Surveys
and reviews are a great way to learn more about how your customers feel
about you, your products, your company and your shopping experience if
you have one. But timing is everything in life right? You need to catch
your customers at the right time for them to tell you how they really
feel about what you’re asking.
Here are a few examples of bad timing and good timing.
I
shopped at a great site to buy home products. I was looking for a
specific product which I knew would take a long time to get to me. A
survey was presented to me right after I purchased asking me if I would
ever shop here again. One of the questions was related to the shipping
experience. Not being done with the entire experience I declined the
survey.
A few days went by and I received an email telling me this product
would take 4-6 weeks and they needed a deposit, so I emailed them back
approving the deposit. But only a few days later I got another email
with a survey link asking how the experience went. I still hadn’t
received the product so I couldn’t really answer. They did mention that
if I didn’t get the product yet, to save the email for when I did. I’m
probably not going to remember to do that though.
Point learned:
If you are going to ask your customers about their experience with your
process and purchase, let them experience it first.
On another note, if you’re going to ask about the user experience or their shopping experience that’s a different story. You can ask right after they’ve made their purchase while it’s still fresh in their minds.
Some good examples I’ve encountered:
DogFunk
is a site that sells ski and snowboard gear. After I purchased
sunglasses and received them, about two days later they sent me an
email asking me to rate the product and to post reviews about the
product on their site. It was extremely timely.
If you make a restaurant reservation at OpenTable,
after you dine at the restaurant you’ve booked, you’ll likely get an
email from them asking you to rate your experience with the restaurant;
and it’s the day after you went. It’s fresh in your mind, and you might
not think to proactively write a review on your own.
So make sure that when you’re sending your email marketing
campaigns to your customers requesting them to fill out a survey or
post a review make sure they’ve had the full experience you want them
to rate.
By the way, check out VerticalResponse Surveys, you get 25 responses free in your trial.
