.

Example: “How many dependents live in your home?”

A. None
B. 1
C. 2
D. 3
E. 4+
F. Prefer not to say

11. Language

A person’s primary language might lend to cultural upbringing, as well as traditional customs and norms. Understanding the language(s) your audience speaks can also help you market to them better – and possibly in new ways.

Example: “What is the primary language spoken in your home?”

A. English
B. Spanish
C. French
D. Italian
E. Portuguese
F. Mandarin
G. Arabic
H. Urdu
I. Other (please specify)
J. Prefer not to say

12. Religion

Religion is a cultural influence that helps you understand your customers’ values and beliefs. Some respondents may not be religious, so it’s a good idea to include an option for that.

Example: “Do you identify with any of the following religious groups?”

A. Catholicism/Christianity
B. Judaism
C. Islam
D. Buddhism
E. Hinduism
F. None
G. Other (please specify)
H. Prefer not to say

Best practices for using demographic survey questions 

Keep these 5 best practices in mind as you design your survey and demographic questions.

1. Establish the goal of your survey 

Knowing the goal of your survey helps you get crystal clear on what demographic information is necessary for your research and why.

TIP: As you’re designing your survey, consider explaining the survey’s purpose in an introduction message. Whether you’re conducting market research for a new service or you want to better align your product with your customers’ needs, add clarity upfront so your survey respondent can feel more comfortable completing your survey.

2. Decide which demographic survey questions to include 

Not every survey needs to include every type of demographic question. That said, you do want to ask the right questions to glean the insights you need for analysis and to ensure fair representation.

Our advice? Think about your end goal, and work backward to include the questions that will help you achieve that goal.

3. Choose which demographic questions are mandatory 

You may deem some demographic questions necessary for understanding your audience, validating the responses, and ensuring a fair representation of your customer base. In that case, you can choose to make some questions mandatory, meaning a respondent cannot move on until they’ve provided an answer.

However, you want to be as inclusive as possible; some respondents may feel a question is too personal to answer or that the list of answer options doesn’t include an answer that applies to them. 

The solution? Provide options for respondents to opt out of answering (more on this below) or provide the option to select “other” with an open-field text box where respondents can type in their responses.

4. Allow respondents to opt out of answering 

As you saw in many of the example survey questions above, allowing respondents to opt out of answering questions – especially deeply personal or potentially irrelevant questions – is a survey design best practice.

You want your surveys to be a safe place for respondents to share their thoughts and feelings. Giving respondents the option to select “prefer not to answer” is one way to help them feel comfortable to participate in the questions they do want to answer – and move on from the ones they don’t.

5. Determine where to include your demographic questions 

Knowing where to ask demographic questions is just as important as what you ask.

Demographic survey questions should be placed at the end of your survey so that respondents aren’t met with personal questions right away. Keep your respondent’s focus on the questions that matter most to your goal, first, and save the additional demographic questions for the end. That way, the customers who aren’t as willing to share sensitive information are still able to provide their initial insights before dropping off.

TIP: Consider making your survey anonymous. If you let your survey respondent know ahead of time that their first and last name won’t be tied to their responses, they might be more inclined to share personal information.

With demographic survey data, you can understand your audience, segment data by category, and target new and existing customers with data-backed strategies. Ready to use demographic questions in your surveys? Start sending free surveys with Delighted today.

The post 12 demographic survey questions (with examples)  appeared first on Delighted.

In this post, we’ll explain what open-ended questions are, the difference between closed and open-ended questions (including when to use both), and examples of open-ended questions to use in your surveys. 

What is an open-ended question?

Open-ended questions begin with “why,” “how,” or “what” and require the respondent to provide more than a single-word answer. Unlike close-ended questions that only need a simple “yes” or “no” to answer the question, open-ended questions prompt the respondent to detail their response in a free response format.

With open-ended questions, respondents have the opportunity to convey how they think and feel. Collecting this type of verbatim feedback can unveil insights and recurring sentiment trends that you may not have been aware of.

Open-ended vs. close-ended questions

Open and close-ended questions collect completely different types of survey data. Open-ended questions help survey creators collect qualitative (non-numerical) data to understand respondents’ thoughts and feelings. Close-ended questions, on the other hand, collect quantitative (numerical) data through predetermined answers. 

Gathering both qualitative and quantitative data gives you the full picture of your survey results, with data you can use for statistical analysis and context to fill in the gaps.

15 open-ended question examples

Open-ended questions encourage respondents to explain their answers in their own words, without restriction. Whether you’re gathering insights on the customer, employee, or product experience, we’ve gathered common examples of open-ended questions to use in your surveys.

