What is An Inmoment Survey? Definition, Benefits, Best Practices & Examples

Surveys are a common tool for businesses to gather feedback from customers. However, traditional surveys suffer from delayed feedback and low completion rates. In-moment surveys address these issues by collecting responses in real-time while the customer is engaged with the business, making it more actionable and valuable.

What is an In-Moment Survey?

An inmoment survey (in-the-moment survey) captures feedback from customers at the exact moment after interacting with the business. A business can share an inmoment survey post-purchase, after a call with a support team or after customer onboarding process etc. This in-the-moment survey is designed to be short and focused, making it easy for customers to complete it quickly.

In-moment surveys differ from traditional surveys in 4 few key ways:

• Timing: It is shared immediately after the customer has completed interacting with the business. Traditional surveys are conducted long after the initial transaction/ conversation.
• Focus: These goal oriented surveys focus on a specific interaction or touchpoint with the business. On the other hand, traditional surveys have a generic approach.
• Length: It is designed to be short, to-the-point and easy to complete. Traditional surveys can be lengthy and time-consuming.
• Channels: In-moments surveys are built to collect feedback quickly. Therefore, they do better on channels that allow for quick responses. Messenger apps such as WhatsApp surveys and Facebook messenger surveys, website chatbots, and dynamic AMP email surveys are a more preferred channel. Read more about omnichannel surveys here.

Benefits of In-The-Moment Surveys for Businesses

In-the-moment surveys are a powerful tool for businesses to gather feedback from customers in real-time. Such surveys offer more accurate and actionable data that can help businesses improve the customer experience and drive growth.

• Real-time feedback: In-moment surveys provide businesses with customer responses in real-time, allowing them to address customer concerns and issues immediately. Faster feedback makes it more actionable in addressing customer concerns.
• Increased response rates: In-moment surveys are short and focused. So customers are more likely to complete it.
• Empowered customers: Asking the right question at the right time makes the customer feel valued and heard. This makes for a more engaged and loyal customer.
• More accurate feedback: Since in-moment surveys capture responses while the customer is engaged with the business, the feedback is more accurate and relevant.
• Improved customer experience (CX): In-moment surveys help businesses identify pain points across the customer journey and make improvements to address them.

Capture Real Time Customer Feedback with In-Moment Surveys

In-moment surveys capture responses from customers at the exact moment they are interacting with a business, providing businesses with real-time insights into the customer experience. This feedback can help businesses identify pain points, address customer concerns, and improve the overall customer experience.

How do In-Moment Surveys Work?

In-moment surveys are typically delivered to customers through a variety of channels- AMP emails, text message, Facebook messenger surveys and WhatsApp surveys. The surveys are designed to be short and easy to complete and have a few goal-oriented questions.

Here’s how in-moment surveys capture responses in real-time:

• Customer interaction: The customer interacts with the business, such as making a purchase or browsing a website.
• Trigger: A trigger event occurs, such as the completion of a purchase or the customer spending a certain amount of time on the website.
• Survey delivery: The in-moment survey is delivered to the customer via email, text message, or in-app messaging.
• Feedback collection: The customer completes the survey, providing feedback on their experience with the business.
• Analysis: The responses are analyzed by the business to identify trends and areas for improvement.

Why is Real-Time Feedback Important?

Real-time feedback is valuable for businesses for several reasons:

• Immediate action: Real-time satisfaction metrics allows businesses to take immediate action to address customer concerns and issues.
• Accurate responses : Real-time response is more accurate and relevant because it captures the customer’s experience while it is still fresh in their mind.
• Improved customer experience: Real-time feedback helps businesses identify pain points in the customer experience and make improvements to address them.
• Competitive advantage: Real-time customer feedback can provide businesses with a competitive advantage by allowing them to respond quickly to customer needs and concerns.

In-moment surveys capture feedback from customers in real-time, providing businesses with valuable insights into the customer experience. Real-time feedback allows businesses to take immediate action to address customer concerns, improve the customer experience, and gain a competitive advantage.

