MarketingCharts staff
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of articles from MarketingCharts, which provides up-to-the-minute data and research to marketers.
Some 44 percent of consumers across the U.S., U.K. and Australia say they’ve abandoned a customer feedback survey without completing it, according to a recent study from Medallia. The report suggests that survey design — and the channels through which feedback can be transmitted — are areas where improvements are needed.
Easily the most common complaint among the survey respondents concerned the length of the survey. More than half (57 percent) of those who had abandoned a customer feedback survey without completing it did so because the survey was too long.
Some respondents also pointed to other reasons for having not completed a survey, including a perception that the feedback would not be acted upon and uncertainty regarding the purpose of the survey.
Separate results included in the report indicate that making the survey design more conversational and visual could help improve response rates. When offering their feedback to companies, two-thirds of consumers would like to include photos and sizable proportions would also like to include screenshots (42 percent), voice messages (28 percent) and videos (19 percent).
Asked how they currently provide feedback, the top-five choices were email, cited by half; phone, 32 percent; in person at a physical location, 28 percent; post on social media; and online review site, 25 percent.
Real-time feedback is now widely desired. Nineteen percent want to be able to provide feedback during the transaction, 34 percent immediately after the transaction and another 34 percent within 24 hours.
Relatedly, 52 percent said that a negative experience they had in the past year could have been improved had they had the opportunity to give real-time feedback for the company to take immediate action on.
Medallia wrote in the study, “Consumers expect to converse with brands in real time, the same way they now converse with friends and family. They want to share their experiences, provide context, and receive value in return before the interaction is over.”