Open-ended questions for customer feedback

• Tell us a bit more about why you chose [rating/option].
• What motivated you to make this purchase today?
• What made you choose our [product/service] over competitors?
• What are some ways we can improve?
• Is there anything else you would like us to know?

Open-ended questions for employee feedback

• How does this company help you reach your career goals?
• What can your manager do to support development in your role?
• How can this company better support your well-being?
• What resources or technology do you need to work more effectively?
• How trustworthy do you find the leadership of this company?

Open-ended questions for product feedback

• What can we do to improve this product?
• How do you use this product?
• How does this product make you feel and why?
• What do you like about this product and why?
• What do you dislike about this product and why?

When to use open-ended questions: 4 use cases

While open-ended questions are a great addition to any survey, it’s important to understand what type of verbatim feedback you want to collect and why. During the survey creation process, ask yourself, “How will this free response feedback help me reach my survey goals?” 

Here are a few examples of when and why you would want to gather additional information:

1. Get context on answers to close-ended questions and take action.

Asking an open-ended question directly after a close-ended question can help you learn the “why” behind a respondent’s initial score or multiple choice answer. This is specifically useful when you want to take steps to rectify poor experiences across the customer journey. 

For example, if you ask the Yes/No question, “Would you shop with us again?” and 40% of your respondents answered with a simple “No,” understanding why they would not shop again is necessary to make things right and reduce customer churn.

2. Collect information about your target audience and their needs.

Open-ended questions are great for collecting information on customers when you’re developing marketing campaigns and brand messaging. Consider gathering data such as what factors motivate them to make a purchase, brands they already buy from, or simply what they’re looking for in a certain type of product. This information can help you build buyer personas, attract your target audience, and shape your products around what they look for in a brand.

3. Gain a deeper understanding of your employees.

Get a read on employee happiness and employee engagement by allowing employees to answer sensitive organizational questions freely and anonymously. Through this, you can uncover detailed aspects of the current employee experience – including satisfaction with their benefits package, manager’s leadership style, or any changes to company policy.

4. Conduct product-market research.

Consider asking open-ended questions in product/market fit surveys to gather specific information on whether there is a market need for a new product you’re planning to launch or if the product you already launched is meeting the needs of your customers. That way, you can feel confident that your product positioning aligns with market needs and that your product is a highly competitive solution to customer problems.

When to use both open and close-ended questions

As mentioned, including both types of survey questions (instead of one or the other) can provide meaningful answers that paint a more detailed picture of your feedback.

You can use both question types to:

• Find patterns in your survey data from close-ended questions and the story behind those patterns with open-ended questions.
• Collect anonymous data from close-ended questions and specific details like email addresses or products purchased with open-ended questions.
• Formulate a theory based on answers to open-ended questions and verify if the theory was correct with data from close-ended questions.

Tips for asking open-ended questions

Below are some best practice tips to follow as you begin creating your own open-ended questions.

Determine the need for an open-ended question

Before including an open-ended question in your survey, make sure to ask yourself if this question needs to be an open-ended question or if a close-ended question will do. 

For example, demographic questions like age, gender identity, income level, and marital status can be asked with predetermined single select answers. Questions about opinions, feelings, or general thoughts, however, are great opportunities for the respondent to write their answer freely in an open-text box.

Limit how many open-ended questions you ask

Every question in your survey doesn’t need to be open-ended; in fact, they shouldn’t all be. Limiting the number of open-ended questions you ask benefits your survey in that respondents don’t have to spend a significant amount of time writing their answers in their own words. A shorter survey can increase survey response rate, giving you more survey data to work with. 

Rewrite close-ended questions as open-ended questions

One exercise you can use to practice the art of asking open-ended questions is turning close-ended questions into open-ended ones. Take a look at some of your previous surveys to create a list of close-ended questions. Or, select from these example questions.

Then, rewrite each question from your list as an open-ended question. For example, the question “How likely are you to recommend our company to a friend or family member?” can be rewritten as an open-ended question like “What would motivate you to recommend our company to a friend or family member?” 

Consider making some open-ended questions optional

Much like including too many open-ended questions, requiring respondents to answer every open-ended question in your survey may hurt your survey completion rate. If respondents aren’t able or willing to provide a written response to all survey questions, they may not complete your survey.

Consider making open-ended questions in your survey optional, especially if your survey has a lot of them. That way, you can meet respondents where they are and get as much information from them as possible.

