Is same day delivery the final frontier?
The CEO of eBay, John Donahoe, recently spoke at a technology conference and discussed how ebay plans to continue to build out a delivery network to support same day delivery on a large scale.
eBay has been experimenting with this in a couple of cities and thinks it’s worth continuing to build out – but do current consumers really want or need it?
I think the answer is “not yet” given that there is no real traction by any major retailers today offering this service so the bar has not been set. Moosejaw Mountaineering recently tested this theory just before Christmas 2012 to see if they could appeal to some last minute holiday shoppers in a couple of metropolitan areas and their results were not that encouraging.
According to a recent article from Internet Retailer, none of Moosejaw’s consumers actually used the service. A number of factors were cited by their CEO including lack of promotion of the service, consumer disbelief that it was a real offer and possible consumer mistrust that their holiday goods would be received on time.
So what is the future of same-day delivery?
Online retail giant, Amazon, currently offers same day delivery in 10 cities, but Amazon’s CFO stated in 2012 he did not foresee Amazon offering same day delivery nationwide.
That said, Amazon has clearly set the bar when it comes to consumer expectation around speed of delivery for online orders. While numbers are not offered by Amazon, in February 2012 Bloomberg estimated that there were anywhere between 3.5 and 5 million Amazon Prime members who pay $79 a year for 2-day delivery and are now used to the convenience of getting items delivered so quickly (I admit I am one of these people).
But the infrastructure required to be able to execute on a 2-day delivery model can be daunting for online only and multichannel retailers alike.
Even retail behemoth Walmart – who is also testing same-day delivery in some markets – has struggled to be able to deliver items in a timely fashion. For example, if I go to walmart.com and look up details on a $10 dress, Walmart is able to tell me there is limited stock in my area but offers to ship it to my house for a mere $0.97. Not a bad offer until I look at the estimated shipping dates for an order I would be placing on Thursday, Feb 21st. (see table).
Why would I want to wait until 11 calendar days to receive a product, or pay more money for “expedited” shipping on a $10 item that still would arrive almost a week later?
For: Las Vegas, NV 89103
Item: Faded Glory Women's Kimono Dress
|
Standard
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Arrives by Mon, Mar 04
|
|
Expedited
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Arrives by Wed, Feb 27
|
|
Rush
|
Arrives by Mon, Feb 25
|
If someone as large as Walmart is not able to meet consumer demand for speed of delivery, then how are emerging ecommerce retailers expected to keep pace and compete with offerings like Amazon Prime?
Focus on increasing speed of delivery by leveraging existing expertise and infrastructure
By outsourcing ecommerce fulfillment to experts that have an existing infrastructure and have a proven 2-day delivery network like Webgistix, emerging retailers can utilize a network that increases speed of delivery and improves customer satisfaction for people like me who have little patience to wait for 11 calendar days (or longer) to get a product.
While same day delivery may be a consideration for the future, ecommerce retailers should focus on defining what “standard” delivery means to their consumers. Consider this statistic from Comscore - 42% of online shoppers have abandoned an online shopping cart because of delivery date (which can lead to a lost customer for life).
Reducing the cycle time for online deliveries from 5-7 business days down to 1-2 business days with a proven solution can increase customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and drive recommendations & repeat business.
In the wise words of Merv Griffin “If you make the customer a promise... make sure you deliver it.”
Last time we talked about the importance of setting up a website dedicated entirely to eCommerce, as well as tailoring marketing efforts specifically towards online audiences.
But we didn’t mention anything one of the most critical differences between offline and online retail: actually getting the product to the customer.
It’s also called order fulfillment.
Instant gratification is an advantage that brick and mortar stores have over online retail. While impulse buys can still happen online, the longer the product takes to get to the customer, the less likely they’ll want to keep that product, which increases the rate of returns.
Online retailers also have to worry about shipping the right product, as well as keeping the right number of products in an order, which is harder than it sounds when you’re shipping thousands of orders.
While you may be used to shipping bulk shipments to your stores, shipping directly to consumers properly is an entirely different prospect, and requires a different type of operation.
So what’s the best way to get started?
It depends on what you’re shipping, how much, and what existing resources you can use to operate a fulfillment system.
If you’re starting out small, it might make sense to pick, pack, and ship orders yourself. Generally, operations of under 250 orders a month don’t need the complicated systems and trained staff that larger ones do.
However, anything more than that and you’ll want to outsource your fulfillment to an experienced service provider: there are many advantages to doing so.
