‘How was your experience with us?’
Companies often ask their customers how they feel about their experience with the brand or service in a survey. But what if asking this question actually makes the customer's experience worse? This might sound strange, but it happens quite often. Why does this happen, and how can we fix it?
Customer surveys are meant to help companies understand how customers feel, find areas to improve, and make the overall brand experience better. This process involves making small adjustments at every step of the customer journey—from when they first hear about the brand, compare it with other options, decide to buy, and even after they've made a purchase. But here's the twist: the survey itself, which is supposed to gather customer opinions, can ironically make their experience not as good. The very message they want to share to help improve things is delivered in a forma" that actually doesn't feel so good.
Three reasons why surveys are a negative customer experience
The current surveys lead to negative experiences for customers due to these reasons:
- Feeling of being interrogated and fatigued.
- Generic UI/UX that fails to reflect the brand's identity.
- Uncertainty of whether filling this out will mean anything
All these negative feelings arise because the surveys lack a sense of natural 'conversation' with people. But shouldn't surveys themselves provide a positive customer experience?
In both online and offline settings, brands are encountering more opportunities to engage with customers. Every interaction that requires customers' time is valuable. These interactions help brands better understand their customers.
Surveys involve customers willingly sharing their opinions, they should not merely serve as tools to gather data. Instead, they should be considered a crucial form of communication that fosters a positive connection with the brand. Your valuable customers have already dedicated their time and effort to participate in the survey, and it's essential to offer appropriate rewards. These rewards don't necessarily have to be monetary; they can be experiences that offer long-term benefits to the customers.
Three DOs of customer surveys
There are three significant ways to present a positive customer experience through surveys: improving the UI, making them interactive, and expressing appropriate gratitude
Improving the UI
When we make split-second decisions, the cover is the only thing to judge a book by. It’s human nature. If you thought this article was written without much thought, you would have closed this window by now. The same goes for surveys. If surveys seem like spam, people won't want to spend time filling it out. To get real answers from customers, the brand needs to show that they put effort into how the survey looks on the screen. A good first impression goes a long way.
To make it easy to understand, think about how dressing appropriately and showing your true colors is important in situations where you want to impress others, or grab their attention. The survey's layout should show what the brand is like so customers know who they're talking to. This can make customers feel that it's a survey from a brand they like, they are more likely to engage deeper and give more in-depth answers.
Improving the UI of a survey can be done with small adjustments. Adding your brand’s logo, picking a font and colors that matches your brand’s mood, adding illustrations or photos as visual aid, and wording the questions more naturally. These are small steps! And it will make the respondents trust and have more confidence in who they are talking to.
Making them interactive
A conversation is meant to be interactive, it’s a two-way communication. A 'good conversation' usually involves two main things: being a good speaker and a good listener. We can use these ideas in surveys too.
Being a good speaker in surveys means asking questions in the right way. Depending on how a question is asked, people might feel and answer differently. For example, if most of the brand's customers are young, using a friendly tone and interactive questions can make the survey feel more real and more people might finish it. If your customers are professionals, don’t be afraid to integrate industry jargon. This will trigger people to put on their professional hats and give in-depth answers instead of generic.
A good listener is someone who doesn't monopolize the conversation, and shows that they are actively paying attention to what is being said. Surveys that say, 'Here are all the questions, answer them all' don't feel like conversations. Asking just one question on each page makes it less overwhelming and more like a 'conversation.' This can get rid of the feelings of needing to do it, getting annoyed, and feeling tired.
Expressing sincere gratitude
As we mentioned before, every step of the customer's journey is connected. So, the goal isn't only to have people do the survey, but also to make the survey itself a good experience. Your customer has spent their valuable time into sharing their honest opinions. And you should not fail to express your sincere gratitude.
'Take the survey for a chance to win a gift card,' it's something many companies do. Offering these monetary rewards can be a good way to encourage customers to join in, but it's not the only way to say thanks.
What really matters is genuinely thanking customers. Instead of just saying 'Thank you for taking the survey' at the end of the survey, the final page should explain how the answers will be used. This lets customers know the brand cares about their thoughts and values their opinions. This turns the survey into a positive experience and leaves a strong impression about the brand. And it will build a stronger affinity towards the brand.
A new survey experience with Smore
Are you still conducting customer surveys using Google Forms? If you're reading this, you've probably encountered Google Forms at least once, if not several times. And you may have experienced firsthand how tiresome and inconvenient it can be to respond to surveys using Google Forms.
Google Forms falls short in providing an interface that can truly represent a brand's values, conduct interactive surveys to gather genuine customer opinions, and express sincere gratitude to customers, ultimately delivering a positive experience. That's why the completion rate for surveys conducted through Google Forms is merely 10%.
On the other hand, Smore is a solution that allows brands to integrate their values while interacting with customers through a customizable interface for interactive surveys. By employing small elements that mimic conversations with customers, Smore achieves an average response completion rate of up to 60%.
Smore comes to the rescue with a simple and speedy solution for crafting interactive surveys. With a selection of over 300 templates at your fingertips, you'll have no trouble getting started. Questions are served up one at a time, and you can choose from various question formats to get your point across.
But that's not all – with the design customization feature, you can sprinkle your brand's magic all over. Put your logo, characters, colors, and more in the spotlight. This brings out a consistent brand look and feel that your customers will love. No more run-of-the-mill surveys that blend in – Smore lets you give your surveys that unique twist. It's a fantastic way to make your brand identity shine and give your customers an exciting and fresh experience.
Start your customer surveys with a tool built by people who understand
