Survey Fatigue is Real: 3 Tips to Keep Customers Engaged

It’s never been easier to reach out to customers. Your website, Google reviews, email, and social media are all effective channels for customer interaction and requesting feedback. That’s in addition to questions you may ask them in a physical store, if you have one. 

In general, consumers love giving their opinions (and marketers certainly love getting them)! But too many of these requests can lead to what is known as “survey fatigue”.

What is Survey Fatigue (and How You Can Avoid It)

You can think of survey fatigue as a form of burnout. It occurs due to the sheer volume of feedback requests a customer gets, not just from your brand, but from countless others as well. When you send too many requests, you may see a drop in response rates and/or the quality of the data. Usually, survey fatigue occurs in two stages:

• Before the survey. Customers fail to even begin your survey because they are getting too many requests across multiple platforms. When this happens, people often simply stop responding.
• During the survey. Mid-survey fatigue is also real, meaning the customer drops out halfway through completing it or (perhaps worse) begins giving partial or incorrect answers just to finish as quickly as possible. Often, this is due to poor survey design.

Answering questions in a survey requires mental effort – any good market research firm knows that. That’s why we’ve laid out a few actionable tips to strategically design a survey that keeps your customers happy and engaged.

1. Determine How Often You Can Ask for Feedback

The number one way to lose respondents is by sending surveys too often. So, how often should you send a survey? Broadly speaking, it depends on your audience. The first consideration is, are your customers B2C or B2B?

For B2B customers, best practice dictates that you should survey your customers quarterly. B2B audiences typically don’t interact with companies as frequently; in this case, less is more.

For those running B2C surveys, you should tailor your frequency to the interaction rate of your respondents. If your customers interact with you monthly, you could send your survey out every two months. If weekly, it’s safe to send a survey every two weeks. You should also consider how frequently other companies within your industry are sending surveys to their customers.  

2. Design Your Questions To Avoid Mid-Survey Fatigue

Well-written survey questions lead to higher response rates, not to mention more accurate information.  Remember, each question should require as little mental effort as possible. The following points will ensure a smoother experience:

• Use open text fields sparingly – Give your customers the opportunity to voice their opinions in their own words, but don’t flood the survey with open text fields. They don’t want to write a novel, and you probably don’t want to read one, either.
• Be upfront about the number of questions and/or survey length – If they’re prepared, your customer will likely complete the survey through to the end.
• Ask one question at a time – Avoid combining questions. Instead of asking “Do you think ABC-Brand yogurt is delicious and a good value?” ask whether they think it is delicious and then whether they think it’s a good value.

3. Keep Your Surveys Short and Sweet

Survey length can vary greatly. Determining the right length for your survey can be tricky, but there are a few simple ground rules you can follow. Generally, the shorter your survey, the better. Try to keep the entire process under five minutes for the user. You can easily test this by having a few of your employees do a dry run. Putting yourself in their shoes will give you a good idea of how much effort your survey requires. 

For more help with creating a great survey that gets results, check out this post or reach out to us!