3 Customer Feedback Surveys That Will Make You Look More Professional
To understand just how important customer feedback surveys are, imagine this scenario: You complete a job for a client and think everything ran smoothly. The client was friendly throughout and paid for the job a few days after completion.
You call the client a month later to ask when you can schedule the next one. They tell you not to bother because they didn’t love the service and decided to go with a competitor.
What went wrong?
Customer satisfaction surveys are the perfect medium to check in with clients after a job, iron out any kinks, find out what went well, and get closure from happy clients before you move on.
Read on to learn more about email surveys, including why you should send them, survey templates you can use, and how to automate the feedback process so you can impress customers with less effort.
3 Reasons to Send Customer Feedback Surveys
Here are a few reasons why you should send feedback surveys:
1. Identify what you do well and where you can improve. Running a small business is a constant challenge in self-improvement. But sometimes it can feel like a maddening guessing game. Feedback surveys give you real-time insights to understand what you and your employees are doing well, what the customer experience is like, and where you must improve to keep customers coming back.
READ MORE: The 23 best Gary Vee quotes about entrepreneurship
Plus, when you get positive feedback, you can share what a great job you’re team is doing to boost company morale.
2. Feedback surveys improve customer retention. Want to boost customer loyalty? Show your customers you care. Feedback surveys give small businesses the chance to connect with customers in a way big, faceless companies can’t.
“If you follow up immediately and say, ‘Hey, how did we do? Are you happy? If you’re not, we’re willing to make you happy,’ it builds confidence. It could be subconscious, but the customer’s looking at this, saying, ‘Oh wow, these guys…they care. They’re not just in and out and moving on.’”
— John Pla, owner, TurFresh AstroTurf
3. Feedback surveys can help you get more online reviews. Use questionnaires to identify happy customers so you can ask them to leave a review on your preferred review site.
You typically want to avoid asking clients who had a negative experience for feedback—flex your customer support muscle and fix the problem first. Instead, concentrate on respondents who had an excellent experience and will be more than happy to give you a 5-star review on Google or Facebook.
“When I know we have good feedback, I will ask the customer to review us on Google or Yelp. Then, I’ll use their reviews in the next quoting process.”
—Van Wu, owner, Trust Home Comfort Ltd
READ MORE: How to attract customers with Google reviews (and 10x your reviews)
Customer satisfaction survey templates and examples
Now that you know that feedback surveys are effective, let’s look at some examples.
1. Ask for feedback in a simple follow-up email
This is a simple follow-up you can send within 24 hours of completing a job to get feedback from clients. The open-ended question gives clients the chance to give their honest feedback.
Subject line: Following-up on the [insert service]
Hi [name],
We’ve just completed the [insert type of job, e.g., landscaping, lawn mowing, etc.].
Because we’re committed to providing quality work, we’re always looking for ways to improve.
If you have positive or negative feedback on the job just completed, please respond to this email. We promise to answer within 24 hours and to address any concerns you have.
[Your favorite sign-off and business details (name, email, and phone)]
2. Ask customers to rate you on a scale from 1 to 10
Make customer feedback even easier by asking one simple question and giving your customers a 1-10 scale to answer. This survey method is also known as an NPS or net promoter score.
The key is to ask just one customer survey question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our services to a friend or colleague?
Use this survey method to segment customers into happy, satisfied customers (ask these ones for online reviews) and those who need attention ASAP.
Jobber’s service reminder software makes it easy to automatically send these feedback surveys after every job, so you don’t have to remember or manually follow up.
You can also keep track of customer feedback by downloading a report of every answer and customer satisfaction score.
3. Send a detailed feedback survey to get specific answers
Finally, if you want to get really specific or tap into deeper customer sentiments, consider sending a more detailed customer feedback survey.
These surveys can be anywhere from 3-10 questions and can include multiple-choice questions or free-form answers.
You can use a free tool like Typeform or Google Forms to create your survey. These are easy to use, let you include your company brand, and will give you a link to the survey you can include in your customer emails.
Just be careful not to ask too many questions or to send these forms too frequently. If you do send these types of questionnaires, consider offing a reward or incentive to clients who fill them out.
You also need to set aside time to thoughtfully read the survey responses and follow up with customers so that they know you take their feedback seriously.
Top customer satisfaction survey questions
- On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied are you with [service provided]? In your own words, please explain why.
- What’s your favorite thing about our [name of service]?
- If you could change one thing about our service, what would it be?
- What should we do next time to make you smile?
- Was there anything that nearly stopped you from working with us?
- What other services would you like us to offer?
- Any final comments for our team?
Wow more clients with professional customer surveys
Customer feedback surveys help you identify what to improve, win more business, look more professional, and generate more reviews.
But if you don’t have a system in place for following up with clients, it’s easy to forget.
The best way to stick to a system is to automate it. Jobber’s service reminder software lets you create automatic job follow-ups, reminders, and feedback surveys that you can send to clients by SMS or email.
Add your branding, customize the message, and impress your customers with more professional communications.
Sometimes, the most important thing you can do for your customers is to help them feel seen, recognized, and not just like another faceless client. If you haven’t yet, try sending feedback surveys and see what they can do for your business.
Originally published June 2017. Last updated August 2021.