Andrew Gilliam, ITS Service Desk Consultant

Small changes can often lead to big results.

Andrew Gilliam is an ITS Service Desk Consultant at Western Kentucky University. He improved the response rate to customer service surveys by 370 percent simply by changing the wording of the survey invitation email.

I interviewed Gilliam to learn about how he was able to do it. He provides a lot of helpful, actionable advice into this short, 20 minute interview.

Topics we cover include:

Why you should survey both internal and external customers
What constitutes a "good" response rate
How to improve your survey invitation email
What types of customers typically complete surveys
Why you need feedback from angry, happy, and even neutral customers

You can watch the full interview here. Follow Gilliam on Twitter at @ndytg or contact him via his website.

Everyone wants a better survey response rate. The Center For Client Retention (TCFCR) recently shared some data about business-to-consumer (B2C) surveys that revealed an easy way to improve results.

TCFCR helps businesses conduct customer satisfaction research. The company's client focus is primarily Fortune 500 companies in business-to-business (B2B) and B2C segments.

There's a big need for these type of services given that a recent study from Interaction Metrics found 68 percent of surveys offered by America's largest retailers were "total garbage."

I provide similar services to small and mid-sized businesses, so I was curious to see what TCFCR's survey data might reveal.

One quick look and I immediately saw a way for businesses to double the response rate on their B2C surveys.

The Response Rate Secret

TCFCR pulled aggregate data from thousands of surveys across all of their clients for a 12-month period. The company compared response rates for "in the moment" surveys versus follow-up surveys sent via email.

Here are the results:

Follow-up surveys had more than twice the average response rate!

An in the moment survey is offered at the time of service. It could be a link in an email response from a customer service rep, an after-call transfer to an automated survey, or a link in a chat dialog box.

A follow-up email survey is sent after the customer service interaction is complete.

TCFCR also found that sending a reminder email after the initial survey invitation typically generated an additional 5-point increase in response rates!

Some companies do follow-up surveys via telephone instead of email. TCFCR's data shows that those surveys get an average response rate of 12-15 percent, which is on par with in the moment surveys.

One thing to keep in mind is that this data is for B2C surveys only. TCFCR found that B2B surveys typically get a response rate that's half of what you'd expect from a B2C.

Increase Response Rates Even More

There are a few more things you can do to stack the deck in your favor.

One is to keep your surveys short. A 2011 study from SurveyMonkey found that survey completion rates drop 5-20 percent once a survey takes 7+ minutes to complete. The same study discovered that's usually around 10 questions.

Most surveys will gather adequate data with just three short questions.

Another way to improve response rates is through rules-based offering. A lot of customer service software platforms, such as Zendesk, have a built-in survey feature that allows you to adjust which customers receive a survey and when.

For instance, you might only send a follow-up survey once a support ticket is closed rather than after every single interaction. Or if you offer a subscription-based service, you might survey all customers when they reach the six month mark in their annual subscription, regardless of whether they've contacted your company for support.

You can learn more about response rates and other survey-related topics here.