How and when to survey customers

Maxwell Folley

Hey Everyone,

I'm curious to hear from this community about surveying tactics. I'm particularly interested in customer pulse surveys.

At which touchpoints do you find it most valuable to get customer feedback? Point of sale, onboarding, renewal, cancelation, etc.

Do you find email or in-product surveys to be more successful?

What are your main use cases for these surveys? Customer health, product prioritization, other uses?

Jeff Heckler

Hi Maxwell,

Happy Friday.

All "moments of truth", events, or status changes in a customer's journey are good places to request feedback like in the form of a survey.

However, if you can, interviews with customers are even more valuable.

Also, these will also be opportunities to share across the company with the appropriate stakeholders.
You can role up the quantitative data to a health score if it will have reliable relevance.

Have a great weekend.

Best regards,

Jeff

Anita Toth

Great questions @Maxwell Folley.

One part of the answer lies in your question -- deciding when it's most valuable to get customer feedback.

Before deciding WHEN to survey, you should decide WHY you're surveying.

             What information/data are you trying to get?

             How will that data be used?

Once you understand your WHY, then decide on the HOW:

           What type of surveys are you sending (single question, multiple questions)?

           How frequently will they be sent out? 

           Which customers receive them?

Lastly, you'll want to decide who will analyze the data and report it.

I also agree with @Jeff Heckler that conducting customer interviews will help you better understand the data you need and when surveys should be used.

(Bear in mind that surveys typically have low response rates which are something else that needs to be considered.)

Surveys and customer interviews have been my passion for 20+ years. Happy to chat further about what you're looking to accomplish and which mix would be the best for you. Feel free to DM me here or reply to this comment. 

Maxwell Folley

This is great, thank you. I fully understand the challenge with low response rates.

I'm curious if you've experimented with other channels to get higher response rates? Email seems to be waning with all the noise.

Have you tried surveying within the product experience? Any community-based surveying?

I guess the channel you choose can also depend on the information you're seeking to gather – the why.

I would love to connect to chat further. I'll send you a message to do so : )

Great questions @Maxwell Folley.

One part of the answer lies in your question -- deciding when it's most valuable to get customer feedback.

Before deciding WHEN to survey, you should decide WHY you're surveying.

             What information/data are you trying to get?

             How will that data be used?

Once you understand your WHY, then decide on the HOW:

           What type of surveys are you sending (single question, multiple questions)?

           How frequently will they be sent out? 

           Which customers receive them?

Lastly, you'll want to decide who will analyze the data and report it.

I also agree with @Jeff Heckler that conducting customer interviews will help you better understand the data you need and when surveys should be used.

(Bear in mind that surveys typically have low response rates which are something else that needs to be considered.)

Surveys and customer interviews have been my passion for 20+ years. Happy to chat further about what you're looking to accomplish and which mix would be the best for you. Feel free to DM me here or reply to this comment. 

Maxwell Folley

I feel both surveys and customer interviews are very valuable and useful in their own regard, but result in different information.

I would opt to use surveys to identify signals, surface potential issues, etc. since they can be done at scale and will give you better coverage of your customer base. Customer interviews are more arduous, and obviously you'll get less volume, but very helpful for unpacking a particular insight and as you mentioned, diagnosing the health of a particular account.

Anita Toth

@Maxwell Folley  Surprisingly, the channel doesn't matter. It's all in HOW you execute your surveys and the communications around them.

Having executed surveys, focus groups and interviews for over 20+ years, the right communications can lead to an 80% engagement rate (not open rate -- engagement rate). There's a process to it. And it can be applied in any business.

Please DM me here or at [email protected] and we can chat. 

Edgar Cholewa-Cardona

I've seen quick surveys at different stages work well. After the implementation & onboarding process, a quick 3-4 questions survey could give insights of what is working well, how confident they feel with the product and how adoption is even kicking in. 

Surveys could also be anonymous, so customers might feel more comfortable telling the real truth, good or bad. If they can be sent through text message, I think those get a lot of results! 

In regards of customers interviews, my previous company used to schedule one customer insight/interview every other month, where all team members where able to join. We also had a Slack Channel where internal team members could ask questions and the host would choose the most relevant ones to ask the customer. Super useful for research, but also to find how they have resolved some pain points, what they love the most and even their overall experience and sentiment. I thought that was cool and useful for all teams. 

Hope this helps!

Jeff Breunsbach

Awesome content in here @Anita Toth and @Jeff Heckler

Jeff Heckler

Thank you, @Jeff Breunsbach

*High Five*, @Anita Toth : )