Pick from tried-and-tested templates and send your first customer feedback survey!
Start free trialWe have already covered topics like 5 feedback form samples, the ultimate feedback survey and great customer feedback questions.
But we have yet to cover one of the most important things about customer surveys: how to get people to answer it in the first place?
The message that you send to your customer will define whether or not they open the survey. If you don’t nail the initial ask, you won’t get replies no matter how awesome your survey form is.
So, I present to you different templates for the initial messages based on the customer journey stage and medium of the message.
Let’s go!
The science of persuasion has been studied by many. Perhaps the most well-known person to ever talk about persuasion is Robert Cialdini. He formulated these 6 principles of persuasion:
While these principles are mostly used in sales and marketing, you can use them in any situation. Some of them can be applied to the survey introduction message.
Recently, I was persuaded to like a Facebook account because I received an email with a title: “I ask for your help for 10 seconds”. It was from a fitness coach whose services I had tried before and liked.
Naturally, I thought “Okay, why not. It’s just a few seconds!” I did what he asked in the message.
My reaction was probably affected by at least the principles of
What can we learn from this example? How can you use the same tactic in your survey intros?
In different situations, you can try and employ other principles of persuasion as well.
However, no matter how well you formulate your message, you can’t expect a 100% open rate or response rate. Don’t be discouraged if only a fraction of recipients actually fill out the feedback form: that’s completely normal!
Here are some examples of message templates based on different stages of the customer journey.
Each example includes one template and suggestions for distribution.
Attention! Remember that templates are templates. You should try to personalize them to fit your brand.
Add details and change the tone if necessary. Keep in mind that these messages are part of good customer service!
You might want to know the opinions of those people who have not yet decided to actually make a purchase, so that you can improve the very first stages of the customer journey.
Here are three different templates for first impressions: before purchase, after purchase, and after declining an offer or abandoning a cart.
This template is for you if:
“Hi there! I noticed you have not made up your mind about the purchase yet. Can I ask you why that is? Maybe we can help you!”
Medium: pop up on the checkout page, email, or simply a phone call (in case of the sent offer)!
Collect feedback on the shopping experience or sales process by asking about the client’s feelings immediately.
“Thanks for your purchase! We would like to hear how your shopping/purchase experience was. Could you answer some questions? It only takes a minute of your time but is a great help for us!”
Medium: email, SMS or on-page survey.
Sometimes you just can’t close a deal, and in those situations, it’s good to know why that happened. Only that way you can know if you can develop the process or improve the product itself.
“We are bummed to see you go. Is there anything we could have done differently? Let us know so we can improve the experience for the next time!”
Medium: on-page or email.
In case you sell a service or product that requires a more thorough onboarding process, it’s important to know how that process works.
“Congratulations on completing the onboarding! Now you are almost a professional. 👏
How do you feel about the collaboration this far? Please let us know by answering a few questions. This way we can keep improving the process.”
Medium: on-app, email, face to face.
Don’t abandon your clients after they have made a purchase. Otherwise you will miss out on upsales and increasing customer lifetime value.
When you conduct a customer satisfaction survey on your client after a while, you can learn if they are about to churn, or if they would be mature for additional purchases.
“How are you doing? I hope you are enjoying our collaboration! At least we are happy to have you as our client.
I have a short feedback survey that I would like you to fill out. It will help us figure out how to help you better!”
Medium: email, on-app
Pro tip: automate the sending of satisfaction surveys with Trustmary!
Maybe the customer has not done anything on your software for a while or they have not made their regular repurchase.
When you notice that there is no activity from your customers’ side, it’s time to act.
“Hey you! We haven’t been in touch for a while. Would you like to let us know how you are doing by answering this short survey?”
Medium: email, SMS
Remember the example of a persuasive ask I gave before?
Key thing to notice there: I was a happy former customer. It was no-brainer to ask for such a small favor.
“Great to see you are enjoying our product! Would you like to leave feedback for us? It just takes a moment and is a great help for us.”
Medium: email, SMS, in-app
You might be wondering why even ask for feedback from someone you know is a loyal customer.
