Everybody wants their brand to grow. But do you really know how to make it happen?

A well-crafted customer survey can help you understand a buyer’s persona, why a product isn’t selling, and even identify problems you may not even know exist yet. And when your customer spots an issue before you do? It’s your job to fix it, pronto.

There are many types of survey you can send to your customers, but timing, goals and incentives all play a part in your survey's success. Here we’ve laid down some golden rules before you hit that all-important send button. Let’s get quizzical.

Don’t Ask Stupid Questions

If you’re selling protein bars or hairdryers, do you really need to know your customers’ marital status? Will the fact that they’re divorced or single affect which flavour of bar you’re sending them next? Some questions may feel pointlessly intrusive and run the risk of putting your customers off.

Your survey should help you get business-critical information about your audience - not just a copy and paste job of an old brand survey you found on Google.

Getting the simple demographic questions out of the way quickly ensures you keep your customers’ attention firmly on the important bits later on. Basic demographics are useful, but categories such as age range and nationality shouldn’t dictate your entire brand strategy. If you targeted British men in their 70s who live in a castle, you’d be advertising to King Charles and Ozzy Osbourne in one fell swoop. And nobody wants to do that.

But Do Ask the Important Ones

Do you know what stops people from buying from you? Or what they like most about your brand? Which product do they want to see next? If you’re not sure, then it’s a good idea to ask: or at least check out our piece What Turns a Business Into a Brand. A customer survey is ideal for spotting potential improvements or opportunities for your business, either before or after purchase.

Don’t be afraid to ask specific questions if you have a particular goal to reach or area of business to explore. If you suspect your customer service model needs some work, for example, direct particular questions on this area and have your customer service team on standby to analyse the results.

If you suspect the pool of customers who buy from you isn’t actually matching up with your original target audience, are you going to explore these avenues and edit your content marketing strategy accordingly?

Always stay goal-focused. Knowing what you’re doing with your data will dictate what you absolutely need to know about your customers, and what you’d just like to know.

Keep It Short and Simple

Nobody wants to click on a customer survey, only to realise they’ve got 100 lengthy questions to answer and a short dissertation about their recent purchase.

If you have a lot of questions to get through, then stick to nominal and scale-based questions at first. Longer, open-ended questions can shed light on areas where you can improve your business, but use them sparingly. Open-ended data takes longer to analyse, and you run the risk of tiring your audience out with too many questions.

Start your survey with closed-ended questions, and follow up with open-ended questions to get more detail where you need it.

Time It Right

Just as the wand chooses the wizard, so too should your audience segment choose your survey. You wouldn’t ask a new customer to answer 30 questions on how much they like your brand, but you would ask them for feedback on their first purchase. Save the detailed brand surveys for your most loyal, regular customers, and keep it light with those who are still getting used to you.

Use audience segments based on when and how often a customer has purchased from you so you can ask them the right questions at the right time.

And if you’re unsure of how a customer group will respond to your questions? Test your survey out on a small control group first and check the results are what you expected. This will highlight any areas for improvement before you send it out to your entire database.

Know Thy Competitors

No matter how loyal your customers are to your brand, it’s always a good idea to know who else is making headway in your industry.

If you’re struggling to know what to do next with product launches or seem to be losing market share in your industry, then use your customers to find out who else they shop with. This market research then allows you to identify if they offer anything you don’t - and even inspire new product lines.

Use the Carrot, Not the Stick

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. There’s also no such thing as a free survey. If you truly want your customers to take time to answer your questions, then you need to provide them with a good reason to get involved. Consider sending vouchers for each submission, or at least a discount off their next order.

Then decide how you’re going to send your survey out. If you’re segmenting your customers, then email is the best way to go. Otherwise if you want short, snappy responses and your audience responds well to text, SMS allows people to answer your survey on the go.

Social media is another avenue to promote your survey, but be mindful of how skewed your results will be. If you have hundreds of thousands of followers but only a few thousand paying customers, your pool of data responses may look a little different. Be mindful of GDPR and data retention practices too. You can’t retain personal data for longer than you need it, so store it carefully and signpost what your followers are signing up to!

Over the Hills and Far Survey

Time to put your brand to the test? Your shiny new customer survey awaits. Talk to our team about getting the most out of your brand questions today.

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