Common Examples of In-Moment Surveys

In-moment surveys are versatile tools that can be used in a variety of contexts to capture feedback from customers. Here are some common use cases for these surveys:

Post-purchase feedback:

In-moment surveys are a great way to collect feedback from customers immediately after they make a purchase. This feedback can help businesses identify areas for improvement in their sales process, product offerings, or customer service.

Website or in-app experience:

In-moment surveys can be used to collect feedback on user experience while they are browsing a website or app. This feedback can help businesses identify pain points in the customer experience, such as confusing navigation or slow load times.

Event feedback:

In-moment surveys can be used to collect feedback from attendees at events, such as conferences or trade shows. This feedback can help businesses improve the attendee experience and make future events more successful.

Customer support feedback:

In-moment surveys can be used to collect feedback from customers after they interact with customer support. This feedback can help businesses identify areas for improvement in their support processes and ensure that customers are satisfied with the level of service they received.

Product feedback:

Inmoment surveys can be used to collect feedback from customers immediately after they use a product. This feedback can help businesses identify areas for improvement in their product offerings and ensure that customers are satisfied with their purchase.

Customer satisfaction metrics:

In-moment surveys can be used to collect customer satisfaction metrics. The standard metrics are as follows- customer satisfaction score (CSAT), net promoter score (NPS), and customer effort score (CES). These metrics measure customer loyalty, effort and satisfaction ranges. These scores can help businesses identify brand advocates, unhappy users, detractors, and high effort touchpoints. 

How Can InMoment Surveys Help Brands Improve CX?

In-moment surveys are powerful tools that can help businesses improve their customer experience in several ways. Here are some of the key benefits of using these surveys:

Real-Time Feedback:

In-moment surveys capture responses from customers at the right place. Marketers can quickly identify and address any issues that arise. This can help businesses improve their customer experience and increase customer satisfaction.

Customer Insights:

In-moment surveys can provide businesses with valuable insights into their customers’ needs and preferences. By understanding a customer’s like and dislikes on product preferences, businesses can make informed decisions about how to improve their offerings.

Personalization:

Businesses can personalize experiences by tailoring their products or services to individual buyer’s needs. By collecting data on customer preferences and behavior, businesses can provide personalized recommendations and offers that are more likely to resonate with the user base.

Reduced Churn:

Businesses reduce customer churn by identifying and addressing issues before they become major problems. By quickly responding to customer feedback and resolving issues, businesses can improve customer retention and loyalty.

Competitive Advantage:

In-moment surveys can provide businesses with a competitive advantage by allowing them to quickly adapt to changing customer needs and preferences. By staying ahead of the competition, businesses can maintain their market position and attract new customers.

6 Best Practices for Designing Responsive InMoment Surveys

In-moment surveys can be a valuable tool for capturing real-time feedback from customers, but designing an effective survey can be challenging. Here are some best practices for designing effective these surveys:

Keep it short and simple

These surveys need to be short and easy to complete to encourage high response rates. Use clear, concise language and avoid asking too many questions or including irrelevant information.

Be relevant

Make sure that your survey questions are relevant to the customer’s experience. For example, if you’re collecting feedback on a product, ask about the specific features or aspects of the product that the customer has used.

Use closed-ended questions

Closed-ended questions, such as multiple choice or rating scales, are easier for customers to answer and provide more consistent data. Avoid open-ended questions that can be difficult to analyze.

Test and refine

Before launching a survey, test it with a small group of customers to identify any issues or areas for improvement. Refine the survey based on customer feedback to ensure that it is as effective as possible.

