How do you follow up with your survey respondents and thank them? This is an important question to consider when designing effective surveys, as it can affect your response rate, data quality, and customer loyalty. In this article, you will learn some best practices for sending thank-you messages, reminders, and incentives to your survey participants.
Following up with your survey respondents is not only a polite gesture, but also a strategic move. It can help you increase your response rate, especially if you send reminders to those who have not completed the survey yet. It can also improve your data quality, as you can clarify any ambiguous or incomplete answers, and reduce the risk of nonresponse bias. Moreover, it can enhance your customer loyalty, as you can show your appreciation, provide feedback, and offer incentives.
People want to know that their time is valued. Usually, people don't participate in surveys out of the kindness of their hearts. They are looking to get some outcome, enact some change, or ensure their voice is heard. Solid follow-up will be appreciated.
The timing of your follow-up messages depends on the type and purpose of your survey. For example, if you are conducting a customer satisfaction survey, you may want to follow up immediately after the service or purchase, while the experience is still fresh in the respondent's mind. If you are conducting a market research survey, you may want to follow up after a few days or weeks, depending on the length and complexity of the survey. In general, you should follow up at least once, but not more than three times, to avoid annoying or spamming your respondents.
The tone and content of your follow-up messages should match the style and goal of your survey. For example, if you are conducting a formal and academic survey, you may want to use a professional and courteous language, and provide some information about the research project and its benefits. If you are conducting a casual and fun survey, you may want to use a friendly and humorous language, and include some emojis or gifs. In any case, you should always thank your respondents for their time and participation, and remind them of the deadline and the link to the survey.
Offering incentives to your survey respondents can be a powerful way to motivate them to complete the survey and to reward them for their feedback. However, you should be careful not to compromise the validity and reliability of your data, as incentives can also introduce bias and influence the respondents' answers. Therefore, you should choose incentives that are relevant and appropriate for your target audience, your survey topic, and your budget. Some examples of incentives are: gift cards, coupons, discounts, free products or services, entries into sweepstakes or raffles, donations to charity, or access to exclusive content or reports.
Measuring the effectiveness of your follow-up messages and incentives can help you optimize your survey design and improve your response rate and data quality. You can use various metrics and tools to track and analyze your follow-up performance, such as: open rate, click rate, completion rate, bounce rate, unsubscribe rate, feedback score, and net promoter score. You can also use software like SurveyMonkey or Qualtrics to automate and customize your follow-up process and generate reports and insights.
Improving your follow-up strategy is an ongoing process that requires testing and learning from your results. You can use different methods and techniques to experiment with your follow-up messages and incentives, such as: A/B testing, segmentation, personalization, gamification, or social proof. You can also use surveys to ask your respondents for their opinions and suggestions on how to improve your follow-up communication and offer. By doing so, you can increase your engagement, retention, and loyalty with your survey respondents and customers.