7 Proven Strategies to Boost Survey Response Rates
Of all the resources you have at your disposal for gathering feedback on how your business is performing, customers are your most valuable asset....
2 min read
If you’ve read our spring 2021 Changes in Consumer Habits report you’ll have seen that surveys are the #1 method used by businesses to solicit feedback. But what if you’ve spent the time to create the perfect survey and still aren’t getting enough responses?
Don’t be discouraged! There’s a variety of factors that play a role in your response rate that are independent from all the work you’ve done so far. Here, we’ll break down the top 4 considerations when working to drive more survey responses.
1. The How
One of the first things to consider is how you are sharing your survey with potential respondents. A low response rate could be because it’s simply not getting to the right people. There are a variety of dissemination methods and not all are suited for every survey or audience.
Consider:
- The content and design of your survey and what device is it best completed on
- Using a variety of dissemination methods to cover the potential gaps caused by any single method
2. The When
It’s important to be conscious of your timing when asking potential respondents for their input. When’s the last time you thought, “Wow, I wish there was a survey I could complete to kill all this annoying free time I have”? Your audience is equally busy and, if they receive your survey at an inopportune time, it will likely get lost in the shuffle even though they’d otherwise be happy to share their feedback.
Consider:
- Avoiding times most people are busy such as Monday mornings, Friday afternoons or any time around a holiday
- Leveraging platform automation to trigger surveys so they’re sent to contacts as soon as they’re relevant - such as a post transactional survey
- Tracking which users have completed your survey with an integrated contact centre and sending reminders to those who haven’t
3. The Who
Similar to sharing the survey at the right time, you also want to ensure it gets to the right people. Not only will being targeted yield more relevant results, but it will also help you avoid “survey bombing”, repeatedly asking the same contacts for feedback, which can result in audience fatigue.
Consider
- For email/SMS distribution, using contact data to segment your audience and ensure surveys only go to relevant contacts
- When sharing a QR code or URL via physical assets, limit the placement of these assets to areas your target demographic is most likely to frequent
- Leverage technology to automatically set limits on the number of times an individual contact can be invited to participate in a survey
4. The Why
To borrow an expression from the theatre, “What’s my motivation in this scene?” You’ve already determined why you’ve sent your survey to a contact, but why should they invest their time in filling it out? Making this point clear will do wonders for your response rate.
Consider:
- What benefit can a respondent directly expect from the results of your survey?
- Offering incentives such as an entry into a draw or a discount code
By taking the time to consider these four aspects of your survey dissemination you will maximize your survey response rate thereby driving real, actionable insights - and that’s what it’s all about.
Think we missed something? Let us know at letschat@intouchinsight.com. We’re all in this together!
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