Having a low survey response rate can pose a problem. There is not enough data to come to a reasonable conclusion.
What is a Survey Response Rate?
Survey response rate is the percentage of people who complete a survey out of the total number of people who were invited to participate. It is a key metric used to assess the effectiveness of a survey and the quality of the data collected.
What is a low survey response rate?
A low survey response rate is a situation where only a small percentage of the targeted respondents complete the survey. The definition of “low” depends on industry standards and survey type. A response rate below 10-20% is generally considered low, especially for online and email surveys.
Industry benchmarks for response rates
- Email surveys: 10-30%
- Online surveys: 10-25%
- Phone surveys: 20-50%
- Face-to-face surveys: 50-80%
- In-app surveys: 13-50%
- SMS/WhatsApp surveys: 30-50%. However, WhatsApp does have a 98% open rate.
Minimum Response Rates: Disadvantages
Marketers might just ask ‘ why does it matter to them in the long run? They can wait for a few weeks to build up to an acceptable sample size, isn’t it?’. However, there are multiple drawbacks while you are waiting for the build up. This might tamper with the way you create communication protocols. Here are the drawbacks: .
1. Limited insights bring wrong decisions
Imagine a world where businesses make crucial decisions without sufficient data. Skewed, isn’t it? Low response rates in research surveys leave organizations with limited insights into their customers’ experiences. Without a representative sample, you risk making decisions that may not align with your customers’ needs and preferences.
Example: A popular coffee chain launched a survey to gather customer feedback on potential new flavors for the season. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of customers responded by the time the decision had to be made. The decision was made on a smaller sample size. This was a skewed representation of their customer base. As a result, the chain introduced a trendy avocado-flavored latte, only to discover later that the majority of customers actually preferred a more classic approach. This sums up to wasted time and resources.
2. Missed revenue opportunities
It’s like leaving money on the table and watching your money slip away. Minimal survey completion rate can have a direct impact on your sales, upselling efforts, and even customer retention.
Example: An electric two-wheeler manufacturer collects customer satisfaction feedback after a test drive. It was detected that the sales conversion of those who responded was higher. A deeper analysis found that the sales team were able to use an individual’s satisfaction data to close faster or address concerns better. The lower response rate, in this, was directly impacting revenue.
3. Missed opportunities to improve
Significant differences in response rates can leave marketers clueless about what needs fixing, tweaking, or improving. Without real-world insights and survey data, we might miss out on golden opportunities to enhance our products or services.
Example: A fashion retail chain received varying levels of responses to their customer experience survey at their different locations. A year later, they discovered that the average sales at locations with under 1% customer response rate had grown significantly slower than those with over 1%. In fact, they found a high correlation between customer feedback and sales. While it is possible that some of this might be attributable to the deliberate suppression of feedback from poorly performing locations, at least some part of it was attributable to a lack of actionable insights for improvement.
4. Challenges in focusing on issues by urgency
If you have a list of customer pain points, but without an adequate response rate, it’s challenging to determine which issues should be prioritized. When a survey’s response rate is low, it is impossible to distinguish between signal and noise. Hence, businesses may end up allocating resources to fix problems that affect only a small fraction of their customer base. It’s like wearing earmuffs to a concert—you’re missing out on the important sounds!
Example: A credit card provider was collecting transactional NPS data at various touchpoints in the customer journey. Their Net Promoter Score had an abysmally low response rate. Irrespective of their efforts, the NPS survey response would just not rise. The survey researchers discovered that the response rate to their NPS data was less than 2%. It took effort for the customers to respond to their NPS survey. The only customers who were willing to make that effort were overwhelmingly those who were annoyed with their experience. While it was good to know why their experience was poor, their experience was not representative of the real customer base. Hence, no amount of effort based on the insights drawn from those 2% responses moved the NPS needle. By just making the NPS survey easier to respond to, the company saw an improvement in overall NPS (because the responses comprised a more representative set of customers and not just the annoyed ones) and could identify the real weaknesses in their customer journey, which when improved led to further increase in the NPS.
Get a High Response Rate For Feedback Surveys
To get the right number of response rates, focus on in-the-moment channels that are more interactive. This brings fresh insights to the table without putting a cognitive stress on responders. How to achieve this? Here’s how.
1. Facebook messenger and WhatsApp surveys
Facebook messenger surveys and WhatsApp surveys can capture faster data than most browser based platforms. You can now create Whatsapp surveys in less than 5 minutes. This is one of the best approaches to gather insights real-time. Reach your survey participants quickly without other digital obstacles.
2. Dynamic email surveys
Dynamic email surveys solicit higher response rate over static email surveys. What does this mean for the respondents? People can share their responses over the inbox without being directed to an external browser. This will eliminate friction points and bring a high response rate.
3. Website chatbots
AI-driven chatbots have the capacity to handle complex customer data. It can register conversations and interact just like a human. AI-driven capabilities can solicit more responses from people. With Merren, you can create conversational surveys and launch it via Merren chatbots.
Conclusion
If you want your surveys to reach the right target audience, switch to a different approach of conducting customer feedback protocols. Merren offers a 14 day free trial. Upgrade the way you conduct survey research. You can also check our pricing plan and upgrade to launch an unlimited number of surveys. Increase your survey response rates today!