Want to improve your customer service? Looking to offer a new service but not sure what the response will be? Are you curious to know what your customers are thinking? Conducting an e-mail survey may prove to be very effective for you.
E-mail marketing is very affordable and a short survey can be a real-eye opener. I recently e-mailed all of my company’s clients a 4-question survey about a possible new service offering, and got some very different results than I had anticipated, which saved us money and helped us decide on a different course of action than we had originally planned on taking.
Here are some tips for your next e-mail survey:
Keep it short. No one wants to fill out a long, time-consuming survey. If you want your customers or prospects to participate, keep it at 5 or 6 questions.
Ask follow-up questions. Often, asking “Why?” as a follow up to a question can give you some insight as to why someone feels a certain way.
Consider offering an incentive. It may be worthwhile to offer a free gift for anyone who participates in your survey. You’ll get many more participants, and the information gained could save you money and be very valuable in many other ways.
Ensure your customers’ anonymity. Make your survey recipients feel comfortable with answering honestly by stating that their answers will remain 100% anonymous. Otherwise, you may not get the whole truth.
Lead them to your website. When the survey is complete, take the participant to a “thank you” page on your website, where she may browse your site and find offers and services that she may have been unaware of.
Don’t overdo it. Don’t send surveys to the same people too often – they may not participate if you overdo it. Once or twice a year is plenty.
Track your results. What are the results of your survey? What do they mean? What is your plan of action? What will you do – or not do – as a result of the answers you received?