Study after study reports consumers read reviews and make purchasing decisions based on ratings. In fact, 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations, and there are no signs of this trend slowing down. With these telling stats in mind, it’s no wonder there is a growing craze for companies to seek customer feedback whenever possible.
While understanding the mind of the customer is a worthy endeavor, it’s also essential to remember that, when it comes to asking for feedback, there is such thing as “too much of a good thing.”
In fact, many consumers express annoyance when they are asked to provide reviews each and every time they interact with a brand.
Here are some surefire ways to make sure your company maintains the tricky balance of gathering important customer insights, all while avoiding feedback fatigue.
Make giving feedback convenient
According to a survey by Vovici, customers complain about customer surveys for being inconvenient, prying, and huge wastes of time. Here is what respondents reported:
- 21% say they are too busy to take time-consuming surveys,
- 16% say they are inconvenienced by surveys,
- 16% say surveys get too personal, and
- 12% say surveys are too long.
If you want to hear from your customers, then make the process of answering surveys as convenient as possible. This includes keeping surveys under 30-seconds, telling your customers it will take less than a minute to answer the survey, and making it easy to answer the questions (think surveys sent via email and mobile-optimized).
Offer an incentive
Here is the deal. People don’t really like completing surveys. This is evidenced by how many surveys are sent out each year vs. how many are actually answered. Vovici reports over 7 billion surveys are sent out each year and only 2.6 billion are actually completed.
To help increase your survey completion rates, it’s up to you to sweeten the deal. In other words, offer an incentive to your loyal customers for completing the survey. You’ll be happy to learn that 13% of respondents report they should be offered an incentive for completing a survey.
Of course, you don’t have to offer a publisher’s clearing house type prize, but how about a promo code discount, an entrance into a lottery for a prize, or an exclusive look into a new product?
Limit the number of surveys you send
Customers are overwhelmed by the number of feedback they are asked to provide. They get survey requests after purchases, company employee interactions, and even when they login to a company website.
It’s not bad to ask your customers to send feedback, and the methods listed above are effective. However, it can’t hurt to pick and choose interactions that empirically have proven useful. To get a better hold on the optimal time to ask for feedback is, take a quick look at your metrics, particularly when frequency rates start to drop
Wrap Up
When you follow the advice listed above, you ensure you aren’t destroying customer satisfaction by asking customers to fill out too many CSAT surveys. Instead, you’re providing a quick, considerate, and a convenient way for your brand advocates to give you a piece of their mind.