Increase Data Collection by Using Reminders

!https://customercount.com/images/28.jpg!

Increase Data Collection by Using Reminders
By: Marc E. Carlson, RRP
CustomerCount© Business Relationship Manager

Response rates on surveys delivered to customers can vary depending on when the survey invitation is sent after an interaction with a company. Do you send the invitation right after the touch point or do you wait several hours, or up to a day or two to maximize the chances you will receive feedback from the customer? This is a question often debated amongst customer experience thought leaders and the answers I have heard are, “it depends.” However, I think more energy should be spent determining when is the best time to send a reminder to the customer if they didn’t respond to your first request for feedback. Banking on a consumer responding to your first survey invitation is like throwing a dart and hitting the bulls-eye…it rarely happens.

Let’s face it, we all live busy lives and we cannot take time out of our day every time we receive a request for feedback. This is precisely why a survey invitation should be followed by a reminder if the customer has not provided their feedback in “x” days from the survey invitation distribution date. Instituting this measure in your customer feedback program will not only position your brand in front of the customer an additional time, it will most likely increase your data collection efforts as a few stragglers will complete the task of providing you feedback. Clients using CustomerCount© generally send out survey reminders five or six days after the initial survey invitation. This timeframe seems to be strategic as they see an increase in response rates of seven percent on average. Think of how much additional data you can accrue over time just by positioning a survey reminder. Thus, enhancing the depository of statistically valid data so you can validate decisions you will be making for your organization.