A recent global survey revealed that Australians are, compared to Britons and Americans, the most intolerant of poor service, with respondents indicating that they have stopped using a product or service on average 6 times in the past year due to bad customer service experience (source). Gartner predicted that 89% of businesses are expected to compete mainly on customer experience. With the blooming of e-commerce and international brands arriving in Australia, consumers are provided with 24/7 access to an abundance of options. If you’d like to distinguish yourself from your competitors in such a crowded marketplace, providing the best and seamless customer experience is your best option.Do you think when a customer is unhappy, they will complain? The truth is, only 1 out of 26 unhappy customers do. The rest simply leave. This is why it is vital for businesses to be proactive and find out how customers really feel about the product and service you provide. Many turn to customer satisfaction surveys, but not without challenges. Research from OpinionLab indicated that 80% of customers have abandoned a survey halfway through. 52% of respondents said they would not spend more than three minutes filling out a survey (source). If you are one of the businesses who want to understand how your customers really feel but struggle with getting the responses you need, here’s how SMS Surveys can help.
Instant feedback & minimal interruption
With the average Australian checking their mobile phones as many as 130 times a day, SMS is the perfect tool for businesses who’d like to engage customers for their feedback and insights. Rather than asking customers to drop everything and click through to a link to an online survey, SMS is a much more instant and direct way to provide responses, keeping the interruption to whatever they were doing to minimal. Research First found that, even if they need to make multiple contacts with the respondents on a daily basis for a period of time, SMS still provides the best response rate.
Respondents have full control
The benefit of SMS surveys is not only its instancy. What it also enables is for the respondents to have full control as to when to respond to the surveys. They can be halfway through the surveys and still be able to pick up right from where they stopped hours later; something that’s not possible with both online and phone surveys.
Proven track record in boosting response rate
It is no secret that SMS surveys receive a much higher response rate than other channels. Roy Morgan reported 50% response rate from their SMS interviews for their fortnightly polling. Whereas response rates for an email survey average at 24.8% (Fluidsurveys), with telephone surveys averaging 9% (Pew Research). One of our customers, Vaillant Group, was able to increase their customer service feedback from 3% to a whopping 47%.
Extend the surveys to your employees
Research indicated that there’s a direct link between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction – companies excel at customer experience have 1.5 times more engaged employees than companies with a record of poor customer experience. Yet an overwhelming 71% of Australia and New Zealand employees are not engaged in their jobs; 15% are even actively disengaged (source). Keeping employees engaged involves more than the annual employee engagement survey, but rather an open channel for regular communications. SMS surveys are perfect for such purpose. They offer a low touch solution that requires minimal investment, that’s easy to navigate for both parties. Employers can use the branched surveys option that triggers different questions based on different responses, allowing them to delve deeper into the root cause of any issues uncovered. Employees are able to respond in a safe environment and at a time that suits them best, giving them the flexibility and privacy to respond freely and honestly. If you’d like to know how SMS Surveys can help you evaluate your customer experience or employee engagement, please contact us at 1300 764 946 or email us at [email protected].
Prachi Bametha
Marketing Coordinator, Esendex Australia