<p>If you want to build a successful business, you have to understand your customers. Not only do you need to know who your ideal customers are, but you also have to find out exactly what they want.</p><p>Customer insights are the desires, needs, and expectations of your buyers and they can prove invaluable to your business.</p><p>There are a lot of ways to get these crucial insights. One of the best and easiest ways to search for this information is through <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/surveys">customer feedback surveys</a>. Let’s take a closer look at what types of feedback surveys there are and how to create an effective survey that actually works.</p><h2>What are customer loyalty insights?</h2><p>Customer loyalty insights provide invaluable information about customer retention. You'll get a good idea of how loyal your customers are, alongside the factors that impact their loyalty.</p><p>These insights will also give you a much deeper understanding of how your customers behave. You can use them to identify any changes that may need to be made to improve retention ratings.</p><h2>The benefits of customer loyalty insights</h2><p>Collecting customer loyalty insights provides a fantastic range of benefits for your business. Used correctly, these insights can:</p><ul><li>Discover why customers have churned</li><li>Understand employee performance and client satisfaction</li><li>Improve the customer journey and experience</li><li>Boost your marketing efforts</li><li>Improve customer retention rates</li><li>Increase profits</li><li>Gain feedback on new features and developments</li></ul><h2>What’s the difference between market research and customer insights?</h2><p>Market research means gathering information about your customers or target market. It focuses on knowledge and statistics. Customer insights, on the other hand, involve taking action on the information that's discovered.</p><p>Market research lets you know what's happening with your customers. Customer insights let you see why it's happening.</p><h2>Seven types of customer feedback surveys</h2><p><strong>1. Customer reviews</strong></p><p>Customer reviews are usually associated with product reviews where customers are asked about their experience with the product they have recently purchased. These types of reviews are usually in an open-ended, free format and are a fantastic way of getting product feedback at scale. You can usually find customer reviews online, on the corresponding website product pages.</p><p><strong>2. Customer feedback</strong></p><p>Customer feedback is associated with the experience that customers have with your company’s service. This includes interactions with your customer service teams – by telephone, email, post, web chat, or social media – or your sales colleagues. Customer feedback is a great way to gauge how well your employees are trained to serve your customers pre- and post-sale, and what your overall level of customer service satisfaction looks like.</p><p><strong>3. Customer satisfaction surveys</strong></p><p>You can use customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys to understand your customers’ satisfaction levels with your business's products, services, or specific experiences. A single question usually asks: How would you rate your overall satisfaction with the service you received?</p><p>Answers are graded on a scale, usually from 1-5, where 1 represents very unsatisfied and 5 represents very satisfied. Once you start collecting responses, you can measure your score using the formula below:</p><p><strong>(Number of satisfied customers (4 and 5) / Number of survey responses) x 100 = % of satisfied customers</strong></p><p>This score indicates how satisfied or dissatisfied customers are with whatever you want your survey to measure.</p><p><strong>4. Net Promoter Score&nbsp;</strong></p><p>The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. It's used to gauge the overall satisfaction of customers with your company's product or service and their loyalty to your brand.&nbsp;</p><p><a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/nps">NPS</a> surveys ask the question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company’s product or service to a friend or a colleague?</p><p>Learn more about calculating <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-experience/net-promoter-score">NPS</a> with our Net Promoter Score guide here.</p><p><strong>5. Website experience surveys</strong></p><p>Design your on-page website experience surveys to show on key pages of your website, or set them so that they can be triggered when a visitor takes certain actions on a page. They can collect information about the design, user interface (UI), and user experience(UX)of your website, and can be very effective in better understanding your customers' online pain points or what information is maybe missing from your website.</p><p><strong>6. Social media surveys</strong></p><p>You can find praise from your biggest fans and complaints from your unhappiest customers on social media. Using social media to collect feedback via in-channel polls or landing page surveys is a fantastic way to show your engaged customers that you hear them and want to know more. If you're struggling to get the reach you need for a high volume of responses, you can also boost your survey to more of your customers using paid social.</p><p><strong>7. Customer Effort Score (CES)</strong></p><p>This customer satisfaction metric measures the effort a customer needs to put in to complete an interaction with your business. This is a great way to understand what goes wrong in each step by asking: ‘How easy was it to find what you were looking for?’ or ‘How easy was it to solve your problem?’.&nbsp;</p><p>Customers are given a scale of 1 to 5 to rate their response with 1 being ‘Very Difficult’ and 5 being ‘Very Easy’.