At ClearlyRated we believe it’s good business for B2B service providers to place the client experience (CX) at the heart of their growth strategy. That’s why we’ve made it our mission since 2003 to help B2B firms get honest feedback about their service. Doing so helps them both to improve their CX and to credibility differentiate themselves based on it. However, in order for businesses to get the most out of their survey feedback, they need to focus on their response rates. 

Helping B2B firms get honest feedback has not only positioned us to guide firms on improving their CX, but also to gather proprietary data from decades’ of surveys across multiple industries. Knowledge is power, so we’ve decided to draw new insights from our vast data set—and to share them with you, specifically our data on response rates. 

How We’ve Used Our Data to Unlock Insights and Define Best Practices

We’ve harnessed the information in our data sets to both create a new tool and publish a deep study. Now we offer our new Response Rate Calculator to any B2B firm that wants to predict their client survey response rate based on day one of their survey launch. 

Also, after compiling and analyzing data from the NPS® surveys in our Best of Staffing® survey program, we completed a comprehensive study focused on improving client survey response rates. The insights from this analysis can help organizations yield higher response rates with more meaningful feedback. In this way, we hope to help our clients improve their survey programs and ultimately, their customer experience. Get a sneak peek into some of the best practices below.

3 Ways to Improve Your Survey Response Rates 

Set up your client satisfaction survey for early success with these three three survey design tips.

Make the survey invitation personal. 

While addressing the recipient by name is a good start, this tip goes beyond that. When communicating about your survey program, keep it personal by sending emails from someone the recipient will know rather than a generic company email address.* You can also ditch the fancy-looking HTML email in favor of plain text emails to achieve a higher response rate. 

* This doesn’t apply to survey invitations when you employ an objective third-party survey partner that sends the survey. In this case, your staff can still communicate personally about the survey program ahead of its launch.

Keep your survey short and sweet. 

Longer surveys often yield incomplete responses and abandoned surveys. Remember: your respondents have busy schedules and many other tasks on their plate. Respect their time and get better response rates by carefully selecting your survey questions and writing them in simple language. Keep the full survey under 10 questions and make answering easy with multiple choice or sliding scale answers. You can include an optional comments field for those who want to add more detail to their responses.

Create an accessible survey experience.

Make it easy for clients to answer your survey whenever they find a free moment. This may mean responding to your survey on their phone while waiting for the dentist or on their tablet while taking the train home, so ensure your survey is mobile-friendly. Finally, you should also consider adding a “preview” option that allows respondents to see all questions (hopefully a short list!) before they respond, so they can assess how long it will take them. Keep in mind that they’re more likely to complete your survey if it’s short and to the point. 

Get more best practices to maximize the response rate to your client satisfaction survey, including when and how to communicate with clients about your survey program as well as how to ensure they receive your survey invitations. After all, if they don’t get your survey, how can they respond to it?

What Else Can You Find in Our Response Rate Report?

Download our response rate analysis report to learn more about managing successful client survey programs that help you deliver your best service, creating strong relationships with your customers and using their positive feedback to grow your client base. Our report includes information on:

  • Response rate trends and benchmarks
  • Additional best practices for getting higher survey response rates 
  • And more takeaways about the types of client respondents you may have and how to encourage their feedback
  • ClearlyRated

    ClearlyRated is dedicated to assisting our clients kick a** in their client experience strategy and continuously on a mission to help B2B service firms differentiate themselves based on their service excellence. Our platform blends a short, client satisfaction survey leveraging NPS® to improve retention, grow accounts, win new business, and boost online reputation.