Cost Savings: A larger fulfillment service will typically ship millions of orders per year. The results of shipping such huge numbers means bulk discounts on shipping, equipment, packaging materials, warehouse space, and labor. These cost savings are then passed down to you.
Accuracy: Top outsourced services will have advanced technology and multiple quality checks designed to minimize errors to the lowest possible degree. In fact, you shouldn’t accept any accuracy rate lower than 99.95%.
Speed of Processing: Meaning how quickly the order gets picked, packed, and shipped from the time the customer clicks the “checkout” button. Top providers can give you processing within 1 business day. While this is not difficult to manage on your own when your order volume is low, the more orders you get, the harder it is.
Speed of Delivery: The easiest way to speed up delivery is to utilize more than one fulfillment center; the country is simply too large for one centralized facility to cover within a reasonable time period. Today’s consumers expect Amazon-level speeds, where you get your order within 1-2 business days. If you’re not running a dedicated fulfillment operation, it doesn’t make sense to invest the capital necessary to get that kind of speed. Luckily, some outsourced services do give you the ability to reach anyone in the country within 1-2 business days.
Technology: Designing the fulfillment technology to integrate with your shopping cart and also give you all the tools you need to manage your operation properly is an expensive and time-consuming process. Some services give you cloud-based order management software with detailed analysis tools included.
Generally, outsourcing your order fulfillment is cost effective and helps you deliver a higher level of fulfillment quality to your customers. You also save a lot of time you would otherwise spend managing the process. Of course, you must choose the right service for your product, one that fits your pricing and quality expectations.
There are times however, when outsourcing is not the best solution. Companies that ship out a certain volume per month (in the tens of thousands) can potentially run fulfillment operations rivaling fulfillment services.
Order fulfillment is arguably the most important difference between an offline store and an online one. It’s your way of presenting your product to the customer, and that’s always critical in sales.
Hopefully some of the above information will help you if you decide to venture into eCommerce. It’s a rapidly growing industry that can yield great returns if you have the right formula.
How does your eCommerce operation differ from your physical business?
So you want to start to expand into eCommerce.
A 600 billion dollar industry with no shelves to keep stocked, no cashiers to hire, no store to keep clean. It’s just your product and your customers, without the thousands of dollars in on-the-ground investment a brick and mortar store needs – I can see why you’re interested.
But there are some things that are just as important as a physical storefront that you probably haven’t dealt with before.
Here are the essentials:
How To Make People Stop By Your Online Store
You probably have many ways of attracting people to your stores. Flashy displays, coupons, and sales events can all make people more likely to drop by.
It’s not really so different with an online store. Discounts and sales still make people more likely to buy. Having a well-designed website makes people more likely to shop on your site. And coupons still work – they just need to be e-mailed instead.
But there is one major point of difference, and that’s getting people to see your store in the first place. The internet is a big mall in the world, and even with a great site, it’s very possible you’ll be overlooked.
So how can you make sure you are getting the amount of traffic you want?
It’s simple: get people talking about your store.
Word of mouth, as well as social media, is a great way to boost the search rankings of your store. Get exciting about what you sell, and encourage them to share it with their friends and family. The more link and discussions there are about your site, the more likely that search engines like Google and Bing will rank your site higher, causing more people to click on it. This method is known as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and it’s the best way to get a steady stream of traffic every month.
Another way of getting traffic is by advertising, something you might have experience with. There are many ways to do this, but perhaps the most widely used is a method called pay-per-click advertising. To break it down, you create a small advertisement that shows on either a website or search engine. Every time someone clicks on the ad, you pay a small fee, the cost of which depends on how many people are competing for the same space. Once the prospect clicks the ad, you can direct them either to your website, or another page which is designed to sell them a certain product.
If you do direct people to your website, you need to make sure it’s as well put together as it possibly can be. An eCommerce website is designed to sell products, while a traditional retail website is designed to drive people to the stores, so make sure you’re setting up an entirely different site for your eCommerce division. Your website is just like your traditional storefront… set up promotions so that they’re highly visible, and design it strategically so visitors see what you want them to see. Set up a review system, and reward buyers for participating. Set up a loyalty program, so that they keep coming back.
I cannot possibly go through all the different ways to create a good eCommerce website and marketing strategy, but these are the major ones that differ considerably from offline retail.
Next week, I’ll be talking about the most important parts of any eCommerce business – how to get your product to the customer in one piece, and quickly, as well as why that’s important.
