TIPS FOR AN EFFECTIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE SURVEY

Customer experience surveys are a key part of any customer-centric business. They provide valuable insights that can help businesses improve their products, services, and overall customer experience. However, designing and administering an effective customer experience survey can be a challenge. To help you get started, here are some tips for an effective customer experience survey that will take your business to the next level.

Keep It Short

It is essential to maintain a low survey abandonment rate, and overall survey length is a significant factor in this. Try to recall the last time you enthusiastically answered a 30-minute questionnaire – it probably never happened. Your goal is to be clear and concise, asking the question in the shortest way possible without compromising its intent. Simply lowering the character count will not do the trick – You must also eliminate any unnecessary wording from your queries.

Only Ask Questions That Fulfill Your End Goal

As a business, you need to be highly decisive when it comes to getting rid of extra questions in your surveys. Make sure that every question you include serves a well-defined purpose and there is a strong justification for its inclusion. If not, get rid of it. Questions that you think “couldn’t hurt to ask” only lengthens your survey needlessly — something that might prompt survey respondents to abandon it entirely.

For example, depending on the survey’s purpose, it may not matter how a customer first came in contact with your site. If that’s not relevant information, don’t ask about it. Do you really need to know a customer’s name? If not, don’t include that question.

Consider Smart, Open-Ended Questions

It may be tempting to stick with multiple-choice queries and scales, but some of your most insightful feedback will come from open-ended questions that allow customers to express their true thoughts. However, nothing makes a survey more daunting than a large text box next to
the very first question. It’s best to ask brief questions first and create a sense of progress. Then give survey takers who have made it to the closing questions the opportunity to elaborate on their thoughts.

Make Rating Scales Consistent

Scales commonly used for surveys can become unwieldy and confusing when the context begins to shift. For example, The directions for the survey you are taking tell you to respond to the initial questions by choosing a number between 1 and 5, with 1 meaning “Strongly Disagree”
and 5 meaning “Strongly Agree.” Later in the survey, you are asked to evaluate the importance of certain items. The problem is that 1 is now being used to mean “Most Important,” but you had been using 5 to mean “Strongly Agree” to every previous question. The above is quite
confusing. How many people accidentally gave wrong responses as a result of this change? Harmonizing your scales will result to more accurate feedback.

Avoid Leading And Loaded Questions

Questions that lead respondents to a particular answer due to biased phrasing will not give you accurate or useful feedback. For example, asking questions along the lines of “We have recently upgraded Q-SYS features to become a first-class tool. What are your thoughts on the new site?” is a clear case of letting pride in your product get in the way of asking a good question. Instead, the more neutral, “What do you think of the recent Q-SYS upgrades?” would likely elicit more helpful and honest feedback.

Make It Mobile-Friendly

In today’s mobile-friendly society, you will touch more consumers if you formulate mobile- compatible surveys that can be completed on any handheld device either via text or through a portal. Mobile devices make it possible for you to document the customer experience while it is still fresh, collecting valuable insight in the moment. This real-time feedback is 40% more accurate and reliable than feedback gathered 24 hours later. Making your survey mobile-friendly will enhance consumer experience and boost response rates.

Avoid Assumptions

You are very likely to encounter difficulties when you create questions under the assumption that the customer is already knowledgeable about the subject matter (unless you confine your survey to a very select group of people). One major culprit is the language and terminology you use in questions, which is why we recommend avoiding industry acronyms, buzzwords and jargon, or references.

Don’t Go Overboard

While it may be tempting to want to pick your customer’s brain about every aspect of their experience when they are engaged in a survey, remember that your customers are busy people. If your survey takes too long, they may abandon it entirely which means you will not get the feedback you need. Your in store customer feedback survey should be brief and to the point. Establish Policies and Practices to Put Feedback Into Action Collecting feedback is only the first step. If you do not use that feedback to create customer- guided retail experience solutions, you will not be profiting from it. Do not disregard customer feedback if it is not what you wanted to hear or if it highlights difficulties that cannot be easily
fixed. Designate a team within your company to be in charge of surveying and introducing projects that aim to resolve the problems your customers are having.

Conclusion

You are guaranteed to develop a retail customer experience survey that collects the information you want while improving your relationship with your consumers by borrowing from the aforementioned suggestions. To jump in and get started with your own customer experience survey, book a Q-SYS CX demo and learn how this unique survey tool can transform your business.