The Post-Purchase survey is one of simplest and most effective surveys you can field to your customers.
First of all, it’s relatively unobtrusive as it comes at the end of a transaction and thus enjoys a higher response rate than many other types of surveys.
Several factors are important in making it so. The survey itself has to be short – no more than 5 questions and you should make it clear in the call to action that the survey will be short. Also important is how the survey populates on the screen. At Sibyl® Surveys, we favor our slide-up window survey that pulls up from the bottom of the ‘thank you’ page. It’s absolutely noticeable, but not offensive like a popup window can often be. The first survey question is right there and can be answered from that window so the respondent doesn’t need to click a link or go to another page to get started on the survey. Also, on the Sibyl® CX platform, that first question response is recorded even if the respondent chooses not to answer further questions, so you always have the opportunity to reach out to that customer afterwards to close the loop after a poor rating.
Secondly, the Post-Purchase Survey gives you feedback on your customers’ shopping experience while it’s fresh in their minds. The feedback received at that moment in time is often quite actionable and specific to the improvement of their experience.
Of course, the most important factor here is asking the right questions. So what are they?
Well, this is the format and question types we at Sibyl® prefer.
Q1) Start with an ‘Overall Experience’ rating question. This type of question gives you a trackable metric that you can use on an aggregate OR individual customer basis. This enables you to track an individual’s responses over time as well as see whether changes you make to the shopping experience improve your score over time. At Sibyl®, we like using the following language:
On a scale of 1 to 5, (where 1 is the lowest rating and 5 is the highest), How would you rate your overall experience shopping with XXX today?
Q2) Your second question should be a probe deeper in search of the main reason or reasons for the score given in Q1. It should be an open ended, verbatim question.
What can we do to improve your experience in the future?
Q3) This is an important question. It’s where a lot of those “oh, I didn’t think of that” revelations emerge. You want to ask your customer for the biggest hurdle they faced during their shopping experience. Often, your customers will point you to glitches in the website or links that aren’t working properly, etc. We like the question:
What almost stopped you from completing your purchase?
Q4) Here, you need a metric for loyalty. We like the Net Promoter System (NPS)for this question:
On a scale of 0-10 (where "0" is Not Likely and "10" is Very Likely), how likely are you to recommend us to a friend or colleague if you had the opportunity to do so?
At Signet Research and Sibyl® Surveys we like to add “if you had the opportunity to do so” to the standard NPS question. Some products or services are just not ones that you would necessarily recommend outside of certain opportunities or scenarios. For example, no matter how satisfied you may be with your online adult diaper supplier, you’re unlikely to recommend them to a friend or colleague (unless you find yourself in a unique situation with an opportunity to do so). We find this small addition clarifies the real purpose of the question and makes a difference with certain products/vendors. Use your best judgement.
And finally, Q5) can be an effective way to leverage your customer’s loyalty to get new customers AND encourage repeat sales. Using Sibyl’s full survey logic you can program this last question to change depending on the score given in the NPS question above.
For example, if someone gives you a ‘detractor’ score (like 1 through 6) on the NPS question, your last question could be:
We’re sorry you feel that way. Could you elaborate on why you gave us that score so we can better earn your business moving forward?
OR… if you get a ‘Promoter’ score (9 or 10) Sibyl® can pull up a call to action to help you leverage that score, for example:
Thank you! We aim to please. If you’d like to recommend us to a friend or colleague below, we’ll send you both a 10% discount code for your next purchases.
Name:
Email:
In conclusion, Post-Purchase Surveys are fairly easy to implement, have a good response rate, give you actionable feedback that you can use to improve your shopping experience AND give you an opportunity to leverage the customers who really like shopping with you. If you’d like help creating and fielding surveys like this, or are in need of a Customer Experience Survey platform that’s backed by a research company with 50 years of experience, please reach out to us at: sales@sibylsurveys.com or visit Sibyl Surveys.