Ready to put your knowledge of open-ended questions to the test? Sign up for free to create and send surveys in minutes.

The post Open-ended questions: Definition, examples, and tips appeared first on Delighted.

Below, we’ve taken a closer look at what customer touchpoints are, why they’re important, examples of touchpoints across the customer journey, as well as how to improve these micro-experiences with surveys.

Jump to:

1. What are customer touchpoints?
2. Why are customer touchpoints important? 
3. Customer touchpoint examples
4. Touchpoints before a purchase
5. Touchpoints during a purchase
6. Touchpoints after a purchase
7. How to identify customer touchpoints
8. Improving the customer journey with touchpoint surveys

What are customer touchpoints? 

Customer touchpoints are the moments of customer contact throughout the customer journey. For example, a customer may interact with your brand while searching your website, via your social media channels, shopping at your store, or chatting with your customer service team. 

These points of interaction play a pivotal role in the overall customer experience and when optimized correctly, can improve customer loyalty and retention.

Why are customer touchpoints important? 

To understand your customer experience, you must first understand the singular interactions that your customers have with your brand. When things are going well with your customers, it might not seem critical to get so granular. 

But, understanding the fine details of how your customer interacts with your brand, including what they think and do before, during, and after a purchase, will help you identify opportunities to improve or optimize their experience at each touchpoint.

Customer touchpoint examples

As mentioned above, customer touchpoints can happen before, during, or after a purchase. Customer touchpoints can also happen directly, e.g., when there’s a physical interaction with your brand (such as in a brick-and-mortar store), or indirectly, e.g., when third parties (such as social media influencers) are involved.

Here are some other examples of customer touchpoints: 

• Online advertising, print ads, and TV commercials
• Referrals
• Social media, including organic, influencer, and sponsored posts
• Virtual and in-person events
• Blog posts
• Your company website
• Email campaigns
• Product catalogs
• Physical and digital stores
• Customer service touchpoints, including interactions with cashiers, contact centers, sales reps, and so on
• Product and peer reviews
• Chatbot conversations
• Point of sale
• Subscription renewals
• Customer feedback surveys

Below, we’ve taken a closer look at some of the customer interactions on this list that occur across the customer journey.

Touchpoints before a purchase 

1. Online advertising 

Online ads, such as pop-ups or banners, are a great way to reach new customers. This customer touchpoint can also help you attract new people to your website from other websites.

2. Referrals

Happy customers not only provide you with positive feedback, but they can also bring new revenue your way. A referral program encourages loyal customers – with incentives – to refer the people they know to your company. Your customers then earn a reward when a new customer makes a purchase as a result of their referral.

TIP: Offer your existing customers a referral code or link to share with family and friends. Go a step further by offering a special discount to the new customer to encourage them to buy. 

3. Social media 

While social media can apply to all parts of the purchasing timeline (before, during, and after a purchase), many new customers will discover your brand through your social channels. 

Nowadays, using social media to reach your audience is a must. The content you share should not only convey who you are as a brand, but also deliver value to your target audience. 

Social media channels are an essential customer touchpoint, offering two-way communication with existing and potential customers. As a rule of thumb, you should routinely monitor customers’ comments on your channels and engage with your customers in a way that demonstrates you hear them and value their feedback.

4. Blog posts

You’re here reading this blog post right now – and that alone demonstrates a meaningful customer touchpoint. Like social media posts, blog posts should always add value by sharing content relevant to your audience.

5. Your company website 

Your company’s website is the ultimate online destination for customers, as it shares a bit of everything: your brand story, mission and values, products and services, and so on. 

It should be easy to navigate and help existing or new customers get the answers they’re looking for quickly and effortlessly.

Unsure if your company website hits the mark? You can leverage website surveys to hear from website visitors directly about their website experience.

Touchpoints during a purchase 

6. Chatbot conversations

Similar to customer service touchpoints, chatbot conversations can highlight customer needs and friction points. They’re also a great way to provide quick, automated support to customers with common questions or issues without involving your service team.

7. Customer reviews

Customer reviews and testimonials provide powerful social proof for your business. Whenever possible, display and promote them on your company website, social media channels, and marketing materials. A review may be just what a new customer needs to click “purchase.”

Want to simplify the process of gathering reviews from your customers? You can ask for feedback, request permission, and publish testimonials with Delighted’s all-in-one platform.

8. Point of sale

The point of sale (POS) is the final customer touchpoint before a purchase. Whether customers purchase from your company website, in-store, or both, make sure this touchpoint is truly frictionless to close the deal.