If you’ve been paying attention to our blog the last few weeks, you’ve probably read a few of our articles on how to increase sales for your online store.
In fact, if you focus on improving your product pages, utilizing coupons correctly, and actively communicate with your customers, you would almost certainly see a dramatic increase in results.
But many savvy eCommerce merchants already knew of these tactics. They knew that they need to actually sell their products, not just display them. They knew that testimonials are immeasurably important when convincing someone to buy. They knew that coupons can bring in customers that would otherwise not be buying.
Here are a few they might not have thought of:
Enable “Guest” Checkout If You Currently Require Registration… and Offer Registration If You Currently Only Have Guest Checkout.
There are a lot of benefits to having people register in your online store.
Not only are you able to get their contact information for e-mail communications, but you are able to tailor product recommendations to their profile.
It allows you to see who is buying what, and when. That gives you incredible visibility into your customer demographics, and allows you to market to certain segments far more effectively.
If you don’t have registrations of any kind on your website, those are good reasons to consider them.
In fact, with these advantages, it’s not surprising that some online retailers require shoppers to register when they buy!
However, this can be a big mistake, as requiring registration has been proven to decrease sales.
A recent study by eConsultancy found that 25.65% of customers would abandon a purchase if they were forced to register.
So make sure that, if you don’t have it already, you give shoppers the option to buy as a guest, without registering.
Encourage Reviews By Rewarding Reviewers
Amazon, the 600 pound gorilla in eCommerce, began a new program a few months ago that has proven extremely successful. They have created a system where they reward reviewers who consistently provide quality reviews with early access to books and merchandise.
Whether or not that can work for you depends on the size and type of business you’re running. However, there is one lesson in there that works for almost every eCommerce store.
Reward your reviewers.
Whether you can give them early access, samples, discounts, or even just a nice e-mail, make sure you are encouraging them to review again! Even the strongest sales page can fail to convince a potential customer compared to a few authentic, honest reviews.
Optimize Your Website For Mobile Devices And Tablets
More and more customers are viewing your site on tablets and mobile devices.
According to TechBargains.com, 58% of shoppers use their phones to make purchases, while 75% use tablets to buy online.
Around 9% of all purchases during the 2011 holiday season were done through mobile devices, and that number has been growing every year.
If you don’t have a mobile version of your site, you are practically driving those customers to another store.
There are dozens of ways you can increase the number of people that buy from your store. But these 3 methods are often overlooked, and not particularly difficult to implement.
Have you ever decided not to buy because you were forced to register?
What determines how fast your eCommerce site grows?
Sometimes it’s not how much you spend on advertising, or how you advertise, but where.
If you’re an experienced online store owner, you probably already know the basic inbound marketing channels.
The first is Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which is the primary way most people will find your site. A consistent investment in this area will result in a constant stream of visitors.
Another is Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC), which can work especially well if you sell a certain type of product, like shoes, apparel, or electronics.
But there are other, extremely effective, marketing channels that online retailers can use to generate huge sales.
In fact, some of these channels have been used to build multi-billion dollar businesses.
Leverage Social Media To Increase Customer Referrals
With how much social media is mentioned around the web these days, you’ve probably heard how important social media can be to your online retail operation.
But have you heard how to properly utilize it for your business? Many marketing “gurus” suggest you sell directly on your Facebook page. After all, there is a huge audience for it, right?
Not according to the research. In fact, studies have found that a vast majority of social media users won’t buy on social media! There’s a reason why Nordstrom, JCPenney, and Gap have all pulled out of “F-Commerce.”
But research has also found that consumers are 71 percent more likely to buy based on social media referrals.
Therefore, make it extremely easy to share content on products, promotions, and contests on your social media page. Give incentives, such as raffles, to do so.
The more customers and bigger your social media presence, the more this can make an impact on your overall sales.
Coupons Are Still A Critical Component Of Retail Marketing
Who in the world uses coupons anymore, especially for online stores?
As it turns out, most of your customers.
One thing that hasn’t changed since ancient times is that people love a good deal. And nothing says a good deal like a guaranteed discount.
It’s also easier to give away coupons than ever before, given how simple it is to enter a discount code or click a link in an e-mail to redeem one. People used to have to cut them out!
If you are gathering your customers’ e-mail addresses, ask them if they want to be included in further promotional offers. Then send out periodic coupons for products that need the extra nudge.
You might be surprised to see just how much response you can get with a decent coupon.
