Customer Feedback is Critical but Survey Abandonment is Rampant

Published by Bari Faye Siegel at June 22, 2016

Choosing the Right Survey Software Makes the Difference

It’s extremely important for every forward-thinking company to constantly keep their collective “finger” on the pulse of customer sentiment. “How are we doing” is one of the most important questions a company can continue to ask itself. One of the best ways to get truthful, real-time answers is by surveying customers. Most companies, including Internet Creations, do this by sending out surveys to measure customer experience. Of course, we do it a bit differently than many others. (More on that in a moment.)

There are many survey platforms on the market that share the same benefits and downsides. When enough responses are received, any survey can generally provide some concrete information to assist a company in gauging customer satisfaction. The key word is “received.” It’s an absolute waste of time if people fail to take the surveys. And, that happens a lot — too much, in fact, to make conventional survey processes cost and time effective for any company.

What’s the problem? Actually, there are two main issues: abandonment and disinterest. Surveys are abandoned when someone initially intends to participate but doesn’t follow through. Remember the last survey you abandoned? You probably received an email asking for your feedback, but after clicking a link you were presented with an overwhelming number of questions and you decided that you didn’t have the time to complete it. You may have had every intention of getting back to it and finishing. But, you didn’t. In fact, you may have even received a followup survey reminding you to complete it If you weren’t already irritated by the process, this second request might have sealed the deal on your decision to ignore the survey all together.

Next, disinterest is a major problem fueled by survey overload. Yours isn’t the only company seeking customer feedback. So consider the fact that every time you send a survey, the recipient may have a few others waiting to be clicked in their email inboxes. It can get overwhelming, and very annoying, very quickly. Who has time for all of that?

Now, back up to the prior paragraph and re-read the information on survey abandonment. Exactly. It’s a vicious circle. When someone abandons a survey, it also adds to “survey fatigue” and reduces the likelihood they’ll consider participating in the future.

Reduce Survey Abandonment

Mobile first: Make sure your surveys display well on every device, including phones, tablets, and PCs. A large percentage of surveys are taken from mobile devices.

People are busy, so carefully balance respect for your audience’s time with how much information you need to collect in order for the feedback to be meaningful. Less is often more.

Set realistic expectations: If you ask someone to take a short survey, and they end up on a page that says it will take 10 minutes, they will feel tricked and be inclined to abandon. Even with the best of intentions, things come up and people tend to get distracted. Plus, 10 minutes is not short; it is two percent of an eight hour work day. Why I Deleted Your Survey is a good read on this topic.

A Great Solution to a Growing Problem

Internet Creations developed Simple Survey, a Salesforce app that allows users to create simple one-click surveys. Simple Survey makes survey taking so easy that it’s actually just as simple to take the survey as it is to delete it! A customer opens the email, reads one question, chooses an answer; it can be a number on a scale such as 10 for completely satisfied and 0 for completely unsatisfied. With the one-click answer, the survey is submitted. It’s easy to add additional questions to delve deeper into the customer’s opinions, and they are able to continue to answer more questions if they choose to do so. However, with Simple Survey, the one-and-done approach avoids survey fatigue and abandonment. Your customers feel as though their opinions have been recorded without their time being wasted.

Perhaps most importantly:

Simple Survey surveys can be triggered by any object in Salesforce automatically.
All responses are captured in Salesforce for easy data collection and metrics review.
Even the simple data collected in one click can provide a tremendous amount of information that can assist your company in analyzing all aspects of your organization, including people, process, products, etc.

If you would like to learn more about Simple Survey:

Read all about it and watch a Simple Survey video.
Try it out with this cool Simple Survey Demo
Participate in a live Simple Survey Demos and Webinar. Click to learn about upcoming time and dates.

Of course, we are here for you! Contact Internet Creations to learn more about Simple Survey and other of our innovative Salesforce AppExchange Apps.