Customer satisfaction surveys have become all the more important for businesses that intend to provide their clientele with a seamless customer service experience. Response to profound customer surveys is no less than gold. These surveys help you read the customer’s mind and help you strategize accordingly. Unfortunately, most of these businesses do not pursue it because they get bogged down as customers treat their customer satisfaction survey invitation emails as spam. Customers do not entertain these emails, and as a result, businesses are unable to exploit the potential of customer satisfaction surveys.

Businesses must realize that there is a way of approaching the customer so that the customer engages with customer satisfaction survey invitations and then ends up taking the survey. Here are 9 best practices for writing a perfect customer satisfaction survey invitation.

1. Use a captivating invitation email subject line

Customer survey invitation tips - Email Marketing

When drafting a customer satisfaction survey invitation, this probably is one of the most important factors to consider. Before a customer can complete your meticulously developed customer feedback survey, they need to open the email invitation. This is the first piece of content that appears in the customer’s email. It has to be compelling enough to intrigue the customer. This should create an urge inside the customer to know what the email is all about. However, you should keep certain things in mind:

  • Words to avoid:- Help Us improve; Reminder to finish our survey
  • Customer-Focused-  The subject line should be about how customers can benefit
  • Specific- Be clear rather than clever. Aweber released a report that shows that a clear subject line gets 541% more clicks than one that’s clever.
  • Length- Go for shorter subject lines.  They have higher open rates.

2. Use a simple greeting

A simple greeting starts your message the way you intend it to be. It should align with your business brand. Do not try to be over-friendly with the customers because you want them to take up the survey. Keep it simple, like:

Hi Mr. Henry, Dear Mrs. Anderson

3. State the purpose

As soon as the customers get a customer satisfaction survey invitation, the first question that pops up in their mind is “Why me?”. So, before this question arises in the consumer’s mind you should clearly address in the mail to why that particular consumer is chosen for the survey. Tell them who is being asked to respond or why they have been selected.

Examples: “You being our valuable client, your feedback matters to us” or “You were our 100th customer today, and so we request you to submit your feedback”         

4. Refrain from promoting yourself

Most businesses start their customer satisfaction survey invitation by stating their achievements. Refrain from doing this. You might think that this will prompt the customer to respond but it backfires most of the time. Try to keep your message neutral.

5. State the importance of the survey

Sharing how you plan to use the responses can work in your favor. Do keep in mind that customers would be more interested to know how will they benefit from your survey rather than you. You can let the customers know that you will be using their feedback to improve parameters such as:

  • Delivery
  • Customer care
  • Product
  • Packaging

6. Tell customers how long it will take

Remember that customers prefer a shorter customer satisfaction survey usually, however, if you intend to take more of the customer’s time you should clearly mention it in your customer satisfaction survey invitation. If this information is not clearly communicated can lead to unattended or unfinished surveys, which will be useless. Tell them if the survey will take more time, don’t hesitate. This will at least assure you of diligently answered surveys.

7. Share contact details

By sharing your contact details, you are lending credibility to your invitation.  A customer satisfaction survey invitation should have contact details such as an email id or a mobile number. Although people might not be using these contact details, they will be assured that the customer satisfaction survey invitation is authentic.

Example: “If you have any questions please contact XYZ at 1111111”

You have to clearly mention the link that guides the customers to the survey questionnaire. Ensure that this link doesn’t get mixed up with the text. Sometimes companies use images that lead to a questionnaire, however in a large number of emails clients hide images by default. This can confuse the customers and get them irritated.  

9. Show gratitude

Let your appreciation for your customers flow into the customer satisfaction survey invitation. It should be simple but heartfelt and sincere thank you.

“Thank you for providing your feedback. We appreciate the time you have taken and will actively use it to improve our services to you.”

customer survey invitation tips- Gratitude

The insight from customer surveys gives you direction and shapes your tasks ahead. Therefore, they must be taken by the survey takers with dedication and diligence. Birdeye is a powerful solution that helps you send out apt customer satisfaction survey invitations by email and mobile phone. But that’s not all. Birdeye offers employee feedback surveys to improve your team’s productivity.  By using these services, you can gain a significant advantage over your competitors and can be known as a force to reckon with. 

The 2021 online survey survival guide