As a business owner, one of the most important things you can do is build loyal relationships with your customers. Why?
First, it’s much more cost effective to serve current customers than it is to work to generate new ones. Next, your repeat customers tend to spend more with you each time they make a purchase.
To improve your customer retention rate, though, you need to know how they feel about your products and services. You need feedback.
In this article we look at how to make surveys work for you and the five unique ways to incorporate surveys for customer feedback.
#1: Send Surveys After a Live Support Chat
One unique way to make surveys work for you is to use them after customers use the live chat feature on your website.
Most businesses who offer live chat bots on their websites see improved conversion rates from the first question. These live bots also encourage customers to keep coming back.
In addition, live chat encourages your website visitors and customers to share their feedback with you.
While your site visitors will first use the chat feature to get help, find answers to their questions, or even complain about something, you can use some of this information as feedback. You can also set up a survey to go out to these people once they’re done with their live chat to learn more from them.
You can send these surveys out after your live support chat bot has closed. You can include basic questions on whether the chat helped solve your customer’s issue or answer their question.
This live chat feedback can also help you improve your products and services. You can learn where your company is lacking and how to improve customer service.
#2: Add a Survey to Your Website
Another unique way to incorporate surveys for customer feedback is through forms on your website.
You do want to be strategic with these, though. For example, you don’t want them on every page. And, when creating the survey, you want them to make sense on the page they’re on.
These surveys should be relatively short. They should also only include questions that are relevant to the customer’s journey on your website.
By embedding these surveys on your website, you can meet your customers right where they are.
You also want to consider leaving the survey anonymous, or at the very least, making the name optional. You’ll find that customers are more willing to tell you their thoughts and needs when they don’t have to commit their names.
#3: Leverage Email Surveys After First Purchase
After your customers make their first purchase from you is a great time to send out a customer feedback survey.
This survey can deal with things from the customer’s shopping experience on your website, to the product they received, and the promptness of the shipping.
The trick with this survey is to send it at the right time. This depends on the question you ask, but a good rule of thumb is within three to five days of when the customer placed the order.
This is purely a survey for new customers. Why? You don’t want to irritate repeat customers by sending them this survey after each purchase.
To get feedback from repeat customers, send them a Net Promoter Score survey. This will tell you how likely they are to recommend you to others. This makes more sense for repeat customers because they are already invested in you. (tweet this)
For the survey for your first-time customers, here are some ideas:
- Ask why they chose your company. Answers might include the price, shipping rate, availability, they found you first online, referral, etc.
- Ask for feedback on the product or service they purchased.
- Inquire about their overall experience on your website (navigation, usability, etc.).
- Find out how they feel about your customer service.
- Gauge how satisfied they are with your shipping.
#4: Use Surveys Right After Order Confirmation
You might consider incorporating surveys for customer feedback right after they receive their order confirmation.
One great place for this survey is right on your order confirmation page.
The questions for this survey should only deal with your website options. They include:
- A ratings question on how easy or difficult it was to navigate your website.
- Another question asking if they faced any challenges finding the product(s) they were looking for.
- A question asking if they like the options you provide.
These questions should be short and generally multiple choice. Always include another box for comments.
Place this survey right under the order summary on the confirmation page. Be sure and thank the customer for shopping with you before you get into the survey.
Finally, you can also include a Net Promoter Score question asking how likely they would be to recommend you to others.
#5: Use an Abandoned Cart Survey
When it comes to unique ways to incorporate surveys for feedback, you want to consider the abandoned cart survey.
It’s extremely helpful to learn why your customer decided not to follow through with their purchase.
By getting their feedback, you can improve your conversion rate and lessen the number of abandoned carts.
This might be in the form of a pop-up on your website, or if the person has an account, you can trigger an automated email.
Make this survey quite simple with just one question. It can be multiple choice and include several options for why they might have left their cart.
Final Thoughts
By incorporating surveys into your customer feedback program, you now have a way to hear exactly what your customers are thinking. You also learn more about their needs and how they feel about your business.
Once you have data compiled, you can then act on this customer feedback to improve your business and your customer retention rate.
If you want to know more about how your customers feel about your products/services, if they’re likely to buy from you again, and if they’ll recommend you to others, the best way to go is to incorporate surveys for customer feedback.
Measuring customer feedback helps you improve their overall customer satisfaction. Ultimately your profits improve, and you build more loyal, brand ambassadors in your current customer base.
Surveys can help you get valuable customer feedback. You can then use this feedback to improve your business. Are you ready to get started with your Survey Town account? Start with your account today.