Of course, make sure that you are including a good selling message so people actually want to buy the product!
You can even send online coupons through direct mail. An e-mail message that works will mean almost certainly mean a direct mail message that works.
As most online retailers forget the world that exists outside the internet, you would have a huge advantage if you were able to do so.
To summarize, don’t neglect your SEO and PPC initiatives. In almost any case, they will still be the main source of traffic and sales for your business.
But sometimes it’s not enough to sit back and let customers come to you. E-mail, direct mail, and social media will allow you to be proactive in attracting new business.
When was the last time you used a coupon?
There are quite a few sites out there that will teach you how to expand your online store, boost sales, and attract more customers.
But growing profit is a result of not only increasing sales, but also cutting costs.
In fact, you might be surprised how much your bottom line improves by keeping in mind a few simple principles.
Here are a few quick tips to reduce costs while maintaining quality.
Try to use discounts strategically. Discounts are a great way to boost traffic to your site, and work well as attention grabbers. There’s nothing that quite gets a potential customer salivating like an 80% off sale.
Some sales can easily bring in an influx of customers that more than offsets the profit loss per item. The influx of new traffic discounts bring can be so encouraging, that you might even decide to offer a site-wide sale. After all, with that much more traffic, surely your profits will increase, right?
Well, hold on a minute. Before you decide to offer that sale, make sure you’ve taken into account how much you’re planning to make per item, how much new business you think you’ll be getting, and most of all, whether you will be making a profit! It sounds like common sense, but it’s not uncommon that a site-wide sale turns into a disaster.
Also, consider using discounts strategically by considering your profit margin per item. Once you are able to identify your lowest and highest profit products, you will know which to offer huge discounts on, and which to avoid discounting. By offering discounts on popular items that don’t need any additional incentives to buy, you are potentially reducing your profit rather than increasing it.
Another incentive often used to increase traffic is offering free shipping. But free shipping can be a double edged sword, depending on the item. In fact, on some low-cost items, free shipping can actually cost you money every time you sell those items! On the other hand, offering free shipping is a proven way to increase sales and traffic.
Consider finding other ways to cut shipping costs so that you can offer free shipping. Depending on the size of your operation and how many orders you ship per month, one way of cutting your shipping costs is by using an order fulfillment service. Generally, outsourcing your fulfillment is a far cheaper option than hiring a fulfillment team and renting out a warehouse. Top outsourced fulfillment providers enable you to ship from multiple warehouses and have favorable shipping rates with courier companies due to the amount of product they ship daily. Not only can this save you a lot of money on your shipping costs, but it can also make the actual delivery-time far shorter.
You don’t have to do everything yourself. In many cases, it’s not only cheaper to outsource jobs and specific projects, but also results in higher quality work from specialists. This not only applies to fulfillment, but also to graphic design, customer service, web design, SEO, anything you can think of. That doesn’t mean that you should outsource all of these things. It just means you should keep an open mind when considering a problem that you don’t have expert resources on hand to solve. You don’t have to outsource to a foreign country, there are many outstanding specialty firms in the U.S. Explore your options the next time you have situation that needs a specialized solution.
How have you cut costs for your online business in the past?
Being able to listen and understand your customers, and vice-versa, is critical in any online business.
How can you know what kind of new products people would like to see if they’re not telling you? Also, why would they tell you if you don’t ask them?
There are so many ways to talk to the people who buy your products. E-mail, phone, social media: people are more chatty than ever. But there are certain underlying principles inherent in all good customer communications, no matter how they are carried out.
A short response time is critical to maintaining good relationships to people who want to speak with you. Consider this. When you're talking with someone in person, how would you feel if they took a few hours, or even days, to answer a question or to respond to a comment you made? People like to think that the person they're talking to is paying attention to them, and the single best way to assure them of that is to respond to them quickly. This is especially important in the case of any customer complaints or service problems. People are far more likely to be understanding if they think you are actively working on the problem! On the other side of the spectrum, nothing annoys someone more than being ignored, which a slow response time might make them feel. Do both yourself and your customer a favor, whether on e-mail or social media, respond as quickly as possible.
Actively seek to communicate with your customers; you can't wait for your customers to come to you in this day and age. This might come as a surprise to you, but your customers like to hear from you, and often. Well wait a minute, you might say: don't people find constant e-mails or discount books annoying? The answer is that it doesn't matter what you're sending them or how often: as long as the customer is interested in that material. Instead of posting their opinion on your Facebook page or ranting about it during a customer service session, be proactive and ask them for their opinion! Not only will you gain valuable information about your customers that you can utilize to produce better products and marketing campaigns, but you will also make them feel like their opinions are important to you.