Touchpoints after a purchase 

9. Customer service touchpoints 

If a customer runs into an issue with their order following a purchase, their first point of contact is likely a member of your customer service team. Whether their online order is delayed or their purchase didn’t meet their expectations, how their issue is handled can make or break their experience with your brand and ultimately determine whether they purchase from you again.

TIP: Creating a self-service knowledge base for the 69% of customers who prefer to resolve issues on their own can help reduce customer support tickets.

If your online resources can’t quite resolve their conundrum, your customer service team can take it from there. Customer effort score surveys are an easy way to make sure your support channels are solving customer concerns quickly and effortlessly.

10. Saying thank you

A simple expression of gratitude can go a long way in building customer loyalty and satisfaction. Some companies, like direct-to-consumer healthcare apparel and lifestyle brand FIGS, go above and beyond to show appreciation to their valued customers. 

Their Senior Vice President of Customer Experience (CX) Michael Bair tells Delighted about their FIGSLove/Surprise and Delight program – an initiative that leverages customer conversations via phone, email, text messages, or chats to find unique ways to follow up with a thank-you gift.

“If a customer lets us know (or we happen to find out) that they’ve started a new practice, we’ll send them a bottle of champagne or cider as a surprise. Or, if they have an anniversary coming up, then we’ll send them flowers. Even if they’re having a rough day, we’ll send them a spa package. It’s by far the most fun thing we get to do on the CX team.”

Michael Blair, Senior Vice President of CX at FIGS

Another way to thank customers for choosing your brand is to include a “Thank you” page at the end of a survey, especially if the customer provided feedback after a purchase. Thanking the customer for their time ensures they know you value and appreciate them.

11. Email newsletters

Much like your blog and social media posts, it’s important to ensure your email newsletters add value for your customers to keep them engaged. When a customer signs up to receive email newsletters, you can use that line of communication as an opportunity to upsell new features or products that will excite your customer and help them reach their goals.

TIP: Delighted’s newsletter introduces step-by-step experience guides, product updates, and educational e-books to all subscribers. When you subscribe to our blog at the end of this post, you’re automatically opted in to receive our monthly newsletter. 

12. Community management

Community can happen in a variety of places – both online, e.g., on social channels or Slack, as well as in person. But regardless of where your customers congregate and interact with your brand, be sure to tune in.

This can look like: 

• Monitoring and engaging with customers through your social channels
• Inviting them to a dedicated online community to communicate with you in real time (Facebook group, Slack channel, etc.)
• Organizing in-person events at your store(s) or at conferences

Community touchpoints are a powerful way to increase customer satisfaction, as well as build a loyal customer base.

Did you know? You can join the Delighted Community on Slack to connect with other Delighted users, get ideas about how to structure your experience management program, and learn how to get the most out of Delighted.

13. Subscription renewals

If you’re a subscription-based business, renewals are crucial to your revenue model. Existing customers should find it as easy as possible to remain a customer when their contract is up.

14. Customer feedback surveys

In order to meet customers’ expectations and improve the customer experience along the way, you need to know what your customers feel and think about everything – including your business, your customer service, your policies, your employees, and your online shopping experience.

To get this information, you’ll need to ask your customers directly through customer feedback surveys. 

Customer feedback surveys provide you with the opportunity to see what is and isn’t working at your various customer touchpoints, so you can make data-based decisions to close the gaps in your customer experience.

How to identify customer touchpoints

By analyzing your customer interactions, you can identify and map your customer touchpoints. Here’s how to get started. 

1. Think about your target audience

Do you know your target audience? Do you meet them where they are? Keep in mind that as your business and technologies evolve, you might need to introduce new touchpoints (such as engaging on a new social media platform or introducing a chatbot on your website) to interact with them. 

Be sure to consider their unique needs. For example, if you’re an online bookstore, you may want to offer promo codes or referral links to encourage existing customers to tell the other members of their book club about your store. 

2. Identify your customers’ frequent interactions

Here’s where you put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think through questions like: 

• How do I decide where to make a purchase? 
• Where do I turn when I have a problem with my purchase? 
• How do I learn about new products or services? 
• Where do I submit feedback for a purchase I loved or didn’t love? 

The answers to these questions tell you where your customers already interact with your brand, where your business should be engaging with customers, and when you should be asking for their feedback.

3. Create a customer journey map

A customer journey map is a visual storyline of every interaction a customer has with a service, brand, or product. Creating a journey map helps your company understand your customers’ processes, needs, and perceptions. 

