We’ve all taken them. We’ve all abandoned them. The poorly written, unclear, too-specific or too-general customer satisfaction surveys. We opened the survey in good faith, ready to provide our wisdom to the organisation that seemed to care about our opinion, only to find leading questions geared toward receiving only glowing reviews.
These are the kind of surveys people give up on in disgust halfway through or complete thoughtlessly and provide worthless data. Make sure this doesn’t happen to you. Take a look at the right – and the wrong – ways to write consumer feedback questionnaires that will provide you with the insightful data you need.
5 Ways Not to Write Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Restrictive multiple choices.
When your answers don’t include the response your participant wants, you’ve created a frustrating experience for your respondents. They’re now faced with the decision of answering inaccurately, skipping the question or abandoning the questionnaire altogether. That’s not very productive. Try offering “I don’t know” or “other” options along with the multiple choices, or consider adding a way for your respondent to add their own response.
Two-part questions with only one response option.
“Did you enjoy our service and our selection? Yes or no?” What if your service was impeccable but your selection was lacking? If there’s no way for the participant to answer this question accurately, you’re going to end up with skipped questions, or, perhaps even worse, inaccurate responses. Make sure you’re asking for one distinct answer per question. Take a look at our blog post about getting the most insightful information out of multiple-choice and follow-up questions.
Requiring a response to every question.
Yes, it would be great if every single question in your consumer feedback survey was answered thoughtfully and completely. That just doesn’t happen in the real world; people are busy and distracted. Sometimes a question is missed as an oversight, sometimes the respondent doesn’t want to provide the information, and sometimes they’re just confused by the question. If you require an answer to every single question – even the most rudimentary ones – you’re going to find yourself with a high abandonment rate. Keep the required questions to a minimum and let them skip what they want.
Too many questions.
Please don’t interrogate your kind participants with page after page of highly detailed questions of every facet of your business. Keep your client feedback survey as succinct as possible, and you’ll have a better chance of getting meaningful data. Sometimes, a simple one-question survey like a Net Promoter Score questionnaire is all you need. Remember, you can always do follow-up surveys, and you’ll learn more with each poll you do.
Forgetting the goal.
It’s easy to ask a lot of questions in order to obtain as much information as you can. But each survey should have a specific goal in mind, one that every question should help achieve. Stay focused on your goal and you’ll obtain valuable information.
5 Ways to Write Great Consumer Feedback Surveys
Remain unbiased.
It’s hard to be objective when you think your customer service is outstanding. Take a step back from what you think you know and let your shoppers do the talking. Avoid embellishing your questions with superlatives such as “What do you think of our friendly customer service representatives?”. This is a leading question and it’s not likely to provide accurate results. Instead, ask a focused question about an aspect of your customer service such as “How quickly did the customer service representatives at our company help you?”.
Avoid the hypothetical.
It’s hard for most people to accurately determine what they may or may not do in a hypothetical situation. Don’t fabricate customer service “what if” situations that may not have happened to the respondent. Focus on situations that accurately portray real-world customer service issues. Use a Likert Scale rating question to ask customers to rate their experiences.
Use painless questions.
If your participants have to read questions several times in order to understand them or if they’re repeatedly asked to write essay-like responses, you’ll end up with a lot of abandoned questionnaires. Write questions that are easy to scan and answer without having to think too much or spend a lot of time on them. A question such as “How responsive is our company?” is much easier to read and answer than “If you have used our website, phone system or email help system in the past, did our customer service representative get back to you in a timely manner?”.
Don’t ask unnecessary questions.
You’re probably eager to collect as much information as you can from each survey, but avoid the temptation. Customer service surveys that veer off course and ask seemingly unrelated questions can distract or confuse the respondent and, in some cases, may even evoke suspicion.
Try using a “how”.
You could ask questions such as “Is our company professional?” with a “yes” or “no” option. But there’s a subtle spectrum of positive and negative responses. To obtain even richer data, try asking a “how” question such as “How professional is our company?” with available responses such as “extremely professional”, “moderately professional” and “not at all professional". This gives you a better idea of where your customer service needs lie.
Sample Online Customer Satisfaction Survey Templates
At SurveyMonkey, we’ve developed a collection of methodologist-certified customer satisfaction survey templates to get you started quickly and easily. Of course, you’re always welcome to customise the questions to make your survey as specific as you’d like.
Customer Satisfaction Template
Use this customer satisfaction survey template to measure consumer satisfaction with your company, product and services. Use skip logic to allow your customers to answer questions about products or services they’ve used and to gain insights for improvement.
Customer Satisfaction with Customer Service Survey Template
See how your front-line customer service and support agents are doing. Measure customer service hold times, problem resolution, product/service knowledge and representative attitude.
Business-to-Business Survey Template
This customer satisfaction survey template is designed for when your clients aren’t just clients; they’re businesses too. Identify how satisfied your customers are with your timeliness, professionalism and service.
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Visit Page3 quick tips to improve survey response rates
Here are some ideas to ensure that respondents will answer your surveys.
1. Be quick
If your survey is short and sweet, there's a greater chance that more respondents will complete it.
2. Offer incentives
Little incentives like small discount or an entry into a drawing can help ensure respondents complete your survey.
3. Buy a targeted audience
With SurveyMonkey Audience, you can purchase access to an audience who meets specific demographic criteria for your survey. It's a great way to get targeted responses from a specific group.
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