23 august 2024, 13:26
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Surveys are an effective way to get valuable information from your customers. However, they can be difficult to perform, and getting people to fill them out is especially tricky. Customers usually don't want to waste time completing a survey. Luckily, email surveys are way easier to fill and elicit better responses than most other surveys. This article will explain email surveys, the types, benefits, drawbacks, and the best practices for creating them.
What is an email survey?
A survey is a method of gathering information by asking your customers relevant questions. An email survey is a questionnaire you send to the intended respondents by email. The questions are either embedded in your message, so that respondents can answer them directly, or accessible via link. You’ll get their answers and extract the relevant information.
For example, an electronics manufacturer wants to evaluate customer opinions about the new headphones. The manufacturer has the emails of people who ordered the headphones from its website. It can send a survey asking customers about their experience with the headphones, gathering feedback that’ll help improve its upcoming products.
How email surveys work
Email surveys take different formats, including:
- Embedded questionnaire
- Button or hyperlink
- In-signature
1. Embedded surveys
Here, the first survey question is embedded right in the email. When respondents answer the first question, they'll be redirected to a browser page to complete the rest. When you embed a survey in an email, customers can give feedback immediately, which compels them to complete the other questions on a browser page. Sometimes, the survey could be just one question, and the answer gets recorded immediately after the customer responds in their inbox.
Embedded surveys are most effective when they contain a single question, such as “How satisfied are you with our product?”
Embedded survey example
Source: Really Good Emails
2. Button survey
A button survey is self-explanatory. You'll include a button in your email directing the respondent to a web page to complete the survey. The button is an eye catching call-to-action that customers can respond to with one click. It enhances the user experience and encourages customers to participate in long surveys. You could add a discount or freebie to encourage participants.
Button survey example
Source: Really Good Emails
3. Hyperlink survey
Here, you place a text with an attached hyperlink in the email, e.g., “Take our survey", “We want to hear from you", “Give us feedback", etc. Any recipient who clicks on the link gets taken to the web page to complete the survey.
Hyperlink survey example
Source: Marcom Robot
4. In-signature survey
An email signature is the block of text at the end of an email, often including contact details and company branding. You can add a quick survey to your email signature, such as a smiley rating scale, star rating scale, Yes/No answer, and the like. The recipient can react quickly and provide feedback.
In-signature survey example
Source: Really Good Emails
Advantages of email surveys
- Cost-effectiveness: Email surveys require minimal resources to create and deploy. At most, you need an email service provider (ESP) to send emails and a survey software provider to record feedback. There’s no need to pay a third-party firm to conduct the survey on your behalf.
- Quick response: Email surveys have faster response times than most other survey types, being easier to fill out. Email surveys are effective at getting immediate responses from a large audience.
- Third-party integration: You can integrate email surveys with a host of third-party tools to extract insights from feedback. For example, a survey platform can automatically show you the percentage of people who dropped 5-star ratings, 4-star ratings, 1-star, etc. This integration saves you the time and effort you would have spent collating and interpreting the feedback.
- Ease of use: You don't need complex technical skills to create email surveys. Many software tools have taken care of the challenging part, while you handle the easier aspect of inputting the survey questions and monitoring the results.
- Fewer errors: Email surveys have little margin of error because you conduct them and collect the results directly. There's no intermediary who can make mistakes when interpreting feedback.
Disadvantages of email surveys
- Collecting email lists: It can be difficult for businesses to collect email addresses from customers, mainly those without an interactive website. People often don’t want to give out their email addresses except when necessary.
- Reliability: Feedback in email surveys isn’t always reliable, especially when you provide incentives. Some people fill out questionnaires just to get discounts.
- Limited reach: Not everyone has an email address. It’s common in the developed world, but email surveys would struggle if your target market is relatively undeveloped rural areas.
Email survey best practices
1. Determine the essential information you need
The first step of a successful survey is knowing exactly what you want out of the survey. Do you want customer opinions about a product? Do you need feedback about your company's customer service? Are you asking about the ease of your website’s checkout process? And so on.
Prioritization helps you create accurate questions to obtain the needed feedback. Respondents have limited time to complete surveys, so don’t bore them with irrelevant questions.
2. Keep it brief and concise
Your survey should be as brief and concise as possible. Include only the questions required to get feedback, and make them short and easy to take in. The more brief and precise your survey is, the more likely people will respond. Survey fatigue is real—people don’t like spending too much time answering questions.
Example of a brief and concise survey
Source: Really Good Emails
A general rule of thumb is that email surveys should have no more than 10 questions and take 2 to 5 minutes to complete.
3. A/B test your surveys
A/B testing means comparing different versions of your surveys to see which ones generate the highest response. Afterwards, you’ll stick to the email survey template eliciting the most responses.
For example, you can change a few questions and measure the completion rate. You can change the button or hyperlink appearance and check how it affects the completion rate. Any little element could make or break your survey, and A/B testing helps you choose the working options.
4. Mobile optimization
50-60% of emails are read on mobile devices. Optimize your email survey for mobile displays so people can easily read and respond to them. Every text and graphical element should be appropriately sized for mobile displays with no overlap. For your convenience, many email service providers (ESPs), such as UniOne, provide email templates optimized for mobile screens.
