When it comes to running a business, you can’t improve things until you know what needs to be improved. You, like many marketers today, are certainly looking for innovative ways to bring in new leads or contacts and learn more about them, one of which is conducting surveys. They provide information that you may utilize to improve your marketing and customer service campaigns.
But developing your survey is only the beginning—getting your potential and current consumers to participate is likely the most difficult obstacle to overcome.Your survey will most likely be one of several marketing emails your audience receives each week, so how can you persuade them to not just pay attention to but also complete your survey?
As a result, we’ve discussed some effective techniques for raising survey response rates in this article:
Make Them Feel Unique
Express genuine gratitude for their participation to entice individuals to finish your survey. Explain them how it will impact the product roadmap or services, make it apparent that you value their feedback and as well as the information you provide them. By being as clear as possible, make sure they understand how you’ll use their knowledge and ideas.
Give them an estimate of how long it will take them to complete your survey out of respect for their time. Don’t take chances—ask a coworker who hasn’t seen your survey to take it and time it. Also, let them know how much you appreciate them taking time out of their busy day to help you out.
Self-Perception
According to self-perception theory, people infer knowledge and attitude about themselves by interpreting the causes of their behavior.
Based on self-observation, interpretations are made. A favorable attitude toward survey response develops to the extent that a person’s decision to reply to a survey is attributed to internal factors rather than external constraints.
The behavior is influenced by these attitudes (self-perception). The self-perception paradigm has been applied to the larger problem of online survey response.
To improve the effects of online survey responses, researchers should design labels (e.g., helpful, kind, generous). Labeling entails supporting potential responders in classifying themselves based on their behavior for them to act by the characterization.
According to self-perception, utilizing an invitation letter to label behavior as helpful may cause that person to perceive himself or herself as the type of person who engages in such behavior, increasing the chance of future label-consistent behavior.
Also, many researchers chose to create and maintain their research panel, or a group of pre-selected respondents who volunteer to answer surveys, to boost response rates. This can save you time because you won’t have to go out and find respondents for each new survey assignment.
Keep Surveys Relevant
You would not complete a survey if you couldn’t answer “Does not apply” or skip items that weren’t relevant to you.
Answering questions on your coffee habits, for example, would be a waste of time if you don’t drink coffee—plus, the answers you’d offer wouldn’t be true or helpful. Instead, utilize the techniques below to keep your surveys current:
Allow them to exit.
Do you lack sufficient knowledge about your opportunities? Include a screening question to guide them in the proper direction. Consider the following scenario:
How often do you drink coffee (hot or iced) in general?
- Several times during the day.
- Once or twice a day.
- Several times per week.
- Several times per month.
- Once or twice a year.
- Never, or nearly never.
You can guide your respondents to the end of the survey and thank them for their time if they select “Never or seldom.” You won’t get a lot of coffee opinions from individuals who don’t drink it that way.
Appropriately guide them.
Let’s pretend you’re wondering why those people don’t drink coffee. Perhaps it’s too costly or they don’t like the taste. If you’re a corporation wanting to advertise a new brew to a specific demographic, use survey logic to direct individuals who answered “Never or seldom” to a set of questions specific to their response.
Offer Exchange and Incentives
You can’t always rely on goodwill alone. If you’re having trouble getting individuals to complete your surveys, consider offering incentives to encourage them to do so. The process of gathering feedback from potential responders through survey methodologies might be considered a special kind of social exchange. Simply put, social exchange theory states that individuals are driven by the expected or actual return (or benefits) that their actions will bring from others.
The following suggestions will help you increase survey response rates:
- It is preferable to offer a modest incentive to each respondent than a large incentive to a select few.
- Raffles have a lower response rate than smaller incentives for each participant.
- Explain how your comments will improve the status quo to appeal to respondents’ desire to feel significant.
- Explain to respondents how their input will be used and who will see it.
- Explain why you chose the respondents for this survey.
Higher response rates are often associated with larger incentives for survey completion.
Choose the best time to survey your clients.
Make sure you send out your invitation at the proper moment to encourage individuals to participate in your survey. When is the best time to visit? It is debatable.
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) and customer effort (CES) surveys, for example, are best exhibited shortly after customers interact with your company. Others, like the Net Promoter Score survey, can be sent up to a month after a consumer has completed a transaction by email.
When in doubt, consider if you need feedback on a recent customer experience or whether you want to give them additional time to assess the product.
Keep it brief and concise.
The lower the number of fields in a form, the greater the survey response rate. That is self-evident. Businesses, on the other hand, can’t entirely avoid employing long-form surveys, can they? There are a few techniques to making it easier for your customers to interact with market research that involves several questions.
Include a progress bar to illustrate how far you’ve progressed. Some survey software allows you to include design elements that show how far you’ve progressed. These are excellent tools for increasing survey response rates.
Use branching and skip logic whenever possible. The function known as skip logic allows you to display questions based on the responses of respondents. As a result, queries that are irrelevant are automatically ‘skipped.’
Because they take a lot of effort from the respondents, open-ended inquiries are everyone’s least favored sort. To reduce the amount of interaction required, use checkboxes, dropdown menus, and radio buttons.
Select the appropriate channels for survey distribution.
We have discussed the two most common ways to invite people to participate in surveys: email and websites. But when should you do it and where should you do it?
If you want to boost survey response rates, the optimal time to display a survey form is when your clients are at their most engaged:
- at the checkout completion process.
- after they’ve had a live chat.
- on a thank you page.
- at the end of a blog post.
When a consumer completes a task on your website, they are more inclined to leave feedback because they feel good about themselves and, more importantly, about your company.
Make sure you’re talking to the relevant people.
If people neglect your survey, you may be targeting the wrong demographic. To begin receiving great responses, make sure you know exactly who you’re addressing.
It’s critical to have your email list segmentation in order if you’re doing an email survey about your product. Only individuals who have been on a customer journey with you, for example, will be able to provide useful information based on their experience. Explain why you want them to take the survey and how long it will take before you get to the questions.
You’ll need a clear purpose, a hypothesis, and a simple technique to assess the findings while planning your survey. You should target your audience and choose the channels to advertise your survey based on these factors.