Abandoned Surveys: Look At the Where to Get At the Why

Customers abandon surveys for many reasons. Chief among these are that the survey is too long and/or that it doesn't ask relevant questions.

As an illustration of the first case, I often tell the story of staying for one night in a hotel and getting a 142-question survey (yes, really) the next day. Of course I abandoned it after the first five questions, when I advanced to the next page and the progress bar barely moved.
As for the second case, people are likely to abandon a survey that is not asking questions which are relevant to them as customers, or which seem likely to be attempting to blame the customer service rep for the original problem--or at least for not having the power to fix it.

Call centers track abandoned calls and make note of how long people were on hold before they hung up. That's useful information, because it can help drive staffing levels and efficiencies if the call center management is paying attention. But what about surveys? Are you tracking the "drop off" points and making some sense of them?

As an example: If 45% of survey takers drop the survey after filling out the questions on page one and advancing to page two, you probably shouldn't have a page two--your survey is too long. If 25% of survey takers drop after answering the third consecutive question about the customer service rep (Was the rep professional? Was the rep knowledgeable? Was the rep courteous?), they are getting the impression that you are conducting an HR survey, not a customer survey. Customers are not there to solve your personnel problems. If a rep is being rude to customers, you should already know that, unless you hired them ten minutes ago.

Some quick, simple rules for your survey:

• Keep it short - 5 questions maximum, fewer if possible
• Keep it relevant - Ask questions about whether the problem was resolved and how the customer feels, not about details of the transaction
• Leave room for comments - Open text fields require analysis, but can give you vital information about the customer experience and your products or services

Whether you use a customer satisfaction (CSAT) survey or a Net Promoter® (NPS®) survey or a customer effort score (CES) or something else, you are trying to determine a very small number of things:

1. Why did they contact you? (If they report that product failed and 80% of your contacts are similar, no amount of great service will help. Fix the product.)
2. How do they feel about your organization? (Key question, whether you are after satisfaction, delight, or "Wow!" reactions)
3. What do they want to tell you? (Open comments)

Comments, or "verbatims" as they are often called, can give you terrific insights into what your customers expect and how they might respond if things were changed, even slightly.

If you are going to survey, get it right.

Give it some thought--and leave a comment. 

Net Promoter, Net Promoter Score, and NPS are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld