Though we may never know when businesses started sending out surveys, the oldest document that could be described as customer feedback dates back to 1750 BCE, written on a clay tablet by an unsatisfied Babylonian copper ore customer named Nanni. It just goes to show that customers have been giving businesses a piece of their minds almost as far back as humans have been recording things.
Customer feedback has been around for a long time.. After all, they are a straightforward way to gain direct insights into customer satisfaction and expectations, taking most of the guesswork out of product and service development.
However, the challenges of surveys have changed significantly in just the past few decades. Before our current age of digital transformation, response rates to traditional survey forms were generally quite high.
A 2019 paper published in Public Opinion Quarterly contends that early survey research regularly achieved response rates close to 100%, while contemporary interviewing methods obtain response rates below 10%. The researchers attribute these current numbers to customers being constantly bombarded with feedback requests from the countless businesses they interact with, leading to survey fatigue.
Despite this steep decline, surveys remain one of the most effective tools for capturing and understanding customer sentiments. Customer experience management platforms remain the most effective solution to listening to customers, resolving issues, and gauging customer sentiment to drive meaningful action and make informed business decisions that would lead to revenue growth.
However, not all of them are created equal. Moreover, companies must also evolve their survey strategies to adapt to ongoing shifts in customer behaviour and ensure that whatever data they collect translates into actionable insights.
How surveys capture customer sentiment
Surveys consolidate various data points, including transactional, behavioural, and direct feedback data, giving organisations a structured approach to understanding underlying customer sentiment. These key data sources typically include:
- Purchase histories - Usually derived from customer relationship management (CRM) data.
- Customer complaints - These include recorded service issues and escalations.
- Direct survey responses - These cover both structured and open-ended feedback.
However, one of the biggest challenges in using survey data is overcoming data silos. When customer feedback is fragmented across multiple departments and business units, it becomes difficult to act on it in time. Siloing not only makes it much harder for businesses to understand what customers want but also makes it more challenging to drive meaningful CX improvements quickly enough for them to matter.
Smarter ways to capture feedback
As mentioned, survey fatigue is a growing issue. Customers are often reluctant to participate in surveys, especially since most believe their feedback gives nothing to them. Customers who do not see businesses taking action on their feedback are naturally going to be less inclined to engage in future surveys, leading to declining response rates.
Moreover, survey responses can sometimes be skewed, especially in the B2B sector. Sales teams may unintentionally pressure customers to provide positive feedback, leading to biased responses that do not accurately reflect real customer views.
To overcome these challenges, companies are supplementing surveys with alternative feedback-gathering methods. These may include such strategies as:
- Tracking complaints and service failures - Actively monitoring service interactions can reveal underlying sentiment without the need to send out more surveys.
- Sentiment analysis from social media and reviews - More businesses than ever before are using social media to gain an idea of customer perceptions. Structured surveys can still be sent at specific touchpoints to capture customer perceptions in greater detail.
These alternative methods capture unfiltered, real-time customer reactions, often revealing pain points that structured surveys may miss. Tracking complaints and service failures allows companies to proactively address recurring issues, while sentiment analysis powered by AI can quickly uncover broader trends and themes affecting the customer experience.
However, while these tools enhance feedback collection, they can’t provide structured, quantitative data in the same way as surveys. Rather than replacing surveys entirely, a more effective approach is to refine survey design and implementation while also integrating complementary feedback mechanisms.
A study published in the European Journal of Information Systems demonstrated that combining qualitative fieldwork with quantitative surveys enhances the depth and breadth of research findings. Other studies also suggest that you can partly compensate for survey fatigue and improve response rates by keeping your surveys concise and delivering them at optimal moments.
The power of open-ended feedback
Numeric ratings alone cannot capture the full customer experience. For that reason, open-ended survey questions remain crucial since they can add qualitative context to numerical scores. For instance, just asking, “Why did you give that score?” can uncover the root causes behind customer delight or dissatisfaction.