Automate deployment

To maximize efficiency and accuracy, it’s best to automate the deployment of in-moment surveys. This ensures that customers receive the survey at the right time and on the right platform, whether it be via email, message, text message, or within a mobile app. Automating deployment also allows for real-time analysis of results and quicker response to customer feedback. Read 5 ways how brands can collect feedback using automation

Timing is key

The timing of your in-moment survey is important. Make sure that you are collecting feedback at the right moment in the customer’s journey. The right time can be immediately after a purchase or interaction with the support staff, after first use or a few days of use.

Designing an effective in-moment survey can be challenging, but by following these best practices, organisations can obtain valuable insights. Keep the survey short and simple, be relevant, use closed-ended questions, test and refine, provide survey rewards and incentives, and time the survey correctly.

Why Should You Use InMoment Surveys?

In-moment surveys provide marketers with real-time feedback from customers. Here are some strategies organisations can use to make the most of in-moment survey responses:

Analyze trends

Analyze trends to identify common issues and pain points that multiple customers are experiencing. This can help brands prioritize areas for improvement and make targeted changes to offer a seamless experience.

Drill down into specific responses

Organisations can also drill down into specific responses to identify the root cause of customer pain points. This can involve analyzing free-text responses or following up with customers to gather more information.

Prioritize issues

Identify customer pain points and prioritize it based on their impact on the CX. Assess this impact and identify the business’s ability to address them. Some issues may require immediate attention, while others can be addressed gradually.

Make changes and follow up

Businesses should make targeted changes to address grievances. After implementing changes, it’s important to follow up with customers to ensure that the changes have had a positive impact on their experience.

Use feedback to drive continuous improvement

Regularly collect and analyze feedback and make iterative changes to improve CX. Making positive changes to the CX protocol is a continuous event. Drill down into specific responses, highlight issues and refine protocols. 

In-Moment Surveys Help Marketers Make Data-Centric Decisions

Marketers need to make more informed decisions in today’s data-centric world. Here are some ways these survey responses can help businesses make better decisions:

• Identify trends and patterns: In-moment surveys allow businesses to identify trends and patterns in customer behavior. Analyze these trends and patterns, and make more informed decisions about product development, marketing, and customer service.
• Evaluate new products and services: Evaluate new products and services from beta testers. Collect feedback from users early in the development process, to make changes and improvements before the product or service is globally released.
• Test marketing campaigns: Test marketing campaigns before they are launched. Use the responses on different marketing messages and make informed decisions about which messages are most effective.
• Measure the impact of changes: Measure the impact of changes made to products, services, or the customer experience. Collect feedback before and after changes are made. Determine whether the changes had a positive impact on the customer experience.
• Inform strategic planning: Finally, use in-moment survey responses to curate strategic planning. Analyze responses and determine long-term strategy as per the market structure.
• Real-time survey response: In-the-moment survey responses provide businesses with real-time feedback from consumers. This is used to evaluate new products and services, test marketing campaigns, measure the impact of changes, and create strategic planning. 

5 Common Challenges with In-Moment Metrics and How to Overcome Them

In-the-moment surveys can come with some common challenges associated with them. Here are some of the challenges and how to overcome them:

Low response rates:

One of the biggest challenges is getting customers to respond. To overcome this, businesses can try the following:

• Keep the survey short and focused on a specific topic.
• Offer an incentive for completing the survey, such as a discount or entry into a contest.
• Use a personalized message to encourage people to participate.
• Read how low response rate can hurt your business.

Bias in responses :

Another challenge with these surveys is that they can be subject to bias in responses. To overcome this, businesses can try the following:

• Use randomized survey questions to reduce the impact of order bias.
• Use neutral language in questions to avoid leading the respondent.
• Collect responses from a diverse group of users to ensure a representative sample.

Lack of context:

In-the-moment surveys are typically brief and focused on a specific interaction. This can sometimes result in a lack of context, which can make it difficult to interpret the feedback. To overcome this, businesses can try the following:

• Collect additional information about the customer and the interaction, such as their order history or the time of day the interaction occurred.
• Use open-ended questions to allow customers to provide additional context.

