How to Improve Survey Return Rates

Sending out post-interaction surveys to consumers has long been touted as a service desk best practice.

I would agree that it is always a good idea to understand how the service desk is performing from the consumer perspective. Asking the consumer about their experience with the service desk — what was good, what could have been different, how satisfied they were with the interaction and result — is good information for the service desk to capture and analyze.

So, if it’s such a good idea, why are the return rates for these surveys so abysmal?

Is your survey getting the information that you need?

According to Lumoa.me, the average response rate to surveys across all channels and industries is between 17% and 20%.

This means that out of every 5 surveys sent out, only 1 is being completed and returned by the consumer. And in my experience, that ‘one’ survey is rarely complimentary of the work that the service desk has done.

What about the four surveys that are not being returned? Were those four consumers happy? Were they satisfied? Were they frustrated? Do they even care?

Who knows?

How can we make reasonable decisions or take data-driven actions based on survey feedback when we only hear back from the consumer only 20% (or less) of the time? Bottom line, we can’t — at least, I wouldn’t feel comfortable making any kind of change to how the service desk provides its services based on such a low survey response rate.

Why are survey response rates so low?

There are three reasons why survey response rates are so anemic:

1. We ask the same questions over and over and over.
2. We only ask about topics that we want to hear about.
3. Nothing changes — from the consumer perspective.

Here’s how to boost your response rates:

• Purpose: Conduct surveys for a reason, not “just because.” Before distributing a survey, define why you are conducting a survey and what you’re expecting to learn.
• Precise: Develop deliberate and thoughtful questions to understand the consumer experience and identify areas for improvement.
• Promote: Inform stakeholders about the survey, why you’re conducting it and what you’re hoping to learn.
• Pursue: Act on the data and information captured by those returned surveys.
• Prioritize: The consumer has taken time out of their busy day to respond. Be prompt in reviewing and acting on the data that has been provided.
• Publicize: Broadcast the results of each survey and the actions that are being (or have been taken) based on that survey data.

Surveys can provide valuable insights and data that can be used to drive improvements to how the service desk delivers its services. But to be able to justify improvements, we need good data. A good survey can provide that good data, but only when we get an acceptable and representative volume of survey responses.

When consumers see and feel that their responses in surveys are being reviewed and acted upon, they will be more likely to engage on subsequent surveys.