Customer Experience Program -- Survey Design

How important is it to provide an incentive to customers who will be participating in your survey? Deciding on whether to offer and what type of incentive to give depends on the type of industry, your survey invitation, and your survey design. Some industries don't need to offer any incentive at all. Due to the nature of their survey (e.g. health care, public service) customers have enough motivation to participate. And a well designed survey invitation and questionnaire will naturally motivate customers. If you decide to offer incentive, you will not only increase your response but will also increase repeat business (bounce backs) as well as stimulate trial of selected categories. Our observations indicate that use of correct incentive will capture feedback from the largest possible category of all customers, will bring in meaningful repeat business and increase the bottom line, and will positively impact quality and amount of feedback. There are a variety of incentives to use. Their impact on survey responses will be different. Sweepstakes incentives are least effective in generating responses from customers. They work in certain situations, but responses will come from a very specific audience. "Percent off incentives work very well. The offer can exclude purchase of certain items, and specify a minimum "dollar" on the purchase amount. Free offers are also effective, and work very well for certain industries. Your customer experience program will work better with an incentive. In combination with a well designed survey invitation and questionnaire, incentive offering will motivate customers to participate,will bring in repeat business, will provide you with a better quality customer feedback, and will increase your bottom line. Michael