Use reminder emails strategically for customer surveys
The chapter on optimising customer surveys mentioned reminder emails and follow-up messages, among other measures. These can increase the response rate and reduce the dropout rate. Keep email features in mind when looking for the right survey tool. LamaPoll allows you to send targeted emails based on response behaviour, even for anonymous surveys.
When should follow-up emails (reminders) be sent?
At the start of the customer survey, you may invite your customers by email. After just a few days, you can see its progress and how many customers have opened, completed or abandoned the customer survey. At this point, it may be time to take action. A single invitation often reaches only 30–50% of the customers contacted. The others may have overlooked or forgotten your email, or may not be interested yet. You should now contact these customers again and encourage them to participate.
Tips for reminder emails
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Do not annoy customers who have already taken part in the survey. To avoid spam, your customer survey software should allow you to choose the email recipients yourself. Send reminders only to customers who have not yet started the customer survey. Customers who started but did not complete the survey can be contacted with different, tailored emails.
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Use personalised forms of address, including the recipient’s name where appropriate. The survey software should support this even for anonymous surveys.
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To prevent emails from being marked as spam or failing to arrive, please review your sending configuration and test delivery in advance.
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If you are conducting a closed customer survey, include the password or access key in the follow-up emails. Your customers will not want to search through old emails for it.
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Avoid images and complex formatting. Your customers may use strict security settings or have rich-text emails disabled.
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Use placeholders to ensure that your information is always current and correct.
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Test your follow-up emails. Invite yourself and send the emails to colleagues for proofreading. You certainly do not want a customer to be the first person to spot an error. The same applies here: the preview button is your friend! :)
