You've had a customer care system in place for a number of years, and you've noticed that your return rate is steadily falling outside the usual seasonal variations? What can you do about it? What questions should you be asking?

Frequency of requests

First of all, ask yourself whether you're soliciting your customers too often. Solicitation also includes all the marketing messages you send them: newsletters, SMS, even letters. There's a risk that your surveys will be drowned out by the mass of communications you receive, leading to brand fatigue and even annoyance. As a general rule, we recommend no more than once every 3 months for a satisfaction survey, combined with a reasonable amount of marketing.

Contacting non-respondents

If you haven't already done so, it may be time to send out a reminder to non-respondents a few days after the first mailing. This usually yields between 20 and 50% more responses. Don't hesitate to adapt the subject line to the reminder, such as "Only a few days left to give your opinion".

Apply at the right time, through the right channel

You send an email the day after the product is shipped to the customer. Are you sure this is the ideal time? Try staggering the survey by a few days to give your customers time to test their purchase.

If, on the other hand, you send an e-mail 7 days after a simple contact with an advisor, it's likely that the experience is too old in the customer's mind. When it comes to a short interaction, real time is ideal for sending a survey. You can use IVR (Interactive Voice Response) or SMS following telephone contact with an advisor.

In tourism, we wait a few days after the customer's departure until they're back and ready to respond.

We usually carry out tests to find the ideal moment for contact.

Raising awareness among teams and customers

If your customers are in direct contact with certain teams in your organization, it can be very useful to raise awareness of the benefits of this survey among your staff, so that they can act as a relay to the customer.

Following a stay, the employee checking out with the customer can inform them that a survey will be sent to them. He or she can then stress the importance of feedback for the hotel or site in improving the quality of the service provided. It can also specify that all comments are read individually. Or that they are shared to congratulate teams and encourage them to improve on specific points.

Communicate the benefits of customer feedback

If you have a recurring clientele, it can be difficult to maintain a good return rate over time. You need to convince them that it's in their interest to continue responding to the various surveys you receive. You can do this by communicating the actions taken in response to customer feedback. Don't hesitate to thank them for having contributed to improving processes, and therefore the service provided by the organization. This can take the form of visual communication on the site, in the store, or by sending out a newsletter.

Conclusion

Optimizing your return rate means addressing the right customer, via the right channel, at the right time, using the right words. It's also important that the customer feels that the time he or she takes to complete the survey will be used by the organization to improve its service.