If you run a retail business, one of your goals should be to deliver the best customer experience possible. However, it can be challenging to improve the customer experience if you don’t fully understand your customers wants and needs.

One of the best ways to get the feedback you need is by conducting a customer experience survey. Asking your customer to complete a brief post-purchase survey can provide you with the valuable information you need to address specific issues and make improvements.

While customer surveys can help your business improve its products, services and processes, getting a high response rate on these questionnaires can be challenging. Customer Experience Insights reports that most customer surveys receive just a 5-10% completion rate.

Obviously, your goal is to do better and get as much actionable information as possible to improve your business. Here are some tips to make your retail customer experience survey program more effective as well as a downloadable PDF of 20 survey questions to get you started.

A customer experience survey should be sent at the right time and be simple to complete.

Survey at the Right Time

When you’re asking customers to help you, your timing matters. You’re more likely to get a higher response rate from customers if you ask for their feedback sooner after a purchase or visit rather than later.

Related: How to Report on the Digital Customer Experience

Consider sending out a survey through email a day or two after a transaction. Alternatively, you can provide customers with information about a survey on their purchase receipt.

Make It Simple to Respond

In addition to time, make surveys as easy as possible to complete. According to a recent Greenbook report, approximately 75 percent of survey respondents complete surveys on mobile devices rather than desktop computers. Additionally, make most questions answerable with a simple one-click response. Ensuring that your surveys are mobile-friendly and easy to complete will increase your response rates.

Retail customer survey questions should be kept short and most answered with one-click responses.

Keep It Short

Customers are also more likely to participate in your survey if you make it brief. It might be tempting to load them down with dozens of questions about their visit and thoughts on your products, but your response rate is likely to be low.

Instead, limit your survey to about ten questions that are likely to help you improve the customer experience. Also, let customers know how long the survey will take to complete, to set expectations.

Follow Up

Just because you didn’t get an immediate response to your survey request doesn’t mean the customer isn’t willing to help. People are busy, so give everyone a single reminder that you’d like their feedback.

Likewise, let customers know that you are making good use of the information they are providing. Send a quick message to thank customers for completing your survey, and make sure you follow up to address any specific concerns.

While your company’s Net Promoter Score is a useful metric, it doesn’t provide the actionable insights that can help your company improve its customer experience. As a retailer, the right customer experience survey can help your business identify what it is doing right and where it needs some help.

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