</p><h2>How to make a survey to gather customer loyalty insights&nbsp;</h2><p>If you want to ensure you gain valuable customer loyalty insights from your surveys, you can:</p><p><strong>Keep the survey short – </strong>Your customers aren’t going to spend a lot of time filling out your survey. Therefore, the shorter you can make it, the more likely they are to complete it. If you have a lot of questions you’d like to ask, condense them down into a list of the most important ones.</p><p><strong>Define your purpose – </strong>Determining the overall objectives of your survey will help shape your questions and give you an idea of what you want to do with the data you collect. Narrowing down your focus will save you time in the long run and will help you to yield the data that is valuable to you.</p><p><strong>Ask the right questions –</strong> If you're keeping the survey short, you need to make sure you're asking the right questions. In terms of customer loyalty insights, you should ask questions regarding their experience and how likely they are to make another purchase.&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Closed-end questions – Respondents answer using a yes or no, multiple choice, or rating scale system. These are quantitative questions and they’ll give you quantifiable data which is easy to collect and analyse.&nbsp;</li><li>Qualitative questions – These are open-ended questions. The user is free to give whatever answer they like, so while the results are harder to measure, you can get more information and insight into their responses.</li></ul><p>For more ideas about which questions to ask your customers, take a look at our 20 examples of effective survey questions here:</p><p><strong>Avoid personal questions</strong> – Intimate questions will go unanswered and customers may choose to leave the survey altogether without finishing. Leave out overly personal and security-sensitive questions. For example, people may not want to disclose their exact monthly income but might feel comfortable ticking a box that asks for a broad range. Similarly, they may not want to share their postcode, but might be happier sharing their county or closest city.</p><p><strong>Use simple language</strong> – Using complicated industry jargon that customers don’t understand can cause survey fatigue. You don’t want to confuse the respondent and end up with vague or incomplete answers. Make it conversational and use terms that a layperson would understand easily.</p><p><strong>Leave room for more feedback</strong> – This gives respondents the option to offer their feedback on something that you may not have considered. Including an open-ended feedback section allows you to collect responses that you would have otherwise missed out on.</p><p><strong>Make it mobile-friendly</strong> – An increasing number of customers are completing surveys on their mobile devices. Make sure your survey is mobile-optimised and works fully on smaller devices. Customers should be able to easily access the survey on the go, which boosts your chances of completion; the more people who answer, the more data you'll have.</p><h2>How to action insights from your customer satisfaction survey</h2><p>What you do with your data is just as important as how you collect it, and here’s how you can make the most of it:</p><p><strong>1. Analyse the results</strong></p><p>Look for trends within the responses to see what problems come up the most. This gives you areas of immediate focus.</p><p><strong>2. Close the feedback loop</strong></p><p>Too many negative scores? Respond to the most common grievances as soon as possible for a chance to gain their trust next time.</p><p><strong>3. Convert them</strong></p><p>Easily convert unsatisfied customers into satisfied ones by focusing on areas that they’re unhappy with. Use tactics like discount codes and free delivery to ask them for a second chance where you provide them with a service that solves all the issues they had in the first place.</p><p>Start creating effective customer satisfaction surveys with Feefo.</p><p>We’re proud to offer an easy-to-use <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/surveys">surveys platform</a> that works seamlessly alongside our trusted customer reviews. Get in touch with one of our consultants today to find out how surveys can play a key role in your customer feedback strategy.</p>

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How to make customer surveys that actually work: A step-by-step guide

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Customer survey and downloadable templates

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<p>Online spending has reached record highs across the UK as consumers head to their laptops and smartphones to buy everything from groceries to garden tools. The way people shop is changing and retailers need to see the bigger picture if they want to keep pace.</p><p><a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/surveys">Surveys</a> are the perfect partner to your customer reviews and a fantastic way of being able to find out more about your customers. Whether it’s finding out if your website is up to scratch or wanting a better understanding of your customer experience, what you ask and how you ask it is so important for getting the insight you need.</p><p>We’ve collected some helpful questions that you can include in your next customer survey to glean some useful insights into how you can improve your business. We’ve also included some survey templates to help you get started.</p><p>Here are 20 questions to add to your next customer survey:</p><h2>Customer effort score questions:</h2><ul><li>How easy was it to find the product you were after on our website?</li></ul><ul><li>How easy was it to pay for your order?</li></ul><ul><li>How easy was it to get the help you needed from our online support team?</li></ul><ul><li>Why did you pick this rating?</li></ul><ul><li>How would you rate your overall experience with us from 0-10?</li></ul><ul><li>Did you run into any issues whilst using our website?