Superficial Surveys
Surveys of customers are getting a bit out-of-hand. Every time you turn around, you’re being asked to take a survey, whether it’s at the grocery store, dentist office, when you buy a car, or make an online purchase.
It’s becoming too much.
A friend of mine recently posted on Facebook: “My rabid dislike of surveys is no secret -- my dentist recently sent me a survey after a 15 minute consult. Today, my bank sent me a survey for a 5 minute check deposit transaction at an ATM. This is very annoying.”
My friend’s Facebook comment opened up a litany of snark such as:
“I’ll have a survey for you tomorrow about the service provided by music librarians.”
“Hmm, I wonder what percentage of consumers feel the same way. But now I have no idea how to find out.”
“I’m waiting for SurveyMonkey to send me a survey to rate all of the surveys I have received.”
Add in the inevitable surveys during election season, and consumers are burning out. Making the problem worse is that sometimes a “survey” is a sales approach in disguise and it becomes bait and switch.
On the plus side, we can learn a great deal from surveys so we do a better job in the future. That’s smart.
And for some marketers, it’s a way to gauge how soon a person might make a new (or additional) purchase decision. With that information, emails, letters, and digital advertising can be deployed, using a nurture marketing strategy, to generate more sales. But there needs to be depth in the survey, so it’s genuine and doesn’t come off as patronizing.
My recommendations:
- The purpose of the survey is for your benefit, but the wording must always be all about your customer. Make sure the customer knows what’s in it for them.
- Distill your survey down to as few questions as possible. You’ll probably have more completions if it’s short and sweet.
- Offer an incentive for participation that your customer can use now. Sure, it’s nice to be entered into a drawing for something, but has your name ever been drawn?