Gather More Feedback by Offering Both Phone & Web Surveys

Gather More Feedback by Offering Both Phone & Web Surveys

I was at the drive-thru of a national burger chain last week, craving that juicy super-burger that melts as it slides down my throat and becomes 800 calories of fat that I’ll probably never work off. As I grab my bag of food at the pick-up window, the employee informs me that if I call the number on the back of the receipt and take the survey, I’ll get a free burger next time I visit.

The quickest way to a man’s heart is up his wallet pocket and through his stomach, so the words “free burger” sold me. Plus, I had a bone to pick – they forgot my ketchup and a straw. As I pulled out of the drive-thru, I was already dialing the survey number with my cell. After all, texting is illegal in most states, but hands-free talking isn’t. So I can provide feedback, eat, and drive all at one time!

The easiest and most effective surveying method for the customer is over-the-phone responses to an automated survey. Automated phone surveys allow you to rant and rave to a company without an awkward exchange between you and another person. You can let it fly! Plus, neither your hands nor your eyes are busy while responding to a phone survey. In fact, I JUST took a phone survey while I wrote that last sentence! That’s how simple they are!

Ease of Method Trumps Technology

According to our research at Mindshare Technologies, when customers are given the option to take either a phone survey or an online survey, they choose to use their phone approximately 60% of the time — no matter the size of the company or its industry.

Though web surveys still take almost half the cake, they’re not as hot as everyone expected. When the internet became a regular household appliance nationwide about 10 years ago, customer feedback experts expected it to overtake phone surveying methods.

Web surveys never made phone surveys obsolete because technology doesn’t dictate your customers’ surveying preference; ease of method does. And for most, automated phone surveys are the simplest, quickest, most comfortable feedback method for customers.

Regardless, both web and phone surveys are here to stay. To collect the most surveys, your customer feedback program should offer customers the option to provide feedback via phone, web, text message, kiosk, iPad, social media, or whatever method they choose. After all, the more feedback you collect, the more usable information you receive. And with proper analysis for all that info, you’ll find more specific, actionable insights from your feedback to improve operations and increase revenue.

With customers taking as many or more phone surveys as web surveys, you need an analytics engine that digests both audible and textual comments equally well, combining all comments into one platform along with all of your Voice of Customer data.