It can also highlight any changes that need to be made to your product or service, customer experience, and business strategy.

4. Categorize your touchpoints

By grouping customer touchpoints into before, during, and after a purchase, you can identify the touchpoints that are serving your business well and the ones that need improvement. 

You may find categorizing touchpoints in other ways beneficial to your business, too. For example, you could categorize by digital vs. in-person interactions, specific brands or products; and so on.

Improving touchpoint experiences with surveys

Consider this: Many people won’t bother contacting tech support if there’s a flaw in your online checkout process. If they can get through the process, they’ll deal with the inconvenience and move on without giving you feedback. And inconvenient experiences are just one of many factors that contribute to diminished customer trust. 

However, when a customer is specifically asked to give feedback, they’re more likely to share their frustrations, including an inconvenient checkout experience. If you don’t know about these points of frustration, you won’t be able to solve the problems and ease the experience for new and returning customers. 

Asking for customer feedback will help you spot any areas of friction at specific touchpoints along a customer journey map and allow you to pinpoint where you need to change or improve to create a great customer experience overall. 

For example, with Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, you can customize your NPS question and send the survey at particular touchpoints to assess and measure loyalty. With an NPS tool, you can then analyze and act on that customer feedback to improve or optimize an individual touchpoint or series of touchpoints based on the verbatim customer insights.

You can use Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) surveys to ask customers about their satisfaction with a product or service they purchased. Or, send a CSAT survey to double-check that your checkout process runs smoothly using customer satisfaction software. Doing so will help you understand if they have any issues that you can address and help you increase customer satisfaction.

You can also ask for feedback to measure customer effort along the customer journey. Reduced customer effort – i.e., less friction at customer touchpoints – is a key driver of customer retention. With Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys using a CES software, you can measure customer effort and take action to improve it. 

Providing ways for loyal customers to address issues that occur along the customer journey will show that you care about them and want to work to make their experiences with your brand the best they can be.

When crafted with intention, customer surveys can reveal lots of information about specific touchpoints in the customer journey you wouldn’t discover any other way.

Get feedback in minutes by signing up to send customer surveys at no cost.

The post What are customer touchpoints and how to identify them (with examples) appeared first on Delighted.

Customer success management can also reduce churn, lower customer acquisition costs, and increase revenue. Since acquiring a new customer can cost 7x more than retaining an existing customer, focusing on long-term customer success is crucial for growing businesses.

In this post, we’ll cover:

• What is customer success?
• Customer success vs. customer support
• Customer success vs. account management
• Customer success vs. customer experience
• Why is customer success important?
• 7 tips for creating a strong customer success program
• Help customers achieve success with the right tools

What is customer success?

Customer success is using your products and services to proactively solve customer problems before they arise and answer customer questions before they’re asked. Strong customer success programs can increase customer loyalty and retention by fostering positive relationships between customers and your brand.

The term “customer success” oftentimes gets misunderstood as being the same as “customer support” or “customer experience.” While the terms are connected, it’s important to understand their key differences and how each plays a role in a successful customer-focused organization.

Customer success vs. customer support

Customer success is a proactive partnership between an organization and its customer. Customer success teams consider customer goals at the start of the relationship and advise ways to achieve those objectives with their product or service offerings. Customer success teams can stay ahead of churn using recurring check-in meetings, asking for feedback across the customer journey, and taking action on that feedback to improve customer relationships. 

Customer support (or customer service) involves working on the front lines with customers. From answering phone calls to responding to emails and live chats, customer support teams answer questions reactively to solve immediate customer problems.

Customer success vs. account management

Similar to customer support, account management teams typically handle customer problems after they arise. In this case, account managers support a particular set of dedicated customers.

These customers are often considered VIPs: those with high-value accounts or accounts that have the potential to bring in new revenue.

Both account managers and customer success teams focus on customers’ overall health, but account managers do so through the lens of growing the business and bringing in revenue.

Next, we’ll go over the difference between customer success and customer experience to understand the true impact of customer success.

Customer success vs. customer experience

Customer experience overlaps with both customer success and customer support but also has notable differences. 

Customer experience, or CX, is focused on creating a seamless experience for all customers who engage with your brand, whether that be through interactions, user-friendly help center solutions, or product usability. Organizations routinely measure CX metrics to understand how their brand is seen and experienced by customers and to make large-scale decisions based on the insights.

On the other hand, customer success focuses on the individual customer and whether they are getting value from the product. Is your product meeting their needs and aligning with the product promise? The key to customer success is unlocking additional capabilities within the product that meet the deeper needs of the customer. 

