Email surveys can be either an effective way to gather feedback or a part of your email that nobody even looks at. I’ll show you what makes the difference. Find out more about different kinds of surveys (CSAT, NPS, CES), see the best email survey examples, learn how to boost your survey response rate and start gathering feedback like a pro.
How to get people to answer surveys?
Getting people to answer your questions is easier than you think.
TOP 1 mistake to avoid when gathering feedback:
The tips below should make you head in the right direction.
Find the right time
Now, this can be tricky. Ideally, you want to collect feedback at the perfect moment – when your recipient isn’t swamped with work, isn’t right before their break for the day, and when they potentially want to share some opinions. Let’s focus on the last point, because that’s the part over which you have the most control.
Depending on your survey, you might need to choose different times to pop the question(naire):
- If you’re gathering feedback on your order system, you’d want to ask right after the process ends. This way, it’s still fresh experience and the only chance to gather meaningful data.
- Asking for feedback about software usually should wait for a while, at least until your users gain some experience.
- Gathering feedback on your support will work best when asked right after you solve their problems. Collecting data while the support ticket is not resolved can help you measure customer sentiment, but if you overdo it, things tend to get real cold real quick.
- If you want to get a high response rate on employee feedback surveys, asking the right question just after a huge change in your company is a good method. If you want to learn something about your recruitment process, you might want to wait a bit after things settle. When the emotions cool, your new employees gain some confidence and are likely to give honest answers.
Make email surveys as easy as possible
Show some empathy. Would you like to be badgered to answer a set of mind-numbing questions? You probably wouldn’t. And to make surveys as pain-free as possible, you should make them one-click.
Theoretically, every email survey is one-click. You need to click one of the buttons once to go to the actual survey and fill it in.
However, a true one-click survey offers different answer options and gathers feedback as soon as someone clicks a button in an email. No further action is required, although it’s usually a good moment to ask an optional follow-up question. Even a simple comment field will do. That’s the easiest way to gather feedback and for most email surveys, it will be the most effective method.
Appreciate feedback
There are two aspects of appreciation. First, people in general like to know that their opinions matter. Make sure you thank for the feedback you’ve received and that it’s not just empty words. If you can, craft your thank you message in such a way that proves you’ve actually read what you’re thanking for.
There’s also the time aspect. And as the old saying goes, “time is money”.
If your surveys take some time, it’s fair to reward anyone who takes their time to fill them in. Even a symbolic gift card can make a difference.
Add some human touch
Automation saves a lot of time and effort, there’s no doubt about it. But if done wrong, it also gives a feeling that you don’t care enough about your recipients. That’s why it’s a good idea to add some form of personalization and make your email survey templates non-robotic.
One of the ways to do that is to make your surveys a part of an email signature. Then, your email body automatically becomes the part where you shine, and the signature is where your surveys are automatically added at the right time.
How do email surveys work?
Technically, email surveys act as a redirection.
Embedding surveys usually means that you’re adding hyperlinks that take your recipients to the actual survey. No matter what kind of service you use to define questions and answers (and probably some survey logic inside), email is very often the starting point.
Email survey examples by type
Below, I’m going to present you email survey examples and inspirations according to their type.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
Surveys dedicated to measuring customer satisfaction and experience. They can ask about user experience with your products, the quality of customer support, or any aspect of their interaction with you. They are the answer to the question of how to measure customer satisfaction.
The crucial part of a CSAT survey is asking the right question and providing just the right number of options to choose from. For some questions, a simple thumbs up / thumbs down will be the right choice. For most cases, though, a range of 3-5 answers should do.
Using smiley faces to represent satisfaction level usually works better than using text. However, if your buttons aren’t obvious, it won’t hurt to add labels to them.
Here are some of the CSAT surveys examples:
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
Net Promoter Score surveys are a very specific metrics that measure customer loyalty. An NPS survey asks how likely the recipient is to recommend a business, product, or service.
Then, responders give feedback on the scale from 0 to 10.
Now, people who rate you 9 or 10 are considered Promoters. They are the most satisfied folks and can be potentially interested in writing reviews, giving testimonials, or become your brand ambassadors.
Those who say they are 7-8 on the scale are Passives. Their satisfaction level can go either way. If you have a lot of Passives, it probably means that you’re good, but if you go an extra mile, you could be excellent.
Ratings anywhere between 0 and 6 points belong to Detractors. You want to turn their frowns upside down. The lower the rating, the quicker you should be to react. The lower the rating, the higher probability of negative reviews. The worst ratings usually mean that you’ve failed royally at some point.
NPS score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. It ranges from -100 to 100 and it is one of the most basic metrics used to measure customer sentiment towards your brand. Periodic NPS checks let you determine whether your business is on the right track or not.
Here is an example of how a good NPS survey looks:
Customer Effort Score (CES)
A CES survey measures how difficult (or easy) you’ve made your customer journey.
If you solve your customer problems and make it easy, that’s a surefire method to gain your customer loyalty. The harder you make it, the greater the risk that your customers will look for alternatives.
You can follow the flock and go with a standard “{Company} made it easy to handle my issue” with the question of how strongly your recipient agrees with the statement. But we’ve all seen this, and you might want to try something new and personalized to your target audience.
Employee Feedback
This survey type depends on what exactly you want to learn. It ranges from surveys on the recruitment process to surveys that check morale and employee attitude to some changes. The ultimate goal of those surveys is to maintain high employee retention rate (or low employee turnover, your choice), streamline in-company processes, and keep morale high.
The problem with Employee Feedback is that you might find it hard to gather meaningful data, especially about the negative experiences. Of course, it depends on the company culture and employees’ personalities, but usually the best bet to gather as much precious data as possible is to guarantee that answers are anonymous and that it’s a safe place to share.
Email signature surveys
Email signature surveys are surveys that are added directly to the email signature or right next to it. They are the perfect way to gather feedback using regular emails – instead of sending a separate email, just for the purpose of survey invitation, you build on your existing conversation. Email signature surveys are non-invasive but are there any time you need them.
You can either make them an integral part of your email signature, “build them in”, or add them right above or below the rest of the signature. Look below for an example of a built-in NPS survey:
CTA email surveys
This is the oldest type of email survey. It contains a dreaded button like “Click here to start a survey”. It is said that this method was used to measure satisfaction regarding climate change among dinosaurs. And the response rate was 0.
Seriously speaking, it is extremely difficult to get people to click a button like that. Nowadays, people are in a constant hurry and such a button suggests they will need to answer a 70-question survey that starts with profiling, asking about their marital status, exact location, and eating habits. And then, here comes a section of 50+ questions that not only check exactly how much you love each very specific aspect of a product, but also rephrase a question 3 times to make sure you’re not selecting everything randomly. Because, you know, statistics.
To be fair, button/CTA email surveys can gather some feedback, but it usually requires an excellent call-to-action. You need to make sure not to scare your recipients away. Some kind of incentive or promo code might also sweeten the deal.
How to manage email surveys in Microsoft 365
If you want to get reliable feedback, you need to manage email surveys across the company.
CodeTwo One-click surveys for Microsoft 365 lets you design and deploy email surveys for everyone at the company. Here’s what you gain with it:
- Deploy unified email signatures and surveys to all or chosen employees at your company.
- Use advanced rules to add your surveys at just the right time.
- Access insights to analyze survey results.
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