Until recently, managing qualitative data from open-ended survey questions was a laborious task, requiring significant input from human analysts. This made open-ended surveys difficult to scale, pushing businesses to depend on structured feedback.
Today, AI-powered text analytics have revolutionised survey analysis, enabling companies to derive insights rapidly from open-ended surveys. A 2023 study published in the International Journal of Qualitative Methods indicates that using AI-powered tools to sort open-ended feedback can offer more actionable insights compared to depending on numbers alone.
Striking the right balance: When (and how often) to send surveys
Sending surveys shouldn’t be random or excessive. It needs to be strategic. Too few surveys leave gaps in understanding, while over-surveying risks alienating customers and causing survey fatigue. Best practices suggest using:
- Annual or Relationship surveys. These provide a stable benchmark for tracking long-term customer sentiment. Annual surveys can be longer and take into account the responses given in the previous year.
- Event-driven or Pulse surveys. These are sent immediately after key interactions such as sign-ups and purchases. These capture customer sentiment at a given moment, providing current insights and helping businesses address issues promptly. However, businesses must take care to avoid sending too many to prevent survey fatigue.
What’s next: Turning survey feedback into meaningful action
Survey data is more valuable when you use it to take immediate action. According to Forbes, 84% of companies that shift to a CX-driven strategy report an increase in revenue, underscoring the financial benefits of collecting customer feedback and using it to effect change in an organisation.
One case study described in B2B Customer Experience: A Practical Guide to Delivering Exceptional CX by Nick Hague and Paul Hague highlighted a financial institution that noticed a significant drop-off among new customers during the credit check process. The company required all new customers to undergo a credit check before placing orders, but only about half of them proceeded with a purchase.
To understand the issue, the company conducted a deep dive with 20 businesses and discovered that the credit screening process was cumbersome and uninviting. In contrast, competitors offered a smoother onboarding experience.
Using these insights, the company appointed a "new product adviser" to guide and support new customers through the process. This initiative proved so successful in motivating customers to complete their purchases that a second adviser was soon appointed.
Taking action is not the only way to benefit from survey feedback. Businesses can close the feedback loop by acknowledging survey responses and communicating the changes that were based on the feedback. Closing the feedback loop makes customers feel heard and builds trust, encouraging participation in future surveys.
Leveraging the inner loop and outer loop approach can ensure that survey feedback consistently leads to meaningful change.
- Inner Loop: This includes immediate responses to individual customer concerns, such as when a frontline employee resolves a complaint in real time.
- Outer Loop: This involves more systemic concerns. When multiple surveys point toward an issue, the outer loop helps management identify patterns and potential big-picture improvements.
Final Thoughts
Despite their challenges and limitations, surveys continue to be among the most accurate ways of measuring and, therefore, improving customer sentiment. After all, who best to tell you how your customers feel than the customers themselves?
Regardless, the whole context surrounding surveys has changed significantly over the past several generations. Ongoing cultural shifts and the sheer number of surveys being sent out have meant that customers are much less inclined to provide feedback. This increasing hesitance makes it that much more difficult to find out what your customers are thinking.
Thankfully, technology continues to advance. We can now capture deeper qualitative insights and build highly efficient systems to act on customer feedback, potentially reversing trends in customer reluctance. We can also look to proven survey timing and analysis approaches to further prevent alienating potential customers.
Amidst all that, we should strive to keep the inner and outer loops at the core of our survey campaigns. The inner and outer loop framework makes it that much easier to leverage your survey data effectively, as it helps uncover actionable steps for addressing both individual customer concerns and broader systemic issues.
With all that in mind, ask yourself these questions. Do your surveys continue to provide useful information? Are they just ways to confirm what you already know? If not, can you act on what you uncover? Do your surveys contribute to a better customer experience? The answers to these questions may reveal whether your surveys or the way you leverage them demands a rethinking.
