What response rates can you expect?
If you opt to conduct your customer satisfaction survey by email, online or paper, you will almost certainly need to offer an incentive, eg "take part in our customer satisfaction survey and we will enter you in to a free prize draw to win....". Normally this type of campaign would also have a closing date, thereby locking you in to a timescale that is not possible to extend. Even with an incentive, the best response rate you can expect is around 40%. In a B2C situation this can work really well, as companies can control the mailshot, aim for volume and then receive a representative response.
With telephone surveys that response rate can increase to around 60% and that is usually without offering an incentive. However if a customer satisfaction survey has not been completed for 18 months or more, then those figures are likely to be affected. Telephone customer satisfaction surveys do not have to be restricted with a timescale, although of course they can be. At Leadline as standard we will aim to complete the survey by calling a minimum of 3 times where appropriate to secure a time that is convenient.
A partially completed customer satisfaction survey is no good and cannot be included in the final report and analysis. When this happens it is usually because the questionnaire is too long or too complicated or irrelevant to the customer. This is a real case of ‘keep it simple'. Sections of your database may need a customer satisfaction survey tailoring to make it relevant to them - and if you need specific detail, eg technical detail, then you need to do this because the survey has to be relevant. If a survey is too complicated with too many variables, the customer will simply become bored, and possibly irritated thereby affecting how they feel towards your business. Making a customer satisfaction survey too long is a common mistake. Over the phone the maximum length should be no more than six minutes. There is no ‘magic' number of questions, it's a case of how succinct the questions are - this is where Leadline can help with design that reduces duplication.
