Matching socks after laundry day is what customer surveys are to go-to-market (GTM) teams: valuable but hard to come by—and for many reasons:
- Survey links get lost in customers’ inboxes
- Customers lack the motivation or time to complete them
- Privacy concerns make sending emails an uphill battle
- You don’t have a scalable way to send surveys and collect feedback
- Your teams don’t want you hounding their customers with “marketing things”
This list doesn’t capture every hurdle, and we won’t sugarcoat it; these challenges are real. But don’t let them stop you from sending surveys that give you the evidence and feedback you need to elevate your product and prove its value.
Let’s dive into the core challenges and a 7-step process — packed with advice and best practices from our VP of Customer Success, Myles Bradwell—to send surveys that serve as the bedrock of your GTM function.
The three-headed monster keeping you from sending surveys
The challenges above may seem daunting, making sending surveys seem like a pipe dream. It’s not, and the seven steps below will prove that. Before getting into those, let’s look at the three-headed but not-so-scary monster standing before you.
Problem: Overcommunicating with customers
“Marketers have gone too far.” That’s what Myles will tell you about how we communicate with customers—and he’s right. As marketing technology has advanced, we have gotten carried away.
Just think of everything we send to them:
- Newsletters
- Product releases
- Webinars
- Surveys
- Renewal notices
- Company milestones
We’re not bashing marketing tech. UserEvidence is marketing technology.
But we also can’t ignore that survey links are getting lost in the depths of inboxes, and the overcommunication may be rubbing your customers the wrong way.
That doesn’t mean stop emailing them, though. When every marketer with a keyboard is emailing their customers (and prospects), your emails can break through by earning your audience’s attention—and that comes from consistently delivering value and building genuine relationships with them.
For example, one technique often used is to shift the focus from you as the company to them as the customer and write emails in the second person (you and yours) to help captivate a more active voice and make it clear that the message benefits the customer and their relationship to your company in the end.
Problem: Lack of access to the right data
While buried emails and frustrated customers are formidable foes if you can’t access your customers’ emails, filter them to your liking, and get permission to hit send, you’re out of luck.
From a permission and access standpoint, ask yourself: Can you even get your hands on customer emails? If another team, like Marketing Operations, owns your database, you might not have direct access.
That team will also likely manage a calendar of customer communications, meaning you’ll have to fight other teams for a slot on their schedule.
Unfortunately, access isn’t the only hurdle. Now ask yourself: Can you tailor the lists to your survey’s needs? For example, if you’re creating a survey to assess onboarding, can you build a list of customers who started in the past 90 days?
Problem: Misalignment with internal stakeholders
If you take one thing away from this article, let it be these words from Myles: “Customer marketing needs a seat at the table.”
Seriously. Etch that in stone.
Until you can align everyone on your objectives and how surveys support broader company goals, you won’t be able to tear down the barriers standing in your way.
Whatever way you look at it, cross-functional alignment is the key to unlocking the full potential of your surveys and a greater customer marketing program, which we’ll get into more in a minute.
How to send a customer survey in 7 steps
Thomas Edison said, “I’ve not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” While not every survey will succeed, you shouldn’t expect a string of failures like Edison’s—our 7-step strategy ensures that.
1. Collaborate with other teams to understand their “big claims and goals”
No, we’re not talking about increasing revenue or pipeline. We’re talking about identifying the big bets your teams want to make this year—and then figuring out how surveys can help.
For example:
- Marketing: Find advocates and brand champions
- Product: Understand how our customers get value from our product
- Customer Success: Increase retention by understanding customer satisfaction and product usage
- Customer Support: Ensure our support team effectively and efficiently helps our customers
- Sales: Understand the competitive landscape and why we lose deals
In a perfect world, one survey would support these cross-functional goals and claims, but that’s not possible. Instead, Myles suggests you identify the claim or goal that delivers the most immediate business value and start there.
2. Pick a survey type
Picking the right type of survey is key, but how do you choose the right one?
According to Myles, all you need to know is the claims you’re trying to make and the gaps in evidence, like success stories from customers in a particular industry or proof points your Sales team can use to beat the competition. Once you define those, you can pick the survey designed to collect the data and insights necessary to support that claim.