5. Send surveys at optimal times
Timing significantly determines whether your survey generates high responses. Wait for the optimal time to send a survey. For example, if you're requesting feedback about a product someone’s purchased, sending it two to three days after delivery is your best bet to get a response. If you send it that same day, the customer might ignore the survey because they haven't yet tried the product. If you send it one week after, the customer will likely ignore the email because other things have occupied their mind.
6. Control your survey sending frequency
Avoid sending too many surveys to customers within a short time frame. Instead, give a healthy break between surveys. The sweet spot for getting the most responses is waiting at least two weeks before sending another survey to the same customer.
7. Use creative subject lines
The subject line is the first thing the recipient of your survey reads. Hence, you need a catchy subject line that'll draw their attention. Good subject lines for survey emails should be brief and precise: “We need your feedback” or “Help us to serve you better”. You can personalize it to improve your chances of getting feedback, e.g., “Dear [Customer’s First Name], we value your feedback”.
8. Verify your sending address
The email address from which you send your surveys affects the response rate. Use an address that clearly identifies your brand and include the name of a real person to create a personal touch. “Tom from Acme Corp” will generate more responses than just “Acme Corp”.
9. Incentivize users
Add perks to encourage users to fill out your surveys. For example, if you’re a software company, offer a free 1-month subscription to anyone who completes a survey. Who knows, this person could become a long-term customer. You can also add discounts, coupons, sweepstakes, etc., to incentivize survey responses.
10. Be responsive
Responsiveness is reciprocal. If you want customers to be responsive to your surveys, you must also be responsive to their feedback. You can send an appreciation note if someone provides positive feedback. If someone provides negative feedback, let them know you’ve heard their complaints and are willing to make things right. Most importantly, leverage the feedback you get to improve your products and give customers what they want.
11. Use email marketing platforms
Using conventional email platforms like Gmail and Yahoo Mail to send email surveys is not advisable. These platforms limit the number of contacts you can send emails to within a day. The common alternative is using an email service provider (ESP) that lets you manage mailing lists and send bulk emails seamlessly. UniOne is an excellent example of an ESP you can use to send email surveys.
The types of email surveys
Finally, let’s take a look at a few examples of email surveys.
1. Customer satisfaction surveys
After someone buys your product, you can send a survey to evaluate their satisfaction. For example, you can ask them to rate the product on a scale of 1 to 10. If most respondents give negative ratings, the product needs significant improvement.
A sample product satisfaction survey
Source: Really Good Emails
As mentioned earlier, wait two to three days after delivery before sending a satisfaction survey. This time frame will elicit the highest response rate.
2. Post-transaction surveys
After someone transacts with your business, you can ask them about their experience. For example, "How satisfied are you with our delivery time?", "Are you happy with our customer service experience?", or “Are you pleased with our subscription package so far?”.
Post-transaction surveys help you garner honest feedback from customers and know how to serve them better.
3. Abandoned cart surveys
It’s typical for people to visit your retail website, add items to their carts, and then leave without buying anything. This situation can be disappointing, but it doesn’t mean giving up on the customer. You can follow them with a survey asking why they abandoned their cart. Ideally, give them multiple-choice answers like "The cost is too high", "I didn't find what I needed", "I'm just checking", etc.
Not many people respond to an abandoned cart email, but some do and might finally buy the products in their carts.
4. Employee feedback surveys from HR teams
At any organization, the human resource team can send surveys to evaluate employee satisfaction. The surveys can contain questions like "How satisfied are you with our working environment?", "Are you happy about your position and pay?", "Rate your work-life balance on a scale of 1 to 10", and similar.
5. Market research
Market research firms regularly perform email surveys to garner insights about a product or industry. These surveys contain simple questions like “Have you ever heard about [product name]?” or “Did you change your [product] recently?”. The aim is to help businesses evaluate the market environment and build products people want to buy.
6. Event attendee surveys
After an event, the host often surveys all participants to evaluate their satisfaction. This email survey helps the event planner know if anything went wrong and correct any problems before their next event.
7. Industry surveys
Different industries send different types of email surveys to evaluate customer experience. Hospitals send surveys asking patients about their treatment; hotels send surveys to get feedback about a customer's stay; schools send surveys asking students about their learning experiences, etc.
How to send out a survey
The main consideration for sending email surveys is the platform that will distribute them to the intended audience. You also need a survey software platform that will guide you on how to embed a survey in an email.
UniOne is an excellent platform for sending survey emails seamlessly. We deliver billions of emails annually, with a 99% deliverability rate. UniOne is reasonably priced, letting you send bulk email surveys without breaking the bank.
Zoho Survey and SurveyMonkey are good examples of survey software providers. They let you create surveys and easily integrate them into your emails.
Conclusion
An email survey is an effective way to garner honest client feedback and improve your product. We’ve explained what it is, its types, best practices, and the tools needed to send them. The most essential aspects are choosing a reliable email service provider (ESP) to send your surveys and a software platform to collect and interpret the results. Luckily, with UniOne you don’t have to look too far.