Be everywhere. Whether it's Facebook, review sites, forums, or chat programs, you need to make sure you are giving your customers every opportunity to contact you. This not only allows for more and better conversations, but also lets you head off potential problems before they negatively impact your online reputation. If you constantly keep your brand presence in the back of their mind, the next time they want something that you happen to be selling, who do you think they will go to first?
To summarize, the key to good communication is to communicate quickly, actively, and in as many ways as possible. Of course, there are other aspects of good communication I haven't talked about here. All the communication in the world can't help you if you insult your customers, for instance. But these fundamentals are good rules to follow in almost every instance.
How has a conversation with a customer impacted your business?
Why should you consid
er outsourced order fulfillment for your KickStarter project?
Imagine this. Your KickStarter project exceeds its goals and becomes more successful than you thought it could. Everybody wants your new product, and you’re already thinking of new ideas! New product lines, new team members, new locations: there’s just one problem. How are you going to get your incredibly nifty product to your customers?
Chances are you’re not looking forward to long days of packing orders and slapping on labels.
Luckily, there are people out there that will do it for you, and do a great job of it. They’re called eCommerce order fulfillment providers, and they take care of storing, picking, packing, and shipping your product to exactly where it needs to go as fast as possible.
Just in case you are the type that likes to wrap orders though, here are 3 really good reasons why you should consider outsourcing your fulfillment anyway:
Maintain Control Over Your Fulfillment Without Micromanaging.
It’s not easy to fulfill hundreds of orders a week. To do it properly, you’d need an organized warehouse, an experienced fulfillment team, software integrated with your shopping cart, and good relationships with courier companies. None of these are cheap or easy to achieve, and a fulfillment operation must be constantly managed day in and day out. Luckily, it’s very possible to maintain control over your fulfillment while outsourcing it to a fulfillment provider. This can be accomplished if you choose a service with advanced order management technology. Some of these technologies will allow you to keep careful track of your orders, approve/disapprove specific orders, set low inventory alerts, and give you 24/7 cloud-based access from anywhere in the world. So you don’t need to worry about the problems that usually come with doing fulfillment, just on who you’re outsourcing it to. Outsourcing gives you the freedom to work on what you’re really interested in: the growth of your business.
Achieve Industry-leading Speed and Accuracy.
The ability to deliver packages quickly and accurately to their recipients is dependent on a number of factors. Speed is not only dependent on the quality of the workers working on picking, packing, and shipping, but also on the number of warehouses a fulfillment provider uses, and where they are located around the US. A single online seller will find it difficult to maintain multiple warehouses around the country unless they are shipping incredible volume. The difference between an online seller shipping with one warehouse compared with several can be 2-4 business days, a lifetime in the world of online shopping. Consumers today expect their packages shipping on the same day, and delivered within 2 days. In terms of accuracy, top fulfillment providers generally have accuracy rates of over 99.7%, meaning that 997 packages out of 1000 will get to their recipients undamaged with the right kinds of items and number of items in the box. Speed and accuracy of shipping is an important factor in customer satisfaction, and will help you drive customer loyalty and repeat business.
Cut Costs and Maximize Scalability.
Depending on what and how much you are shipping, in most cases it is cheaper to outsource your fulfillment than do it yourself. Why? For one thing, top outsourced fulfillment providers ship millions of orders a year, and have the ability to standardize procedures, processing systems, and order materials in bulk. Similarly, due to the vast number of orders they ship every day, they are able to negotiate better shipping rates with courier companies like FedEx and UPS, which are then passed on to you, the customer. Storing your inventory in multiple warehouses also reduced travel distance, and therefore cost of shipping. Scale is also something you have to take into consideration, especially on Kickstarter. For example, if you happened to be shipping 500 order a month, a good fulfillment provider can easily handle your volume if it suddenly quadrupled, something that would be difficult to manage with an in-house operation.
Overall, outsourcing the order fulfillment for your Kickstarter project can make your business run more smoothly, not to mention make your life a lot easier. If your new project happens to take off, you’ll be glad you took the time to ensure your products get to where they need to go, quickly and accurately.
Have you tried Kickstarter?
Chances are, you've had a bad customer service experience at least once in your life.
