Businesses must obtain high-quality and honest feedback to increase customer happiness and service excellence. Survey feedbacks are essential for businesses’ decision-making.
However, most clients find answering survey questions difficult and time-consuming. As a result, many respond to survey questions just to complete the forms. So, what is the most significant way to collect customers’ sincere feedback?
Feedback is essential. It enables you to gauge how people feel about your products, services, corporate leadership, and more! However, there is one sort of feedback on which you must place particular emphasis: honest feedback.
People resist delivering honest feedback for a variety of reasons. And although it’s great that they’re providing feedback at all, it defeats the point if it doesn’t contain their truth.
Why Would Someone Lie on a Survey?
So, why can individuals be dishonest while responding to surveys? Here are some explanations:
- They provide socially desirable responses
- They wish to enhance their sense of self-worth
- They are anxious about their identity
- They are defensive over a delicate subject
- They merely want to be courteous
- They desire a reward for providing candid comments.
5 tips to getting honest feedback on your surveys
The fundamental issue with the majority of survey forms is that they are either overly lengthy or contain rating scales that are unclear to respondents. Form simplification is likely to yield the intended results.
Typically, surveys issued to customers have a scripted approach; this is one reason why most customers do not bother to respond, as they are tired of getting such inquiries from many organizations. Adding a human touch to your survey forms will encourage your customers to give you their honest feedback, as they would perceive that you care about how they rank your products or services. Take a look at some strategies for eliciting sincere feedback from your consumers!
1. Keep your feedback questions concise, clear, and pertinent.
First and foremost, you must ensure that your survey forms are concise, straightforward, and to the point. People cannot devote 15 to 20 minutes to completing a survey with 20 questions, so keep it brief. Don’t include confusing questions, use consistent rating scales across the form to achieve accurate responses, and utilize agree/disagree rather than numbers. Add a few open-ended questions so your clients can provide feedback and comments regarding customer experience. Encourage criticism, allow your customers to express their opinions about your product or service, and value their honesty.
2. Accept customer feedback at their convenience.
Another issue with collecting feedback is disregarding clients’ convenience. The optimal time to get customer feedback is after their interaction, so you may ask the consumer as they leave or send an email within two days. Sending a survey after a significant amount of time has elapsed is unlikely to result in a response, as the respondent may have forgotten about the experience. Also, avoid sending many reminders if a client does not react to your feedback email; doing so will likely annoy the client and generate an unfavorable opinion of your firm.
3. Personalize your surveys.
Adding a human touch to your surveys will likely elicit truthful responses from clients, as they will feel as though they are speaking with someone. Using a casual and friendly tone will make them feel as though you have remembered them and value their input on how to enhance their future experiences. Begin your survey by thanking and complimenting clients, citing their names, and then suggesting that they complete the brief form. Likewise, if you call a customer, you should begin the discussion with a thank you and then inquire about their experience.
4. Customers today prefer mobile-friendly Survey form designs.
Smartphones have surpassed desktops as the preferred method of accessing corporate websites. Currently, online shoppers also enjoy selecting and purchasing things using their mobile devices. Therefore, to obtain client input, create mobile-friendly survey forms. The possibility of filling out online forms via mobile devices would boost the response rate. In addition, minimize the number of questions and make the rating scales simple to select using the phone’s keypad. This would allow your customers to complete surveys whenever and wherever they choose.
5. Demonstrate to your customers how you are using their feedback.
Many customers do not respond to surveys because they believe that their suggestions will not be implemented and that feedback is merely a formality. Provide evidence to convince them that you are using their comments to enhance your product or service. While sending client feedback requests, provide a quick summary of how the feedback was used to grow and improve your products and services. This would inspire your clients to offer their ideas and suggestions in greater depth, as they would recognize that you are genuinely interested in what they desire.
Now that you understand how to obtain honest feedback, it is time to begin. Of course, lying is unavoidable when it comes to surveys, but if you follow these suggestions, you’ll receive more and more honest responses!
Want to learn more about how to obtain honest responses for your next business survey in Africa? Send Survey54 an email at info@survey54.com today.
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