When checking our email, most of us admittedly scroll right past customer survey requests. With the exception of an occasional social media comment or online product review, most buyers rarely fill out customer feedback surveys, even when reminded via email. It’s estimated that only 5-10 percent of buyers actually write a review at all, with less than half of consumers (47 percent) having ever written a review for a product or service.
Because the average inbox is clogged with spam, and emails often don’t reach customers until long after delivery of the product or service, businesses need to get creative when attempting to gather meaningful feedback from their customer base. As they slowly lose faith in email, many are turning to mobile technology and SMS messaging to request feedback and gain a better understanding of customer needs.
Making the Most of Mobile Surveys
Businesses in every vertical can benefit from the right customer feedback surveys. But simply sending a general question to your buyers via text message won’t guarantee more responses, and it usually doesn’t deliver much useful data. When requesting reviews, best practice is for the business to try and meet the customer where they are while optimizing messages to encourage thoughtful responses.
Nowadays, most consumers are looking at their phones immediately before, after, or even during their interactions with businesses. Therefore, prompting via text message ensures minimal delay in push notification delivery, so the service they’re receiving (or have yet to receive) is fresh in their minds.
Kinds of Questions to Ask in Mobile Surveys
Questions or prompts in mobile surveys should be strategically worded to maximize the number and quality of responses. Generally speaking, the inquiries should be:
- Convenient: Reach and connect with the customer where they’re already spending time.
- Simple: Use short sentences and straightforward phrasing. Don’t ask too many questions or request excessive detail.
- Timely: Prompt the customer immediately, while their experiences are most memorable.
- Customized: Personalize messaging to vary by service type, rating, search history, or other relevant parameters.
Since the total character amount of your message is limited (as is the attention span of your respondent), you have to make every letter count. Anywhere from 3-5 questions in a survey is usually a safe bet to avoid overwhelming the respondent with too many requests.
Typical feedback surveys may inquire about what the customer found exciting, helpful, or concerning about the product or service received. Many businesses simplify this prompt by asking the customer to rate their overall experience on a standardized scale (e.g., 1-5). Other organizations find it useful to get straight to the point, explicitly asking whether or not the business’s associates were able to solve the customer’s initial problem.
Creating Actionable Insights from Survey Responses
Of course, gaining a deeper understanding of your customer doesn’t end with sending out an eloquently worded text message. Effectively leveraging mobile technology for collecting feedback means businesses need to analyze and interpret the responses and then use that analysis to improve processes and workflows.
Usually, this obligation requires a dedicated team or at least one team member to manage the responses. This requirement will depend on the type of business being performed and the overall volume of responses received.
Using Data to Improve the Customer Experience
This data can be incredibly valuable for gauging employee performance, discovering recurring problems, and improving internal processes to better serve clientele. Receiving comments, concerns, and questions directly from your customers uncovers critical pain points and helps pinpoint specific areas of friction your team may need to work on.
A bunch of meaningless data points that come standard with third-party review software often won’t be helpful to your bottom line. By leveraging mobile technology features, businesses can customize their messaging and streamline these insights, classifying them into something actionable.
Meaningful Feedback Meets Customers Where They Are
Whether they’re waiting in a queue for service, making an online purchase, or browsing product reviews, consumers are most likely looking at their phones. In fact, a 2020 study found that smartphone users engage with their devices as often as every five minutes.
By asking respondents for direct feedback through a convenient and highly accessible channel, mobile surveys gather both positive and negative feedback regarding service quality. Leveraging this intelligence and updating questionnaires to appeal to these preferences helps to identify specific customer pain points so you can address them directly.
Businesses can extract and analyze meaningful customer feedback with access to customizable solutions that are built into the existing tech infrastructure and don’t require a third-party host. They can use familiar mobile technology to connect directly with customers on a personal level, ensuring the feedback received is thoughtful, genuine, and productive.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jamie Ladd, Senior Account Executive, Qtrac
Jamie Ladd is a Senior Account Executive at Qtrac, where he specializes in building strategic partnerships for Qtrac’s virtual queuing solutions in a variety of industries including retail, higher education, government, and banking. With more than 10 years of experience in queuing, Jamie has a strong track record of success in building relationships with clients and helping them deliver a world-class customer experience.