Three Tips for Sending the Perfect Email Survey Invitation

What do you want a customer experience (CX) survey invitation to do? Besides literally inviting someone, you want your invitation to tell the recipient that they’re valued and will also receive something of value if they accept it. Obviously, not every invitation accomplishes that.

Email survey invitations especially have a hard time convincing the customer to even open the invitation. In fact, it’s common to think that shortening the survey will increase survey response rates, but most non-response is actually due to people never entering the survey at all. 

So how do you send the perfect email survey invitation? Making an invitation as compelling as possible is not so simple. It takes a well-thought out process—and we have one to share with you in today’s post!

How to Send the Perfect Email Survey Invitation:

1. Get the Survey Invitation to the Customer
2. Get the Customer to Notice and Open the Email Invitation
3. Get the Customer to Open the Survey

Tip #1: Get the Survey Invitation to the Customer

The biggest obstacle in getting your survey invitation to the customer is avoiding spam or phishing filters. If your invitation ends up in there, there’s little to no chance for a response. Here are a couple best practices to avoid this issue: 

• Make sure to send from a reputable IP address
• Remove any words in the subject line that may trigger those filters
• Whitelist your domain if possible. 

Of course, with email surveying, there are highly technical strategies that can be done to help. At that top level, hiring a professional would be the most effective route.

Tip #2: Get the Customer to Notice and Open the Email Invitation

This is the step where most non-response occurs in CX measurement programs. Email invitations can get buried in other emails, respondents can mistake them for spam and just delete them, or customers can simply ignore them. 

One way to increase the likelihood of a customer noticing and opening an email invitation is to send it at the right time. But the right time always depends on who you’re trying to reach so it’s important to think about when your customer would most likely check their email.

Tip #3: Get the Customer to Open the Survey

Getting the customer to open the survey is often most influenced by the ease and simplicity of accessing and understanding the survey invitation. Your surveys must be optimized to various devices, especially smartphones, because no one will want to open a survey if the invitation is already difficult to read or display. 

Another useful tactic is to be straightforward in the invitation, telling customers exactly how their feedback will help them improve the company. This way, the customer knows that they are playing an active role in improving their own experience (and also that you’re listening and have a plan in place for how to make change happen).

We hope this introduction to the art and science of email survey invitations was helpful to you, but keep in mind that crafting the perfect invitation is both a nontechnical and technical challenge that goes beyond these three tips.

To learn more, read this white paper that takes a deep dive into the strategies and methods you can utilize to perfect your email survey invitations. 

The Pearl-Plaza Team