When it comes to Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) surveys for B2B clients, achieving a high response rate is crucial for obtaining valuable insights. Leveraging the AAA framework—Awareness, Accessibility, and Awards—provides a structured approach to maximize participation and gather actionable feedback.
Let’s explore the AAA framework and how both internal efforts (targeted towards the firm’s stakeholders) and external strategies (targeted towards customer contacts) can drive successful survey engagement.
Awareness: Building a Foundation for Success
Creating awareness about the CSAT program is the first step toward driving participation. It involves strategic branding, executive sponsorship, third-party involvement, and effective communication. Let’s break down these components:
- Branding the Survey Program
- Internal activity: It’s vital to position the CSAT survey as more than just a routine feedback tool. Instead of using the term “CSAT,” opt for higher-order terminologies like “Engagement Survey,” “Experience Improvement,” or “Value Survey.” This rebranding should go beyond just a name change—it must reflect a genuine commitment to enhancing the client experience.
- External activity: Communicate this branding to your clients. Make sure they understand that this is a strategic initiative aimed at driving real improvements based on their feedback.
- Identifying a Senior Sponsor
- Internal activity: Choose a senior executive sponsor such as the CEO, COO, or CCO. This individual should have substantial influence within the organization and strong recognition among clients. The sponsor’s involvement signals to employees that this initiative is a top priority and requires their full support.
- External activity: Highlight the sponsor’s role in communications with clients to emphasize the importance of their feedback and assure them that their responses will be heard at the highest levels.
- Engaging a Third-Party Research Partner
- Internal activity: Engage a reputable third-party research firm or consulting partner. This not only brings objectivity to the process but also demonstrates the company’s commitment to a professional and structured feedback mechanism.
- External activity: Inform clients about the involvement of the third-party firm. This can enhance their trust in the survey process, knowing that the feedback collection and analysis will be unbiased and thorough.
- Effective Multi-Channel Communication
- Internal activity: Develop a robust communication strategy that involves multiple touchpoints before the survey launch. Relationship managers should be well-prepared to discuss the survey with their customer counterparts, explaining its purpose, benefits, and process.
- External activity:
- Pre-Survey Communication: Relationship managers should reach out to their customer counterparts to create awareness about the program. This can be done through personal meetings, calls, or emails. They should explain the survey’s objectives, the benefits for the customer and the firm, the participation process, the role of the third-party consultant, and how the feedback will be used. Providing a short presentation or document with FAQs can also be beneficial.
- Official Invitation: Following the initial communication, send an official invitation email from the identified senior sponsor to all nominated customers. This email should reiterate the survey’s objectives, invite them to participate, and provide details about the survey launch date and the email address from which the survey link will be sent.
- Survey Link Distribution: Finally, the survey link should be sent from the third-party research firm. This step reinforces the objectivity and seriousness of the initiative, encouraging customers to participate.
By meticulously planning and executing these steps, companies can significantly improve the awareness and perception of their CSAT programs. This, in turn, leads to higher response rates and more valuable insights that drive meaningful improvements.
Accessibility: Ensuring Ease of Participation
Ensuring that the survey is accessible to all relevant stakeholders is the next crucial step in driving response rates. Accessibility involves creating a reliable contact database, facilitating easy access across devices, providing language options, and maintaining effective follow-up strategies. Here are the key elements:
- Creating the Right Database of Contacts
- Internal activity: Develop a high-quality database of contacts. The quality of this list will significantly impact response rates. Include individuals who actively interact with your company, categorizing them into senior executives with limited interactions, relatively senior staff with moderate interactions, and those who interact regularly. Ensure to poll only active accounts, not prospective ones.
- External activity: Communicate with your clients to confirm that the contacts listed are appropriate and that they are willing to participate. This step helps in validating the list and ensuring that the right individuals are being targeted.
- Internal Stakeholder Approval – Share the contact list with relevant internal stakeholders for confirmation and approval. This process increases their involvement and accountability, encouraging them to follow up with these customers to ensure their participation.
- Ease of Access Across Devices to Customers – Ensure the survey platform is easily accessible across various devices, including PCs, laptops, mobiles, and tablets. This flexibility allows respondents to complete the survey at their convenience, thus improving response rates.
- Language Variants for a Global Audience – Provide language variants of the survey if your audience is global. This makes it easier for non-native speakers to participate, enhancing their engagement and response rates.
- Real-Time Dashboard for Internal Tracking – Implement an internal real-time dashboard for all leaders to monitor survey responses. This tool allows them to see which customer contacts have responded and who hasn’t, enabling them to reach out and encourage participation.
- Weekly Reminders for Non-Respondents – Send weekly reminders only to those who have not completed the survey. This targeted approach keeps the survey top-of-mind for non-respondents without overwhelming those who have already participated.
- Help Desk for Queries – Create a help desk email for respondents or internal stakeholders to send any queries. Addressing these queries promptly helps ease any concerns and fosters smoother collaboration.
By ensuring the survey is easily accessible and providing necessary support, companies can significantly enhance participation rates. This leads to more comprehensive feedback, which is essential for driving improvements.
Awards: Recognizing and Rewarding Engagement
The success of most survey programs hinges on one key question: “What’s in it for me?” All parties involved should clearly see the benefits of dedicating their time and effort to make the survey program a success. Therefore, it is crucial to set out the expected benefits, or “Awards,” that they might receive for their involvement. Given that B2B stakeholders are sophisticated, purely monetary rewards are not optimal and should be prioritized lower in the CSAT space. Here are some effective award strategies:
- Incentives and Bonuses for Internal Teams – Offer incentives or bonuses to internal teams for achieving set response rates. This can act as a strong motivator. Additionally, creating competition between various business units or clusters within the organization, with the winners receiving sponsored retreats or gifts, can drive engagement. Including survey success in annual appraisals can also encourage participation and support.
- CSR-Linked Rewards for Customer participation – Link survey participation to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) efforts. For every completed survey, the company can pledge to “Plant a tree,” “Sponsor an educational kit,” or “Sponsor a weekly meal” for beneficiaries worldwide. Firms have successfully used this method, and some even allow participants to choose the charitable initiative they prefer, providing an inherent satisfaction that encourages survey completion.
- Communicating How Feedback Will Be Used – Clearly communicate to customers how their feedback will be actioned and make commitments to share insights from the survey along with respective actions. This assures participants that their efforts will not go to waste. Some firms have communicated a timeline for the actions to be projected to clients even before the survey is launched, fostering trust and engagement.
- Setting Mutual Goals with Customers – Take mutual goals with customers before the survey on certain aspects that will be measured and aim for improvement. For example, a company could set a joint goal with their customer to reduce the number of defects by a certain percentage. If this goal is achieved, it could reflect positively in the survey scores. This approach, usually committed to once survey results are out, aims for improvement before the next survey cycle.
- Sharing Survey Findings – Share the survey findings summary not just with those who participated but also with those who didn’t. This encourages non-participants to engage in future surveys by demonstrating the value and impact of their feedback.
By implementing these award strategies, companies can effectively motivate both internal teams and external clients to participate in the survey, ensuring higher response rates and more comprehensive feedback.
