Crafting E-commerce Satisfaction Surveys

To learn how to improve your business practices, your best first step is to ask your customers what changes they’d like to see. As simple as that sounds, there’s more to crafting ecommerce satisfaction surveys than asking a bunch of questions to people who have bought things from you. Those questions and the form they take must be thoughtfully considered if you are to glean quality results.

What to Ask

The first person you need to query is yourself. What do you want the survey to accomplish? Sure, you want to gauge the satisfaction of your customer base, but you need to drill down into it farther than that to figure out what you’ll need to fix if there are problems.

Further, your goal must be specific.

In other words, you’ll need to narrow the focus of your questioning so you can obtain insights upon which you can act. It’s also important to make the respondents aware of the purpose of the survey, so they can focus their responses around the core issue(s).

Where to Ask

OK, so let’s say you’re shopping a site for a new smartphone. You’re focused on the details surrounding the product when a popup interrupts your thought processes to ask your opinion about a procedure you have yet to complete.

How likely are you to stop shopping for your phone and take that survey?

Exactly.

Rather than having your survey pop up on customers while they are shopping, place it at the bottom of the order confirmation page. Customers are in a far better position to provide informed responses after they’ve completed a transaction. They’re more likely to take the time to do so as well.

Given that circumstance, it might be a smarter move to go with an email survey to a cross section of your customers. If you employ this method, make the invitation short and to the point. Explain the purpose of the survey and give them a rough idea of how long it will take to complete it—keeping in mind anything over five minutes is too much.

The email should also use the same color scheme and font style customers have become accustomed to seeing on your site. Include your logo as well, so the recipients will know it’s really from you. If you have yet to design one, a free logo maker like Shopify’s Hatchful can remedy that situation in short order.

How to Ask

Questions should be unbiased and closed ended, leaving survey respondents the freedom to express their honest opinions. In other words, ask neutral questions rather than trying to steer a person to a predetermined answer.

Questions prefaced with phrases such as; “Wouldn’t you say…?” or “Don’t you like it when…?” tell the customer you’re more interested in validation than introspection. Design your questions to elicit truthful answers without displaying any bias on your part.

Verbiage should be as simple as possible. Acronyms, words with multiple meanings when lacking context and industry jargon are counterproductive. Most people aren’t going to try to figure out what unfamiliar terms mean and they certainly aren’t going to go looking them up. You have to be clear, direct and succinct.

Ask only what you need to know to affect the changes you’re considering. Don’t ask people about their personal lives if it isn’t germane to the issue in question. In other words, don’t ask questions that have no practical application to your goal of improving customer satisfaction.

Your customers are all too happy to help you provide a better experience—if you ask. Following these guidelines for crafting ecommerce satisfaction surveys will improve your chances of getting actionable information when you do so.