Let me introduce you to testimonials. They are a great help for your marketing efforts, as they add social proof (one of the principles of persuasion!) to your sales funnel.
Trustmary’s survey tool enables you to collect marketing permission from the customers who give positive feedback. Thus, you can leverage the great experiences of your happy customers!
You surely noticed that I provided some suggestions for how to distribute your survey or at least the initial message.
Now, let’s dig deeper into the requirements and affordances of each option. You will learn how to modify the message for each channel.
This is the obvious and most used form of communication.
It’s no surprise: emails can be very visually pleasing and attract people’s attention.
On the other hand, we receive so much information via email that many messages go unnoticed. In fact, especially in retail, the average click-through rate is as low as less than 1%.
In order to have people actually open your email, you need to pay lots of attention to the title. Be concise and let the reader know what exactly you are offering or asking. (Still remember the “I ask for your help for 10 seconds”?)
Once you have decided to use email, utilize all its possibilities! Make the message look beautiful by adding banners, brand colors, noticeable fonts and your profile picture.
Make sure that your email is deliverable. Otherwise it might go straight to spam and be ignored.
SMS has a feeling of urgency, and it gets ignored less than an email.
When you send an SMS, be mindful of sounding legitimate. There are so many scams circulating around that people are extremely cautious when it comes to opening links in text messages.
Remember to identify yourself in the message, and possibly add a detail like which product or service you are wanting feedback on. This will increase your chances of being regarded as legitimate and not a scam, especially when sending the first message.
Also, make sure that you have permission to send SMS to the customer. Offer a chance to opt out from messages as well.
Timing is another crucial factor in SMS marketing. Don’t interrupt your clients’ day or night with annoying messages.
When writing a survey request for SMS, keep it short and sweet. You can use some emojis if that fits your tone of voice.
Having a QR code option for feedback surveys is a lifesaver if your business is location based and offline in nature.
No customer would like to start typing a long URL in order to get to your online survey. On the other hand, managing paper surveys is time consuming and makes following trends difficult.
When you have a QR code survey at hand, you can just make it into a poster and hang it on your office wall or fair pop up stand.
In this case, make sure that you can capture the client’s attention. The customer needs to realize what your poster is all about with just one glance.
Use noticeable visual elements and large fonts.
Some of the above templates included cases in which the survey is located on a website or in an app.
This tactic is great when you want to target the exact moment when the customer is scrolling a specific page.
Websites have lots of possibilities for different feedback surveys. You can add a link or even embed the whole form on your website. These days it’s easy to add widgets to your website by just copy-pasting a code snippet.
The downside of on-page surveys is that they are easy to ignore by scrolling past the link or embed. To prevent this from happening, use dynamic elements like pop ups and chatbots!
There is always the possibility to ask for feedback during a meeting or a phone call. It’s almost too obvious for people who are in contact with their clients in person.
It is good customer service and enables you to get into more thorough conversations with your clients. This will boost the customer experience, as the customer feels like they are truly listened to.
Despite all the advantages, there are still some big disadvantages:
Why collect customer feedback regularly?
Because it has many benefits! In the long run, it will affect your business growth positively.
Gathering regular feedback is easy with the help of automations.
You can set a specific time for when the feedback surveys will be sent out, or you can base it off of triggering events.
Learn more about feedback automations and save time!
We have seen 5 templates for feedback survey requests. You have learned what to pay attention to when formulating messages for each distribution platform.
Now you can put these learnings into practice. Gather customer feedback easily with Trustmary, and include these templates as part of the feedback flow.
Trustmary offers templates of customer feedback forms, and the feedback form library is ever growing.
Automate the process, and integrate Trustmary with your CRM.
Try today and see how easy it is!
How to write good feedback survey messages?
A good request for customer feedback is brief, personal, persuasive and highlights how helpful the feedback is.
Where can I find templates for customer feedback?
Trustmary’s survey builder has lots of templates for successful customer feedback forms. You can choose one of the existing templates, modify it to your liking, or build a form completely from scratch.