Response Rate Changes to Customer Experience Surveys?
We have been surprised by lower email response rates to customer experience surveys in recent months. Has anyone else experienced this challenge and what actions are you taking to encourage participation?
Best Answers
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Hi Kerri,
We are actually seeing something similar. Last year, October, when we ran our Customer Relationship survey for 2019 we saw about a 1.8-2% response rate. We just completed our CRS for half one in 2020 and current see a response rate of 1.3%.
We can definitely attribute some of this to Covid but we are mitigating this by making sure we are harvesting "Survey Gold". By this I mean the comments on the surveys. We recently enhanced some of our technology (we are using Qualtrics) to take advantage of "Text IQ" so that we can analyze the open text and understand what, in our customers own words, matters most.
This is where the biggest item for me comes in. Closed feedback loops. This is helpful to encourage the participation as we make sure we reconnect to customers, who need it or ask for it, to showcase how we listen and take action. This is helping to drive up the participation as customer know we do 'something' with their feedback.
Outside of our main CRS we are also trying to make sure we are asking for feedback where the customers are. Across our customer journey we are closing some gaps to gather feedback from the necessary listening posts.
Hope this is helpful.
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If I could add my 2 cents, if you are seeing a drop in response rates, pay particular attention to your toxicity rules. I've been having a repair issue with a home appliance and have spent about 20 hours on the phone with a certain Big Box store over the last month, and if I call them 5 times in one day, I get 5 CSAT surveys. I stopped responding to them.
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@John Ragsdale you make a good point, managing what we call "survey fatigue" is critical to a successful CSAT program.
Kerri, one suggestion is to create a "thank you" email, sent to each person completing your survey. Sending a Thank you email closes the loop with the customer. In the email outline what actions or changes have occurred based on previous customer feedback. Customers want and need to know their feedback is seen and makes an impact. We have seen an increase in participation over time when you send Thank you emails.
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Answers
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Thanks @Gavin O'Leary. Very helpful! I especially like your focused attention on closed loop feedback.
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Very valuable insights. Thank you so much @John Ragsdale and @Gail Propson - I'm taking immediate action to review and deploy from your comments.
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Our response rates are steady but I think one has to be careful of three things. Not to over survey. See @John Ragsdale comment above. Make sure the process of taking the survey itself is of value to the person taking the survey. This is not easy and requires creativity in survey design. I can't say we always achieve it but we work hard on it. Make sure that the survey respondents get the results in a form that is useful for them. This also requires thought and effort. The survey is for the customers, make sure it provides value to them.
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Hi @Kerri Wienbeck,
Our rates have been steady (and lower than we'd like) for the last 6 months. Two months ago we made a strategic change to the segmentation of our NPS recipient list. So far we have not found an increase. Our next step is to update our sender to a member of our C-suite.
For closed loop feedback, respondents who rate promoter receive an automated thank you message. Those who score a passive or detractor rating receive individualized outreach from the CSM looking to schedule time for a call to discuss concerns and mitigate renewal risk. We have playbooks for passive and detractor that allow for engaging senior leadership when necessary.
Interestingly, our support CSAT response rate has been hoovering around 20%. We send one when the initial case is closed, and if there are updates to the case the customer has the option to change their rating.
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Our response rate has been stable as well, around 16% on email surveys.
Agree with many colleagues that we need to ensure we are not over surveying the customers. We apply a quarantine of 30 or 60 days depending on kind of interactions to avoid the customer receiving the survey again and again.
Important to mention that customer has shown a better Net Satisfaction Score during toughest part of the Covid crisis (march & April). As the teams were able to move rapidly to home working and keep contact with Customers, we believe was very valuable and customers recognized it.
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