Those surveys come in three buckets:
- Foundational: Surveys that cast a wide net and give you the big picture and broad insights
- Customer Journey: Surveys that help you understand points in the customer journey, like the effectiveness of onboarding or why a customer went with you versus a competitor
- Advanced: Surveys that dive even deeper, like why you lost a deal or whether someone wants to join your community
3. Personalize and humanize your surveys
List quality is the biggest determining factor of survey success, but personalization and humanization aren’t far behind.
While there are many advanced ways to personalize and humanize GTM strategies, don’t overthink it. Simply asking your Customer Success Managers (CSMs), Account Managers, and Account Executives (AEs) to send the surveys can go a long way.
Myles echoes this: “If I send a link to one of my customers that says, ‘Hey, it was great chatting with you. Do you have a few minutes to fill out this survey?’ I guarantee you I’ll get a better response than sending the survey from a generic marketing alias.”
4. Send the survey
When it comes to sending the survey, you have three options:
- Emailing surveys directly through UserEvidence
- Sending the survey using a tool like HubSpot or Marketo
- Sharing the survey URL (unique to each customer) with tools like Slack and Pendo
Each option has its benefits.
For example, sending with UserEvidence is more efficient and provides a better experience because customers won’t have to fill out their information (because we already have it). You also won’t have to coordinate with other teams for access and permission.
Meanwhile, sending a URL with HubSpot or Marketo gives you more design flexibility. There’s no right or wrong answer here. It’s all about what you value and picking a delivery mechanism that aligns with your needs.
5. (Potentially) sweeten the pot with incentives
For better or worse, people expect things in exchange for their time—and GTM teams have picked up on that in recent years. Just scroll through LinkedIn and note how many companies offer gift cards for demos.
You can apply this strategy to your surveys, too.
But before you start throwing money around, consider this tip from Myles: You don’t have to offer incentives immediately. Instead, send your initial ask without an incentive. Then, if the response rate falls short of your expectations, follow up with an email that includes an incentive, like an Amazon gift card or entry into a quarterly drawing.
6. Follow up
You won’t get everyone to respond to your survey the first time around, and that’s ok. In fact, we typically tell our customers to expect a response rate between 1-3%.
Will those responses provide a solid start? Absolutely, but you’ll probably need more, so don’t be afraid to follow up—but not more than twice a week. Myles recommends a Tuesday-Thursday-Tuesday schedule to maximize response rates without overwhelming (read: annoying) your customers.
Pro Tip from Myles: Email will likely be your BFF, but don’t overlook other avenues, like a Slack community, to reach customers and drive survey engagement.
7. Close the feedback loop and keep the ball rolling
Think of surveys as a launchpad; each has a primary goal or claim in mind, but they also lay the groundwork for more advanced ones.
For example, you could use a foundational survey to gather general insights, then follow up with engaged customers down the road with one asking for their feedback.
You could also use a foundational survey to find your biggest fans, which you can funnel into your Advocates tab to easily keep track of those willing to speak with you at an event, join a reference call, or team up for a podcast episode.
You can maintain even more momentum by using post-survey landing pages that ask customers to leave a G2 review or join your community where they can evangelize your product, especially among potential buyers.
Hitting send: Just one piece of the puzzle
Hitting send on your survey is certainly a reason to celebrate.
You got on the same page with notoriously hard-to-align teams, passed the database gatekeeper, created an email strategy that adds value to your customers (doesn’t annoy them), and made room for some sweet incentives in your budget.
This glorious moment is only one piece of the puzzle, though. You must consider other steps, too, like research, survey design, and how you’ll take to turn that hard-earned feedback into gold.
Here are additional steps to consider:
- Research: We already talked about this, but it begs repeating. Spend time with key stakeholders and ask them pointed questions to ensure you can design a survey that substantiates their key claims
- Design: Thoughtfully design your survey with specific questions and a progressive arc
- Turn results into evidence: Format the good insights into customer evidence—think testimonials and case studies—your GTM teams can use to build trust, close more deals, and retain customers
Are you ready to send surveys that give you a competitive edge and the customer evidence you need to win? Learn how UserEvidence works today.
