Getting a complete view of what’s important to your customers comes from simply asking them. Especially when connected to your CRM, surveys are a great tool to keep track of responses and update the contact’s record with the new insights. When asking clients for their feedback, keep in mind the types of questions you are looking to answer, keep the survey short, and use simple language to communicate effectively.

This article outlines the five best ways to utilize surveys when collecting customer feedback.

Integrate it into your CRM

A customer relationship management (CRM) system is essentially a hub where you can store all correlating data about the specific contact at hand. Having data and analytics about your customers give your business all the information needed to understand who your contacts are. This information is usually associated with key facts or details about the contact’s demographics or behaviors. To complete the picture of who this contact is, you need to ask customers for their perceptions through feedback surveys.

Why Connected to CRM is important:

Build, send, and track the survey results within the system
Include a link to the survey within email broadcast
Answers can update the contact’s record
Adding automation around answers and scores
Directly connected to contacts

Surveys help bring client perspectives and insights into your database, which helps create a more complete overview. Each contact has a unique relationship with your brand, so it’s important to ask them specific questions to get more details and insights into their needs and wants.

Developing the Right Questions to Ask

Only ask specific questions to understand a customer’s ‘WHY’ preferences. When structuring your survey questions, you’ll want to keep the information as precise and relevant as possible. This keeps the survey respectfully short and increases completion rates. One approach would be to think about the ‘WHY’ when writing your questions. Why are they using certain features three times more often than others? Why do they prefer to work with your company versus others on the market?

Within your CRM, you can already see the analytics behind your client's engagement, asking the ‘WHY’ questions help you understand their motivations and perception.

There are multiple types of question formatting you can use when designing your questions. For example, within GreenRope we offer the following:

Multiple Choice - the survey respondent may select one of the answers
Checkbox - the respondent may select multiple answers
Quality - the respondent selects a score from a range, from bad to good
Available Times - each respondent selects the dates/times which will work for him or her
Rank Order - the respondent orders the answers by his or her preference, with 1 being the best
Short Text - a one-line text field for the respondent to enter whatever he or she wants
Text - a larger open text field for the respondent to enter whatever he or she wants

Streamline Questions and Increase Relevance

Sending out the RIGHT questions using logic. It may be tempting to request general feedback by sending a standardized list of questions to clients or followers. In some instances, this can be beneficial for post-event feedback and insights. However, this approach is often not precise enough to make actionable changes to your business approach. By maintaining detailed client engagement records (joined webinar, attended event, etc.) you can create a more targeted and relevant survey.

Adding logic to survey responses is a great way to collect deeper insights. For example, clients will skip certain questions or access targeted questions based on their previous answers. Within GreenRope, you’ll want to first start with creating all of your survey questions. Next, you’ll design the survey and plug in the core questions. You’ll add targeted questions through logic to add additional layers (or remove layers) to your survey.

Track responses, scores, and net promoter scores

Only ask questions you’re going to use. Make sure each question is relevant to attaining the feedback you’re looking for. Having surveys tied to your CRM allows you to update the contact’s user fields with the new information, track scores for responses, and attach automation behind responses. Having the survey integration within your CRM helps eliminate most of the tedious questions as you already have their data stored.

Survey tracking allows you to report which clients clicked on the survey link, what their individual answers are, as well as an overview of all survey responses. Assigning point values to question answers is a great way to track scores and add automation. For example, some question answers are more valuable to your business and so will, in turn, be scored higher. Each question built can have their answers be scored and tracked. At the end of the survey, an accumulated net promoter score is available to track overall scores for your clients.

The net promoter score helps customize the customer experience, especially once they have completed the survey. For example, sending the clients to a custom Thank You URL if they achieve a specific score helps reaffirm your appreciation. Calculating the net promoter score will help thank every participant and respond to negative feedback immediately.

Add Automation Around Desired Outcomes

Adding automation around your points of value increases the effectiveness of your survey. First, you’ll need to be clear about the desired outcome of the survey, what are you wanting as a result of creating and sending this survey out?

Having a specific outcome allows your business to add points of value to specific survey questions, use logic to add or remove questions, and tailor the survey to your customers. A few great ways to continue the relationship after the survey include:

Adding contacts to a specific group for their needs or interests.
Sending customers a tailored sequence of emails through a drip campaign.
Starting customers on a journey to further segment and send tailored content.
Activate follow-up activities for your team to connect with clients.

Why you want to avoid a passive survey:

Seventy-two (72) percent of customers said surveys interfere with their experience of a website, according to OpinionLab.
The same study found that 80 percent of customers have abandoned a survey halfway through.
Furthermore, 52 percent said they would not spend more than three minutes filling out a survey.

Creating short and engaging surveys will encourage your clients to participate and complete it. Knowing your desired outcome of the survey will help your business identify the points of value to associate with the survey questions. Logic helps keep the survey questions relevant and streamlined to collect the insights you’re looking for. Adding automation behind the net promoter scores will increase your survey’s effectiveness and continue nurturing the relationships with your clients. Showing appreciation after your clients have completed the survey will make them feel good and encourage future participation. Click here to learn more about how to design, create, and track your surveys within GreenRope.

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Integrate it into your CRM

Developing the Right Questions to Ask

Streamline Questions and Increase Relevance

Track responses, scores, and net promoter scores

Add Automation Around Desired Outcomes