You could probably double the amount of valuable customer feedback you get if you approached surveying like this:
Make it even easier for customers.
We know you’ve whittled your surveys down a lot over time because you found customers don’t have a long attention span for them.
But considering that only a handful start filling out surveys, and about half of those people never finish them, you’ll want to trim your surveys even more, according to research by marketing expert Robert Kaden.
Once customers find surveys too difficult to understand or too lengthy, they abandon them — regardless of whether the surveys are online, in email, on a postcard or conducted over the phone.
To eliminate survey complications and boost response rates:
Pretend you’re an Eighth Grader
Even if you’re a highly trained and tenured customer service or marketing professional, make questions simple to read.
Reader’s Digest and USA Today write their surveys at an eighth grade level. Your surveys should follow suit.
Avoid double-barreled questions
If you have to use the word “and” in a question, you should probably turn it into two questions.
For instance, “How useful do you find our FAQs and product information pages?” should be two questions.
Whittle it down
If the web page, email or hard-copy survey looks crowded with questions, customers will get overwhelmed and never respond.
Leave plenty of white space between even a small number of questions (you should ask five at most).
Ask easy questions first
Let customers warm up to the survey.
Put the questions that require more thought in the middle. Then wind down with another easy one or two.
This will help pull customers into the survey and become more invested in it.
