In this blog, we’ll cover a few of the best ways to increase your survey response rate. We’ll also discuss:
- Why your survey didn’t get responses;
- When to send survey reminders; and
- Survey email best practices
So, read on for a few tips to increase survey response rates at your credit union.
Why Your Survey Response Rates Are Low
First, always remember context when you create your survey. What do you want to accomplish? What data do you need? And most importantly, how will you get that data?
In many ways, increasing your survey response rates should take priority.
If you don’t consider the incentive or experience of the people taking the survey, you won’t get the data you need.
From our experience, bad invites and/or surveys are the cause of low survey response rates.
Simple Tips to Increase Survey Response Rates
Survey fatigue is a real issue, and it can impact the quality and quantity of your survey data. See tips to prevent survey fatigue here.
Additionally, try these tips to improve your response rate:
- Explain what the survey is for. Let your members know why you are sending a survey and what you’ll do with the results. People want to know their time is valuable.
- Be polite. Saying “please” and “thank you” help. Show respect for people’s time and contribution.
- Keep the survey short. Your survey should fit on one page. If people see an endless list of questions, they’ll find something better to do with their time.
The above are basic survey strategies to improve your response rates.
But there’s one more thing you can do that will double or triple your responses…
Send Reminder Emails
Inboxes fill up quickly, and people ignore emails often. Sending multiple emails is now an expected part of email marketing strategy.
Although it’s possible a member saw your survey invite and ignored it, it’s at least as likely that:
- The member didn’t see your survey invite, or
- The member saw your invite and decided to take it later (and forgot).
In either case, send a follow-up request or two to remind them.
Does it work?
Absolutely.
Often, I’ll send out a survey for LiveSurvey and get 20 responses. I’ll send out a survey reminder a few days later and get 20 more. A third reminder might net me 20 more.
You can double or triple your survey response rates by sending reminder emails.
Send survey reminders every few days. Don’t wait more than a week between emails.
What if Your Survey Isn’t Being Seen?
Still aren’t seeing increase survey response rates after following the tips above? You might need to jump into the technical side of email marketing.
- Come up with a good subject line. Be friendly, concise, and inviting. You just need to get them to click. The rest of the information can come through in the email. Remember: short and catchy. Using the recipient’s name in the subject line will increase the open rate.
- Find out which day to send your survey. With many transactional surveys, the best time to reach out is right after the transaction. But if it’s a general survey, do some A/B testing to find out which days yield higher email open rates.
- Figure out what time of day to send your surveys. Again, if you’re automatically triggering a survey after a transaction, that’s fine. But for general surveys, A/B testing the hours of the day might help. For example, you’ll probably get fewer responses at 11p.m. than you will at 11a.m.
Following these steps will help to get your survey noticed by your target audience.
Further Reading
You can increase your survey response rate simply by sending reminder emails. Ironic that the best way to cut through inbox clutter is to contribute to it.
There’s a fine line between reminders and spam though, so please take it easy on your members!
And if you’d like to read more about credit union survey tips and strategies, subscribe to our blog! Or just follow the links below see what else we thought you might enjoy.