Surveys Go Beyond Questions

Use email invites and greeting and closing pages to shape the customer experience and boost response rates

by Mary  Crogan,  Constant Contact Senior Business and Marketing Manager, Online Survey

Building an online survey with compelling, relevant questions that will help you solicit feedback on your business, products, event, or future plans is easy with Constant Contact's pre-built templates, which you can easily tailor to suit your individual needs.

However, to get a truly great response to your survey, it's important to think beyond the survey questions themselves. You also should consider the content that goes into your survey invite email, greeting page, and closing page.

Getting started on the right foot

Rather than dropping a customer, client, member, or constituent right into your survey, it's a good practice to set expectations for the survey. You  should spell out how long it will take to fill out the survey, why the survey is being conducted, how the data will be used, and how the results will be shared with those who responded.

There are two great ways you can do this: use a survey invitation email or a survey greeting page.

If you're soliciting feedback exclusively from people on your contact list, an email survey invitation is the perfect vehicle for promoting your survey and its purpose. Using a survey invitation email sent through Constant Contact allows you to track who has taken the survey or not. You can then build a follow-up invitation to be sent specifically to those who haven't taken the survey to remind them there is still time and you would value their feedback. I recommend sending only one email reminder to people so as not to annoy them.

I highly recommend using a greeting page in the absence of a survey invitation email. For instance, if you're posting a link to the survey on your website or social network pages, or printing it on a receipt or invoice, a greeting page is necessary to help set expectations for the survey taker, to reinforce why the data you're soliciting is important, and to thank them in advance for their valuable time. (More on that in a second.)

In a case where you need to use both an email invitation and a survey greeting page, ensure that both contain the same information, otherwise there could be confusion among potential respondents. 

Regardless of whether you use the invite and/or the greeting page, both should include your company logo or branding. The colors can be customized to match your website's color palette.

(Note: There's no need to be specific now about how you will share data with respondents. Instead, you can mention that future communications may mention changes being made to products, processes, or events because of feedback from customers. This will help customers to feel like they have a voice in the companies and organizations they do business with.)

Mom's rule: Always say 'Thank You'

People often overlook the closing page option, choosing instead to generically link back to their website. The closing page signifies a clear end to the survey, can be used to reinforce the reasons for soliciting feedback in the first place, and can establish a better sense of how the information collected in the survey will be used to benefit customers and clients.

Most importantly, the closing page provides an opportunity to give the all-important "thank you" to your survey respondents for their valuable time. If appropriate, you can use the survey closing page to offer a link to a coupon or provide a discount code good for a future purchase as an additional way of saying thank you.

Like the greeting page and email invitation, the closing page should include your logo or branding. Customize the page by using the same colors as those in your website's color palette.

A well-rounded survey experience

It's a marketing best practice to solicit feedback from your customers. It's an even better practice when you set expectations for the survey, explain its purpose and use, and thank the respondents for their time.

Next time you prepare an online survey, spend a few extra minutes rounding it out with a greeting page, email invitation, and closing page to make the survey taking experience even better for respondents. This will help maintain and grow the relationship with your customers and deliver better results.

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