Everyone has had that moment when they storm out of a store resolving never to return. There are probably tens of thousands of customers doing so this very minute. The thing is, it also happens online, and it’s one of the top impediments to repeat online business.
Wait a second, you might say. Unlike regular shoppers, online consumers can browse the selections of multiple stores in a heartbeat, and will shop at whatever store has the lowest price. What’s the point of worrying about customer loyalty?
In fact, while online shoppers are more fickle about price and discounts, they are no less loyal. Over 70% of online shoppers belong to a loyalty or frequent buyer program, and over 50% of online shoppers are somewhat loyal to at least one online brand. So brand loyalty does matter online, and it is a significant way to generate sales.
So how do you keep customers loyal?
That’s simple; make sure they have a good time dealing with your online store.
A study by Forbes found that over 70% of all consumers who stopped a shopping at a store did so because of a bad customer service experience.
Though there are more dimensions to this in online retail, it still applies.
Here are 3 ways to make sure your customers stay happy:
Use Discounts and Loyalty Programs:
The customer service aspect of online customer loyalty is important to keep them shopping at your store, but so is another aspect of online retail: discounts. Unlike traditional retail, online shoppers have an almost unlimited number of alternatives to your store, so it's essential to keep them coming back. One of the key methods of doing this is through frequent buyer and loyalty programs, as research has shown most online shoppers respond well to them. In other words, send discounts and promotions to loyal customers so they look to you first.
Engage with your Customers:
Online retail requires engagement. Customers want to talk to you more than ever, and online stores don't have a friendly clerk to help fulfill that essential social need of the shopping process. Make sure they can reach you through other ways. This can be through e-mails, forums, or social media. Traditional stores and restaurants are often judged based on how friendly the employees are: this is no different for online shopping. Be friendly and make a connection through your various social media channels. Ask their opinion. Thank them for their business. All of this is essential to ensuring they shop at your online store again. In the event of any problems, make sure to respond promptly to let them know they are not being ignored.
Increase your Speed of Delivery:
Another aspect of customer service that is often overlooked is speed of delivery. This aspect of shopping doesn't exist in traditional brick and mortar, but to give someone gratification of purchase is essential in making sure they have are satisfied at the end of their shopping experience. That means 2-3 day ground delivery in most cases, as the expectations of customers have risen drastically in the last few years. If you can't get your shipments to your customers in that time frame, consider outsourcing your fulfillment or hiring specialists.
Of course, the single best advice to retaining customers is to treat them like you would like to be treated, and there is no substitute for that. But if you follow these 3 steps, you will be that much closer to ensuring your customers come back again and again.
Has customer loyalty been valuable to your online business?
How important is creating a successful survey for your online business?
Customer research is a critical part of any online business, especially an eCommerce store. While there are many ways of conducting research, the most common and generally most effective way is just to ask people what they want.
Would you like to see this car in neon green, for example, or would you prefer a dark blue? Surveys are a great way to ensure you are spending your resources on the areas that have the most potential to bring in more sales. Too often however, surveys go out and get response rates in the single digits. So here are a few quick tips to ensure you are getting the most from your customer research initiatives.
Ask Relevant Questions
Ask questions that will actually help improve your business! Creating the questions is the first thing you need to do with any survey, and one of the most important steps. But the longer a survey is, the less people will want to fill it out, so the number of questions you can ask is limited. That means avoiding questions that you want to ask but are not critical to your immediate goals! Figure out exactly what you want to learn before you start creating the survey, then craft questions that will move you towards answering them.
Make the Survey Easy to Fill Out
Accessibility and ease of use is an important factor in increasing survey response rate. First, make sure the layout of your survey is designed in an intuitive manner, and that the instructions are clear. Is it a multiple choice survey, or do the respondents have to write answers? It's also essential that you avoid using jargon or complicated words when writing the actual questions and answers. The more people understand what you're asking, the more likely it is you'll get the data you're looking for.
Create Shorter Surveys or Offer a Reward
People have short attention spans, especially in the era of the internet, smartphones, and YouTube. The shorter your survey is, the more likely customers will be to fill it out. Of course, sometimes you need more detailed information, and that requires longer surveys. In those cases, you can offer a reward for filling out a longer form. For example, coupons, raffles, and free products are typically used to encourage more respondents.
These are the simplest and more effective methods of increasing response rates on surveys. Depending on the industry, people will be more or less likely to respond. As with all things in business, test, test, and test again until you find what works for you.
Do you have any stories where a successful survey helped you make a decision?