A look inside our Partnership Feedback Survey and how it’s helping our renewal rates
Feedback. The thing we all claim to be open to, but deep down are scared to death to receive. Even when we’re 99% sure we’ve done a great job, there’s always that little sliver of doubt that we let something slip without realizing.
At 6AM City, we average about 175+ advertisers per month and each partner typically has 3 points of contact within our organization: the sales rep, the client services department, and the branded content studio. One KPI (key performance indicator) that each of these groups has in common is our Client Renewal Rate, and as of right now, we’re sitting at 76% for all contracts over $15,000.
Not bad… but we want that 24%. While a lot of it has to do with the client’s own initiatives, budgetary restrictions, timelines, etc. we decided one area that would help us improve this number was a Partnership Feedback Survey sent out to all paying advertisers at the end of their contract.
So what makes this survey a successful tool for us?
For one, sending this survey is a non-confrontational way of asking how things went. We get it, nobody wants to call your baby ugly to your face. We set this survey up so that advertisers could be as anonymous as they’d like. They can skip any question and they can add additional insight to any question. Heck, they don’t even have to respond if they don’t want to.
It allows us to identify issues or discrepancies. One of our partners mentioned they didn’t have access to our analytics dashboard which was a red flag for us to do some digging of our own. Turns out our monthly analytics email, which includes a custom link to each partner's analytics dashboard, was going to their spam folder. This feedback allowed us to not only reach out and rectify the situation but to also make a note of that as we onboard new advertisers.
It’s a great way to gather testimonials. Sending this survey with open-ended questions seems to inspire clients because 40% of the surveys have come back with usable testimonials that don’t feel forced.
It opens the door for the sales team to follow up. When one contract closes, another one opens. Here’s where we start increasing that 76% client renewal rate. What better time to open up the conversation for future opportunities than using the information they provided us to fine-tune the process, talk about what worked, what didn’t and what we can do for next time.
And lastly, it keeps our own teams accountable. With three different departments all working together it’s important that we’re all providing the best customer experience and care that we can. Every email, conversation, and experience matters.
