How to improve customer survey completion rates and what opt-in and completion rate should you expect from customer surveys?

At VIRTUATell we have a valuable reputation for achieving the highest survey conversion rates in the industry.

We do so by using a number of combined methods including short concise surveys using question cycling if surveys are too long, explicit and clear invitations, easily understood scripts, conducting real-time surveys immediately after the original contact event and offering surveys using a customers preferred contact method such as phone, tablet, PC, mobile or smartphone.

Using this methodology, VIRTUATell clients often achieve survey opt-in rates of 15% to 20% via phone or SMS and between 10% and 20% for online surveys.

However, there are a large number of factors that can influence opt-in rates in a negative ways

Don’t add any delay in sending the survey

The longer the delay between the original event and the survey, the lower opt-in rate will result. Our real-time surveys are triggered seconds after the event to ensure maximum opt-in rates are achieved.

Most surveys are far too long

We campaign contently to “Keep Surveys Short!”as long surveys not only antagonize your respondents but often never get completed. It also ensures they never complete them again.

Make sure you know when they were last surveyed and on which channel

If you don’t keep a full record of all invitations sent – regardless of channel – and if surveys were completed or not, you may subject those clients that are kind enough to complete your surveys with a form of “survey fatigue”. You MUST keep this information and use it within the survey invitation Rules Engine as is used by VIRTUATell.

Collect surveys and then do nothing with the results

If your survey respondents think nothing is happening as a result of their feedback, they will stop completing your surveys as they consider it a waste of their time. At VIRTUATell’s we not only trigger real-time alerts to your staff as a result of the scores or verbatim comments but also can send follow-up information back to your customers as a result of actions taken. Be proactive with the results.