</li></ul><ul><li>What’s stopping you from continuing with your purchase?</li></ul><h2>Customer retention questions:</h2><ul><li>&nbsp;How likely are you to shop again with us? And why?</li></ul><ul><li>&nbsp;What can we do to make your next shopping experience with us better?</li></ul><ul><li>&nbsp;Is there anything you’d like to see us do differently?</li></ul><ul><li>&nbsp;Which of these would most likely make you want to shop more with us in the future?</li></ul><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; A. Loyalty scheme&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; B. Discount codes</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; C. Free delivery</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; D. Mobile app&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; E. Other</p><h2>Customer loyalty questions:</h2><ul><li>How likely are you to recommend (your business’s name) to a friend or colleague?</li></ul><ul><li>Why would you/why would you not recommend us?</li></ul><ul><li>What did we do well?</li></ul><ul><li>What can we do differently next time?</li></ul><h2>Customer behaviour questions:</h2><ul><li>Are you more likely to shop online or on the high street?</li></ul><ul><li>What types of products do you prefer to buy online vs in person?</li></ul><ul><li>What would make you choose one brand over another?</li></ul><ul><li>Which products do you predict you’ll spend more on in the future?</li></ul><ul><li>How important is it to you that the brands you shop care about sustainability?</li></ul><h2>Why you should be using surveys to improve your business&nbsp;</h2><h3>1. To help you learn why your online journey is (or isn’t) working&nbsp;</h3><p>One of the biggest challenges online retailers face — other than standing out in search results — is keeping customers onsite and securing a purchase. The slightest obstacle can be the difference between making a sale and losing out to a competitor, so your online experience needs to be as smooth as possible, from start to finish.</p><p>Back in 2010, the Harvard Business Review published a now-famous article called ‘<a href="https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers">Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers</a>’. In it, they established the Customer Effort Score (CES) – a way of measuring how easy it was for a customer to interact with a business. Essentially, it’s an indicator of how loyal a customer is to a business.</p><p>Running quick and simple customer effort surveys about your website can help you understand how easy (or not) it is for customers to find what they need and complete the payment process.&nbsp;</p><p>Customers will rate their experience from “very difficult” to “very easy”, but this is more often than not presented as a simple scale from 1-5. It’s always worth asking a follow-up, open-ended question to give the customer a chance to explain why they’ve rated you the way they have.</p><p>The quicker you ask after the experience, the more accurate the responses.</p><p>Including a customer effort score question straight after a customer places an order, or finishes up a conversation with your live chat team can give you immediate insight into your online experience. That feedback can then be used to help improve your site for next time.&nbsp;</p><h3>2. To win back previous customers</h3><p>Returning customers spend <a href="https://www.business.com/articles/returning-customers-spend-67-more-than-new-customers-keep-your-customers-coming-back-with-a-recurring-revenue-sales-model/">67%</a> more on average than new customers, so it’s important to convince people to come back time and again.</p><p>Contacting them with reactivation surveys eight weeks, six months, or even a year after their last purchase can help you discover why they’ve not shopped with you again. They can also provide insights to help you to re-engage with them and win back their business.&nbsp;</p><p>Perhaps your competitors are offering something you’re not. Did your delivery provider miss the promised date last time? Was something wrong with your product?&nbsp;</p><p>It could be something as simple as the promise of free delivery, or offering 10% off their next order, that turns their heads.</p><h3>3. To identify at-risk customers and reward loyal ones</h3><p>While we’re on the subject of retaining customers, <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/nps">Net Promoter Score® (NPS)</a> is an effective way of quickly identifying those at risk of going elsewhere. And it’s those people you can depend on to spread the word about how awesome your business really is.</p><p>All you need to ask is one simple question to get going:&nbsp;How likely are you to recommend ua to a friend or colleague?</p><p>Depending on how customers rate your business, they fall into one of three categories:</p><ul><li><strong>Promoters: </strong>Score the company with either a 9 or a 10. These are your loyal, enthusiastic customers.</li><li><strong>Passives:</strong> Respond with a 7 or an 8. They’re happy with the service, but not enough to be promoters.</li><li><p><strong>Detractors: </strong>Give a score between 0 and 6. These are classed as your unhappy customers, who are unlikely to use your company again.</p></li></ul><p>Now, once you know which category they fall into, you can send them on the right path with a simple customer satisfaction survey to dig a little deeper into why.&nbsp;</p><p>For the detractors, ask why they wouldn’t recommend you. What was it about their experience that they didn’t enjoy? How can you offer to make amends or improve for next time so that they’d be more likely to recommend you in the future?</p><p>Promoters, on the other hand, will tell you what you’re getting right, and you can use that insight to keep them coming back and attract new customers. The answers you get will shine a light on what people truly love about your business.