Difficulty analyzing responses:

In-moment survey responses can be difficult to analyze, especially if there are large volumes of responses. To overcome this, businesses can try the following:

• Use CX software tools to analyze the data, such as sentiment analysis tools or text analytics software.
• Use a customer support team to review the responses and identify trends or patterns.

Not acting on feedback:

Finally, one of the biggest challenges with in-moment surveys is not acting on the feedback. To overcome this, businesses can try the following:

• Assign responsibility for reviewing and acting on the feedback to a specific person or team.
• Set up a process for reviewing feedback and taking action.
• Communicate to customers about the changes made based on their feedback.

How To Ensure if The In-Moment Survey Responses are Accurate?

Here are some ways businesses can ensure if their in-moment survey responses are accurate and representative:

1. Use random sampling: Random sampling means selecting participants at random from the customer base, rather than selecting specific individuals or groups.
2. Avoid leading questions: Leading questions can bias survey responses and provide inaccurate feedback. To avoid this, use neutral language in survey questions. Avoid asking leading questions that suggest a particular answer.
3. Use multiple channels: Use multiple active channels to distribute the surveys to ensure that the responses are representative of the customer base. For example, businesses can distribute the survey via email, social media channels, and on their website to reach a wider audience.
4. Keep the survey short: Long surveys can lead to survey fatigue and low response rates. To ensure that responses are accurate and representative, keep the survey short and focused on a specific topic.
5. Monitor response rates: Monitoring response rates can help marketers identify potential biases in responses. If certain groups of people are not responding to the feedback form, it may indicate that the survey is not representative of the customer base. Read our ultimate guide on boosting response rates
6. Analyze the data: Analyze the data to identify potential biases and inaccuracies in the survey responses. Use tools such as sentiment analysis or text analytics software to identify patterns and trends in the data.

Take action on feedback: Take action on the feedback to ensure that the survey responses are accurate and representative. Make changes based on the feedback, and show customers that their opinions are valued to maintain a high customer retention rate.

Brands That Use In-Moment Surveys for Customer Feedback

In-moment surveys have become increasingly popular among businesses looking to improve their customer experience and drive growth. Here are some examples of businesses that have successfully used in-moment surveys to gather customer feedback and make improvements:

1. Starbucks

Starbucks has been using in-moment surveys through its mobile app since 2015. The app prompts customers to provide feedback after they make a purchase, allowing Starbucks to collect real-time feedback on its products and service. The feedback has been used to improve everything from the taste of the coffee to the efficiency of the ordering process.

2. Airbnb

Airbnb uses in-moment surveys to gather feedback from guests about their stay. The survey is sent via email shortly after the guest checks out, allowing Airbnb to gather feedback while the experience is still fresh in the guest’s mind. The feedback is used to improve the overall guest experience, as well as to identify any issues that may need to be addressed.

3. Uber

Uber uses in-moment surveys to gather feedback from riders about their experience. After a ride is completed, users are prompted to rate their driver and provide feedback on their ride experience. This feedback is used to improve the overall rider experience and ensure that drivers are meeting the company’s standards.

4. Marriott International

Marriott International uses in-the-moment customer satisfaction surveys to gather feedback from guests about their stay. The survey is sent via email shortly after the guest checks out. This allows Marriott to gather feedback while the experience is still fresh in the guest’s mind. The feedback is used to improve the overall guest experience, as well as to identify any issues that may need changes.

5. Delta Airlines

Delta Airlines uses in-moment surveys to gather feedback from passengers about their flight experience. The survey is sent via email shortly after the flight, allowing Delta to gather responses while the experience is still fresh in the passenger’s mind. These responses are used to improve the overall passenger experience and identify any issues that may need to be addressed.

Conclusion

In-moment surveys are a powerful tool for businesses looking to improve their customer experience and drive growth. By following best practices for survey design, monitoring response rates, and taking action on feedback, businesses can use in-moment surveys to gain valuable insights and make data-driven decisions to improve it.

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