When companies implement customer success and customer experience, they can unlock more revenue since they can create more value for their customers through cross- or up-selling. We’ll go into more detail on building a strong customer success program later in the post.

Why is customer success important? 

A strong customer success program makes all the difference in customer satisfaction. With 67% of customers saying their standard for good experiences is higher than they’ve ever been, customer success is more important now than ever.

When customers feel that your teams and products help them be successful, you can earn a lifetime of loyalty from them and ultimately reduce overall customer churn. 

Investing in customer success will also increase your number of customer referrals because successful customers often share their positive experiences with others. After all, happy customers can become your biggest advocates.

7 tips for a strong customer success program

A strong customer success program is not created overnight; it takes active planning and preparation. We’ve outlined 7 tips you can use to integrate customer success into your organization. 

1. Make customer success a company-wide priority

Customer success is most effective when every team has a role in ensuring customers accomplish their goals. Encourage open communication between departments to collaboratively identify customer needs and action plans for how you will meet them. 

To do this, you can start by educating all departments on customer success, its value, and how to implement it. Here are some ideas on how to do that: 

• Determine which customer success metrics are most applicable to each department. For example, your product team may benefit from monitoring their product adoption rate, while your customer support department would benefit from tracking their Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). These metrics can then be used to set quarterly, measurable customer success goals that each team can strive to achieve.
• Include team members on kick-off calls. Since customer success teams are typically responsible for onboarding customers, you could include members of your product or sales teams on your kick-off calls to inquire about new features or products that may interest customers.
• Brainstorm customer pain points with other departments. For example, during a cross-functional brainstorming session, you can ask your sales team which questions are asked most by potential customers during prospecting calls. With that information in mind, you can then update your website to answer incoming customers’ FAQs proactively.

Anticipating what customers will ask about or look for in your product will allow you to exceed their expectations. With that, you can prioritize customer success by keeping it front of mind for all internal and external business operations.

2. Implement a customer success team

To create a more holistic plan for customer success, you can implement a customer success team outside your customer service or support team, led by a customer success manager (CSM). 

While only some businesses will have the bandwidth and resources for a dedicated customer success team, assigning a few individuals with customer success duties can make all the difference. However, hiring a customer success manager may be in your best interest as your business grows. 

Why hire a CSM? Investing in a customer success manager can increase customer satisfaction, support long-term business growth, and free up the bandwidth of other team members tasked with customer support. Wondering how many CSMs to hire? Forbes recommends having one customer success manager for every 50 customers. 

Hiring a CSM can also expedite business growth through a personalized renewal process: in fact, startups that manage customer renewals better than their competitors grow faster and require less capital. 

In the meantime, look to your customer service or support team to uncover common customer pain points and work on solving them. Once you know your customers’ end goal, your customer success teams can transform one-off interactions into a larger-scale success program.

3. Design an onboarding experience set up for customer success

When it comes to implementing customer success, the onboarding process is a crucial point in the customer journey where you can make a positive first impression.

Onboarding is also a great place to ask questions about the customer’s goals, expectations for the partnership, how they measure success (Net Promoter Score, customer churn, etc.), and how you will request their feedback. 

CSMs and their teams onboard customers by educating them on how to use your product to best meet their needs. Once you’re aware of the customer’s goals, point out features of your product that will be the most helpful to them. 

When you understand how your customers perceive success, you can begin to set milestones to ensure they succeed with your guidance.

4. Set up a knowledge base

When customers have questions about your product or encounter an issue, 63% begin by searching the brand’s online resources. Why? Self-service solutions are much faster than creating a support ticket, calling customer support, or detailing the issue in an email. Customers wait an average of 7 hours to get a response to a customer support ticket and about 3½ days to resolve their issue. 

Instead of having all inquiries go to your customer support team, be proactive and provide a self-service knowledge base or help center that can answer customer questions quickly and effectively. 69% of customers prefer to resolve issues on their own, so making sure resources are available for them to use will set you and your customers up for success. 

At Delighted, we revamped our Help Center in early 2020 and noticed a significant decrease in customer support volume, even with an increase in our customer base. Investing in a comprehensive knowledge library for your customers saves you time and bandwidth.

5. Determine customer success metrics to track regularly

Tracking customer success metrics keeps you accountable and aware of how well you’re helping customers achieve their desired results.

Below are some examples of customer success metrics to track.

Customer lifetime value (CLV) 

Customer lifetime value uses a formula to calculate how much a customer is worth to your business in revenue throughout their customer lifespan. Track this metric to earn more revenue from loyal customers over time.