</p><p>Ensure you plug all this insight straight back into how you operate. Improve on the things your detractors highlighted, but, most importantly, start promoting the things people really liked.&nbsp;</p><h3>4. To prepare for the future of retail</h3><p>Surveys are a great way to gain insight into a wide consumer audience. A well-written survey can help you to predict trends in consumer behaviour and attitudes so that you can better prepare for what lies ahead.</p><p>Multiple-choice questions can help you identify which products could increase in popularity or reasons why consumer spending habits might be about to change.&nbsp;</p><p>More open-ended questions can give you detailed insight into what matters most to your customers.</p><h2>Six survey templates that will get you results</h2><p>We’ve created six survey templates targeting various different points of the customer journey to help you source the information you need. You can use these as a starting point and amend them to suit your business and objectives.</p><h3>1. Market research survey</h3><p>Whether you’re planning to launch a new product or refine an existing one, you need to base your decisions on data. Market research surveys are a great way to understand if your new venture resonates with your audience.&nbsp;</p><p>Our example centres around how customers would feel about more eco-friendly initiatives within the business. We started off with some basic demographic questions and then used a mix of multiple choice, scale, and text questions to understand people’s attitudes towards sustainability.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/6114f520e4b0b138891048c1/1xDoIV" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h3>2. Website feedback survey</h3><p>Usually delivered in the form of a pop-up, website feedback surveys are an excellent way to understand if your website is meeting visitor expectations.&nbsp;</p><p>In this example, we’ve used a combination of question types to discover how people use the website, what their experience was like during their visit, and pinpoint anything that needs improvement.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/6113f6e5e4b0b138890d9796/2BnLzc" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h3>3. In-store visit survey</h3><p>In-store surveys allow you to understand the customer’s experience within your physical location: everything from how helpful the staff were, to why people visit your stores or branches in the first place. With more people shopping online than ever before, physical locations are under increasing pressure to earn their keep by offering an experience your customers can’t get online.&nbsp;</p><p>In our example, we’ve used a combination of multiple-choice, customer satisfaction score (CSAT), and Net Promoter Score (NPS) questions to measure and understand how shoppers feel about their visit. This gives you key information about how to improve your in-store experience and attract more high street shoppers.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/611283e3e4b0765710973d92/p6niHR" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h3>4. Product feedback survey</h3><p>While public-facing product reviews are fantastic for boosting sales and helping you understand what people like and dislike about your products, private feedback surveys allow you to dig deeper.&nbsp;</p><p>Product feedback surveys are very effective if you’re trialling new products, which is the direction we’ve taken in the example below.&nbsp;</p><p>We’ve used a combination of well-recognised metrics, including customer effort score (CES), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer satisfaction score (CSAT), so you can easily benchmark your products against one another if you decide to run multiple product surveys. The inclusion of a short text question at the end gives you the option to collect email addresses too, helping to maintain your customer relationships.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/61125dcde4b0bae91553bcc6/4kinHT" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h3>5. Customer service survey</h3><p>Ensuring your customer service team is knowledgeable, friendly, and efficient is incredibly important to your overall customer experience and reputation. That’s why surveying people after they’ve interacted with your staff is a great way to understand if you’re providing excellent customer service, or if you need to improve.&nbsp;</p><p>In our example, we’ve started with a CSAT question to measure the customer’s level of satisfaction, followed by multiple choice answers to understand if their issue has been resolved and whether they’ve needed to contact us before. By using the logic function on the dropdown question, you can ask questions about each specific member of staff, allowing you to get more detailed feedback.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/61151a37e4b0bae91564ae4d/t8VDqg" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h3>6. Employee engagement survey</h3><p>The anonymity of surveys makes them the ideal tool to listen to your team and get their honest opinions.&nbsp;</p><p>In the example below, we’ve used scale questions to measure how strongly your staff members feel about the statements presented to them. If the answer is particularly negative, you may want to add logic to ask further questions and understand why they gave that answer.</p><h2 style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://surveys.feefo.com/61114933e4b071ba1bfcbe8f/hL0NJL" style="text-align: center;">Try the survey here</a></h2><h2>Start asking the right questions with customer surveys</h2><p>If you’re interested in finding out more about how <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/send-adhoc-surveys">customer surveys</a> can help improve the retail experience and prepare your business for the future, <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/enquiry/get-in-touch">get in touch with our team today</a>.</p>