We’ve run over 100,000 polls. Here’s what we discovered.
In the last month, week, or day, you’ve received a survey.
“We need your feedback! Take 10 minutes to fill this out.”
10 minutes! That’s an eternity. Pass.
“Thank you for your purchase. How was your experience? Enter to win a $50 gift card by answering this survey now.”
Hmm. Not bad. Maybe you check it out. But upon clicking, you realize the survey is 20 questions, with written areas too (please elaborate *this is a required question). You stare at your watch. It’s already been 8 minutes since you’ve started this thing. Darnit! No wonder they’re trying to pay you for this. But your time is valuable and you’ve now just wasted precious minutes that you could have spent with your spouse, partner, kids, friends, or colleagues.
Alright pass. Who wins these “raffles” anyway?
Feedback is one of the most critical aspects to any business. Voice of Customer (VOC) paves the way for new innovation, drives change, and creates room for expansion. Those in turn lead to a better built business and increasing customer success.
Eliciting feedback, though, can be very difficult. For what we’ve identified as two main reasons:
- Current surveys aren’t resonating with your customers. (in other words: they don’t care to take them)
- Today, most feedback is gathered in mass quantity after-the-fact. You’re not capturing their attention in-the-moment when their minds are activated.
Surveys that resonate
Millennials are the most coveted generation by marketers around the world. They’re also the hardest to understand because they have short attention spans, they’re fickle with their decisions, and they spend more time glued to their apps than to your brand.
However, they also account for over $600 billion in consumer spending. That’s a lot.
Alas, millennials can drive you crazy and they can also drive your business forward like never before. So how do you get the most out of them, how do you reach them? If social media commands their attention, your surveys need to adapt to look and feel the same. Did you know that millennials can hold conversations with just the use of GIFs? If you ever tried asking them a question that way, you’d be surprised at how well they respond.
Use your surveys as a digital marketing tool. Try pushing engaging content in the form of questions. It’s an incredible way to have customers interact with your brand that doesn’t feel like a survey. Rather, it’s a conversation. That’s what we’re building at Arbit. And those conversations have proven to receive upwards of 54% in response rates (compared to the average of 10–15% with existing platforms). How are you resonating with your customers?
Feedback in the moment
Most feedback happens retroactively. When a decision has been made, a purchase completed, an experience had. And then you ask your customers: So what did you think?
But what about in-the-moment? On a continual basis? When customers are browsing your online marketplace, clicking around on your site, or staying at your hotel? Rather than 20 questions at the end of their journey, what about starting with one question now in this moment, at this touch point; another question in the next?
Calculating and tracking these moments over a series of events on the customer journey is of paramount importance. It allows you to adapt in the moment to better market your product or services to the customer. Converting those instant opinions into dollars (or reduced expenses) can seriously shape the health of your business. Feedback shouldn’t be reactive, it must be proactive. And it should always be working to improve your bottom line.
It also solves the question of time. Would you rather ask your customer to interact with 2–3 engaging questions now and be done in 30 seconds? Or have them sit through 20 questions at the end for over 10 minutes? After all, businesses, no matter how well established, are always in the process of continuous building, measuring, and iterating. How they approach feedback should be no different.
At Arbit, we’ve discovered that tracking these “micro polls” over a series of time has a greater impact on the value of customer feedback and customer success than large, out-of-touch survey forms. How are you addressing the issue of long, monotonous feedback loops?
And millennials, if you’re reading this, I know how you feel about receiving those nagging surveys:
We’re here to help. Shoot me a message on LinkedIn, Check out our site, or Contact Our Team to learn more about Arbit.
