Tried and tested techniques that make more people take your survey
30th November 2021 by Christina Lee
Quality feedback from customers is crucial for any business. Customer feedback provides
valuable insight into the customer experience and how you can improve your products and
services. Asking customers for their feedback also relays to them that you value their
opinion and care about their experience.
Get Started with Online SurveysWith One Of Our 200+ Templates
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Customer Feedback Survey
360 Employee Evaluation
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Customer Satisfaction Survey
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Since customer feedback is essential to growth and improvement as a business, it’s important
to find avenues to gather this data. Surveys are one of the best ways to collect
high-quality data from your customers. The trick, however, is convincing respondents to
actually complete these surveys.
What Is A Survey Incentive?
Incentives offer customers something valuable in exchange for taking the time to complete
your survey. An incentive is typically monetary in nature or a gift of some sort. Regardless
of its form, incentives are an effective way to boost survey response rates and show
appreciation for customers.
“A survey incentive essentially rewards respondents for their helpful feedback,” explains
Leonard Glaser, a marketing manager at Eliteassignmentservice
and State of
writing. “It creates a win-win situation for the business and the customer.”
4 Types Of Survey Incentives To Boost Customer Response Rates
The good news for businesses is there are several ways to incentivize customers to provide
their feedback through surveys, and not all of them involve spending money. Here are a few
affordable survey incentive ideas to increase response rates.
Monetary Reward
Not all incentives need to be monetary. However, surveys with monetary incentives are a tried
and true way to boost customer response rates. If your business can afford it, offering a
monetary reward in the form of a gift card is a great way to collect high-quality customer
data.
In the email above, the live streaming service, Twitch offered each customer a $10 Visa
e-Gift Card for completing their survey. This strategy can be extremely effective if you
want to collect specific and in-depth data from your customers. Respondents are incentivized
to finish the survey even if it takes them a couple of minutes longer than expected in order
to receive their reward.
Research
shows that businesses don’t need to offer a large sum of money as a reward to convince
customers to take a survey either. An amount as little as $1 is more cost-efficient, but
could produce almost identical response rates as the $10 incentive.
Monetary Reward Giveaway
While larger companies might be able to afford giving a monetary reward to every single
customer who completes their survey, this might not be feasible for smaller businesses. If
you don’t want to spend an exorbitant amount on gift cards but still want to offer some sort
of monetary incentive, consider holding a gift card giveaway instead.
Offering a giveaway of a monetary reward enables you to offer a larger amount to the winner.
It also allows you to set an exact budget for how much you’re willing to spend to collect
quality customer feedback. Since every customer who completes the survey has an equal chance
of receiving the gift card, respondents are incentivized to respond to the survey for a
chance to win.
The company in the example above, Signature Hardware, held a gift card giveaway for their own
store. This means they didn’t have to spend any money to provide this incentive. Moreover,
the winner has to purchase something from their store in order to use the reward. Therefore,
this incentive also encourages the winner to become a return customer.
Discount Off Service Or Product
Another way to persuade customers to respond to surveys is to offer a discount off of your
product or service. This doesn’t require your business to spend any money, but it can be as
equally effective as a monetary reward.
In the example above, the airline company, Aero, rewarded their customers with 10% off their
next flight for taking a survey. While 10% may not seem like much, this discount can be
quite valuable for a customer booking an expensive flight.
Similar to a gift card for your company, using a discount as a reward also creates a return
customer. Since they have a discount for their next purchase, they are more likely to choose
you again over a competitor.
Free Item
Everybody loves free things. A physical reward could be equally as successful as a gift card
in increasing response rates. As long as the item is valuable in some way, customers are
likely to desire it for simply being free.
In this example, the WordPress hosting agency, Flywheel is trying to incentivize their
clients to take a survey using free swag. “While the delivery may not be as flashy as a
t-shirt cannon, receiving a free t-shirt will likely have the same happy effect over its
recipients,” explains Judy Cuevas, a business writer at OX EssaysM
and Revieweal.
“As long as the free item is something they can derive some sort of use or joy from,
consumers are always going to want it.”
Other Ways To Increase Survey Response Rates
In addition to survey incentives, it’s important to demonstrate to your customers that you
value their feedback and time. Consider including the following elements to your survey
request to maximize your chances of receiving a response from recipients.
Time Estimate
As a customer, there’s nothing more annoying than starting a survey that claims to
only take a few minutes only to realize that it’s going to take significantly
longer. In most cases, respondents will exit the survey without completing it.
Your customer’s time is extremely valuable. To show that your company understands
this, include an estimate of how long the survey will take to complete in your
request. This helps respondents decide whether or not they have not the time to take
the survey before opening it.
Gratitude
Sometimes, a customer just needs to feel appreciated in order to be motivated to
complete a survey. Never underestimate the effect of making your customers feel
valued.
Conclusion
As businesses, it can be challenging to receive a sufficient survey response rate
from customers. Survey incentives urge respondents to complete surveys and provide
businesses with important feedback. Regardless of whether your business chooses a
monetary or non-monetary reward, an incentive is sure to make customers feel more
valued and appreciated.
Get Started with Online SurveysWith One Of Our 200+ Templates
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Customer Feedback Survey
360 Employee Evaluation
Coffehouse Rating
Customer Satisfaction Survey
Market Research Survey
Computer Skills Assessment
Event Feedback Survey
About author
Christina Lee is a marketing manager at Paper
Fellows and Big Assignments. She writes about marketing
strategies and tips for such services, as Study
demic, and others.