These 5 tips will improve your survey response rate

Have you ever asked yourself: Who actually takes part in surveys? Today, they really do seem to be lurking around every corner. Surveys that want to understand your preferences and satisfaction. “How likely is it…?” We live in a world that prefers to analyze everything and everyone. Perfectly justified as long as the intent of the survey is clearly communicated.

You’ve probably noticed that it can be a challenge to collect high-quality data from employees, customers, or other target groups. However, every business thrives on constant optimization, a process that relies on the analysis of data. This in turn means that a successful survey depends on a high response rate. And how is this best achieved? It’s definitely not as easy as it was “back then” before the digitization of surveys, which led to downright flooding with them. And which market participants wanted to take advantage of this if only to be part of this trend.

There are certainly fewer days today when you open your inbox to enthusiastically receive a survey invitation. For customer satisfaction surveys, the response rate has declined significantly over the last 20 years: 66% of respondents today say they would rather actively approach the provider themselves for feedback than fill out questionnaires.

How to overcome this hurdle and get significant results with a better response rate?

1. Understand your target audience

To effectively reach your target audience, you should first know them. Focus on the key factors that may be of interest to you (e.g. average age, gender, occupation). From this information, you can deduce: Is your target audience more likely to answer your questions via e-mail, online, or SMS? Where and when is the recipient of your invitation? Hopefully with a willingness to participate.

It is well known that surveys addressed to a younger target group are more likely to yield a lower response rate. However, there are case studies, as in Egmont’s, in which this seemingly disadvantaged basic requirement could be circumvented.

In order to obtain as few biased results as possible, you should determine the scope of your survey from the beginning. How best to go about this?

For an effective sending of the survey, you should also make sure that the number of recipients is controlled by an updated address list or relevant contact data.

2. Sell your survey correctly!

It is impossible to ignore: The design plays a big role. It supports the intuitive and logical structure of the questionnaire. You want to literally entice your target audience to fill out your questionnaire. To do this, however, you must first make sure that your questions are easy to understand and follow a logical sequence.

Furthermore, the language should adapt to your audience. If it fits: Why not spice up the survey with the help of humor or visual effects?

You can win more by keeping it short and sweet. In case studies, 52% of respondents abandoned the survey if it took more than 3 minutes to answer.

3. Make it personal and help the response rate.

Who wouldn’t appreciate being addressed by their own name instead of “Dear Customer / Employee”. Make the recipient feel important and that their feedback in particular counts and is valued. To achieve higher relevance of responses, you want to ask relevant questions: Tailor your survey to the recipient profile as much as possible by creating (sub) groups.

Your survey should be associated with your brand. Include your logo in the format to give it a personal touch. You also want to show that you spared no effort (although less once the right tool is chosen).

4. Incentive contributes to higher ROI.

How does your audience benefit from answering your questions? You want to make sure that their time and efforts are used effectively. After all, every answer will lead you closer to your goal. So why not invest something to make your survey profitable?

For example, through material incentives in the form of gifts, prizes or discount promotions. However, if this is beyond your budget, you can also provide value in the form of rewards through learning experiences, entertainment, or direct perceptions of improvement. Creativity can make a big difference! For some surveys, it may be of interest to your audience that you share your survey results.

5. Be aware of the weaknesses

To change perspective once again: Before you send out your survey, put yourself in the position of the recipient. At what point do you expect the highest dropout rate? What could create that little extra motivation here to complete the questionnaire to the end?

Now that you know the weak points advertise the strengths of your survey. Set clear deadlines and send out friendly reminders. Why not even use channels like social media to promote your survey? Seek support from business partners or key people to communicate the importance of your survey.

And lastly, this is the crucial moment to think about the success of your next survey: highly acknowledge participants’ time and thank them with a nice message. After all, you appreciate every response!