Customer retention rate 

Customer retention is how well your business keeps customers returning for repeat purchases over a period of time. A great way to keep a pulse on customer retention is by tracking your customer retention rate. Since retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, CS teams should keep a close eye on their customer retention rate and take action to retain customers.

Revenue churn rate or MRR churn

Revenue churn, also known as monthly recurring revenue (MRR) churn, is the amount of revenue lost when a customer churns. Revenue churn rate is an important metric to measure revenue loss from one month to the next. If you see an increase in revenue churn rate, you’ll need to take the necessary steps to decrease customer churn.

Customer churn rate

Customer churn is when customers stop using your product or service and are no longer customers. Customer churn differs from customer retention, which determines how often you retain customers.

Instead, customer churn measures how often you lose a customer by calculating your customer churn rate. With knowledge of your churn rate, you can take steps to retain customers and prevent them from churning in the first place.

Product adoption rate

Product adoption is when customers become aware of your product and consistently engage. It’s measured using product adoption rate or the number of new, active customers. 

Most companies use breadth of adoption to measure how engaged customers are, which measures how much of the product the customer uses. However, the breadth of adoption metric varies from company to company based on their product or service. 

CS teams can use product adoption rate to assess account health and identify customers who are either not using the product frequently or only using some product features.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) 

Net Promoter Score is a quantitative measurement of how likely customers are to recommend your brand to someone they know. Monitoring NPS is an excellent customer success metric to track to find promoters of your brand and encourage referrals. 

Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)

Customer Satisfaction Score is another quantitative metric used to determine how satisfied your customers are with an experience. CSAT scores measure their satisfaction with your product, service, or interaction with customer support.

Measuring and tracking your CSAT score is an actionable way to know whether your current processes help your customers succeed and which processes may need improvement. 

TIP: Learn the answer to “what is CSAT?” and more in our guide.

Customer Effort Score (CES) 

Customer Effort Score measures how much effort a customer has to make to complete an action, from purchasing a product to getting the answers they need on a customer support call. CES is a crucial metric to track if you deem success as creating a product or service that is easy to use. 

Using concrete data to track customer success leaves no room for doubt when ensuring your customers achieve success. 

6. Create a customer feedback program

Another way to measure customer success is by asking for direct feedback through a customer feedback program. Have customers tell you whether or not they’re achieving their desired results. That way, you can keep a pulse on customer sentiment across the partnership and uncover areas where you can improve your customer success program. 

Establishing a feedback listening program will allow you to act quickly on insights, build customer trust, stay ahead of potential disgruntled conversations, and prevent churn.  

TIP: Customer success managers can have Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR) to update team goals, measure progress toward those goals, and identify improvement areas. QBRs are a great way to gather customer feedback in-person or virtually and check in on overall account health.

7. Close the loop on customer feedback

Once you’ve collected feedback from your customers, close the loop on their feedback with a timely response. 

If you receive positive feedback, encourage those customers to share their experience by leaving a review or referring a colleague. For negative feedback, direct customers to the appropriate team, depending on their feedback, to resolve the issue and prevent it from reoccurring. 

Taking the appropriate action after receiving feedback shows your customers you’re dedicated to their success.

Help customers achieve success with the right tools

Customer success is one of the many pillars of successful customer experience and high customer retention: creating positive experiences for customers keeps them coming back. 

Customers’ standards are higher than ever, and they are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience. Whether you want to track important customer success metrics or kick-start your customer feedback program, Delighted surveys help you prioritize customer success. 

Get feedback in minutes by signing up to send customer surveys at no cost.

The post What is customer success? appeared first on Delighted.

Even after careful consideration during the survey creation process, you notice your survey response rate is lower than expected. What could be causing this? 

Enter – nonresponse bias. 

Let’s break down the definition of nonresponse bias and how you can give your survey response rate a boost with 6 easy-to-implement tips. 

What is nonresponse bias? 

Nonresponse bias occurs when a survey participant is unable or unwilling to respond to your survey or survey question. While the reasoning for this bias can vary from person to person, respondents who refuse to participate can be a source of error in your survey data that makes it less accurate.

When measuring customer loyalty and retention, a large number of unanswered responses could lead to business decisions built on skewed data. 

Finding techniques to reduce nonresponse bias off the bat can make a significant impact on long-term business growth. 

What causes nonresponse bias?

