Annual Customer Surveys Are Out of Date. Do This Instead.

You have access to robust technology that enables you to ask your customers what they think of their experience with your company and brand.

You can easily create a system that gets feedback from your customers at strategic points in their buying journey.

You can learn so much from your customers, every day.

So why would you send out a customer survey just once a year?

Seems silly, doesn’t it?

But this is exactly what many companies do.

Maybe they’re worried about annoying their customers. Or maybe they don’t have the resources to create more regular surveys together and send them out. Or – the worst excuse of all – they actually believe that they can get valuable customer insights a year after a customer interacts with their company.

There’s no excuse for relegating this important activity to a once-a-year cycle.

Short-Term Memory Loss Leads to Inaccurate Responses

What were you doing on this day last year?

Don’t look at your calendar. Just try to remember.

If you can remember anything, it’s probably pretty hazy, right?

You wouldn’t be able to remember, for example, exactly what a customer service rep told you on the phone.

Or even what you bought.

Why would you expect your customers to remember their experiences any better than you do?

Meaningful feedback, accurate data and valuable insights are best captured as close to the moment as possible.

We’re not saying that you should assault your customers with surveys at every turn. Rather, decide what information you need – decide the purpose behind the survey – and launch it as close to the relevant touch point as possible.

For example, if you are trying to measure the effectiveness of your customer service team, send out a survey after your customer has had a phone or email interaction with a customer service rep.

You Don’t Need a Huge, Dedicated Team to Send Out Customer Surveys

Today’s technology makes it easy for anyone to create a customer survey, send it out, and analyze the data that comes back.

Take Questback software for example. Our customer experience tools are integrated into one easy-to-use platform. It includes templates for customer surveys, real-time reporting and dashboards, and every survey is automatically optimized for mobile.

With this technology at your fingertips, anyone in your company can ask customers for their feedback. You can also:

_    Create event-triggered surveys to automatically ask customers for feedback at specific times

_    Set up automated alerts to notify you of responses

_    Discover what other products or services your customers are interested in

_    Quickly and easily define your customers’ loyalty criteria

_    Determine what customer needs are going unfulfilled

Ditch the Once-a-Year Customer Survey

Your customers interact with your company in many different ways at different times. So don’t send out your customer surveys once a year. You’ll miss out on valuable insights and worthwhile interactions with your customers.

Read more about Customer Satisfaction Surveys.