There are many reasons why people may not respond to your survey – they might see your survey and forget to respond, or perhaps they don’t want to complete it that day for one reason or another. In some cases, nonresponse bias can result from aspects of your survey that you may not have considered. 

For example, common causes of nonresponse bias include but aren’t limited to:

• Inadequate survey design. If your survey isn’t clear and concise, it can cause respondents to drop off and result in an incomplete survey. Remember to implement survey design best practices so that respondents are more inclined to take and complete your survey. 
• Incorrect survey audience. Before designing and distributing your survey, you should ask yourself if you’re sending it to the correct audience. Make sure the survey is relevant to the audience you’re surveying. For example, if you’re asking about a new product, make sure you’re only surveying individuals with a record of purchasing that product.
• Inability to reach respondents. When surveys don’t reach respondents, they’re unable to take your survey and provide impactful data. Ensure you have up-to-date contact information from your survey audience to prevent bounced emails. Also, if you think your survey may have been flagged as spam, try these tactics to keep surveys out of spam folders.

Now that we’ve covered the potential causes of nonresponse bias, let’s dive into why it’s important to reduce it.

Why is nonresponse bias a problem?

Nonresponse bias can lead to inconclusive results and prevents your survey from fulfilling its purpose, no matter the survey’s goal. 

For example, let’s say you’re gathering data on whether or not a feature is still adding value to your product. If not enough of your sample completed the survey, there might not be sufficient data to make an informed decision on whether to keep the feature as-is, improve it, or go in another direction entirely. 

Survey data is most informative when you’re getting the complete picture. Avoiding nonresponse bias not only makes an impact on survey response and completion rates but also on important decision-making. 

Nonresponse vs. response bias

While nonresponse bias occurs when respondents don’t complete or respond to surveys, response bias is a bit different: response bias (or survey bias) occurs when the survey encourages the respondent to answer a question or questions in a particular way. 

Response bias affects the accuracy of your survey data because the respondent’s input is no longer objective and is influenced by the survey – leading to a measurement error.

Regardless of the type of survey bias, keeping survey best practices in mind when writing and designing your survey is crucial to increase the reliability of your results.

How to reduce nonresponse bias

There are many ways to increase survey response rates while maintaining high-quality feedback. We’ve pulled the top 6 ways to instantly optimize your feedback program and reduce nonresponse bias effects over time.

1. Keep your surveys short and simple

Simplicity is key. In fact, data shows that abandon rates increase for surveys that take more than 7 – 8 minutes to complete, and completion rates drop from 5 – 20%.

If you include too many questions in your survey, your customer may not finish their responses or want to begin the survey in the first place. Consider making your survey 3 – 5 minutes long with 10 questions at most.

2. Set expectations with your participants

Tell your customer what they should expect from your survey – either in an email beforehand or in the intro message of the survey. 

Clarify the goal of the survey and how long it will take to complete. If the questions are sensitive in nature, reassure your customer that the survey will be anonymous and that honest answers will have no repercussions. 

3. Re-examine survey timing and distribution method

Take a step back and ask yourself – am I using the best survey distribution method for my audience? Am I sending the survey at the right time? 

If you’re unsure whether or not your distribution is optimized to get the most accurate responses, try different survey distribution methods (email, web, link, or in-app surveys) and test which channels are most effective and relevant for your customer base. 

Be mindful of when you send the customer survey and double-check if your survey frequency is optimal for your industry in our best practices for sending guide. 

4. Provide an incentive to complete the survey

Let your customer know how they will benefit from taking the survey. It can be as simple as telling your customer how their feedback will improve product functionality and in turn, solve their pain points. 

Another way to motivate customers to complete your survey is to provide a monetary incentive. For example, consider offering a discount on a future purchase or a referral incentive for referring a friend. Easily incorporate referral rewards into your surveys with the Friendbuy integration.

5. Send a friendly reminder

A busy customer may put your survey on their to-do list, but forget to complete it after a few days. Giving your customer a gentle nudge in an email reminder will help put your survey back on the customer’s mind. 

Automate reminders in Delighted’s Email platform, which will send a reminder to customers who have not opened their email survey exactly one week after the survey is delivered.

6. Close the loop

When participants do complete your survey, be sure to thank them for their time. Go beyond a simple “thank you” by creating a customized response at the end of the survey, depending on their feedback. When a respondent feels like they’ve been heard, they are more likely to complete your surveys in the future.

Ready to give your survey response rate a lift? Delighted’s free online survey maker gives you the resources needed to optimize your feedback and help reduce nonresponse bias. Scale your CX program with ease through our suite of self-serve and automation tools.

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