Creating an effective survey for your cancelling customers can enable you to gain rich insights to improve your business.
The Upzelo product team have consulted with researchers from e-commerce, tech and healthcare subscription businesses to establish what makes an effective customer survey.
#1 Keep the number of responses below 6
Any more than this can create, what researchers refer to as, extraneous cognitive load or choice paralysis. In short any more than 6 options, will feel like hard work for your customers and make them less inclined to answer accurately.
The ideal number of options is 4-6, with one covering each of the categories.
#2 Categorise your responses
When creating your survey responses you’ll have the ability to assign categories to each of your responses. You can pick from
Product issue - when a customer is not happy with the product or service.
Unwanted - when a customer no longer needs the product
Price - usually it’s too expensive
Technical issues - primarily for SaaS teams, when a customer has issues using the technology
Support issues - when a customer is unhappy with customer support they received
Delivery - for delivery and shipping issues
These categories have been created from extensive research across the world. They represent the most popular reasons for subscription cancellations worldwide.
To get the richest possible feedback from your customers make sure your survey offers options from each of these categories.
#3 Don’t skip the delivery option
Most e-commerce and subscription box businesses outsource their deliveries to carriers such as UPS, FedEx and Royal Mail. Despite this customers still associate their satisfaction with the condition and timeliness of their delivery. So it’s important for businesses who deliver items on subscription to learn if they’re using the best carrier.
#4 Ask about frequency to save more customers
If you’re selling consumable items (e.g. beauty items, health supplements, pet food) statistically you’re most likely to have cancellations due to the frequency of deliveries being too high.
By using the Unwanted category you can give customers the option of “I have too many”.
According to a recent study, approximately 54% of customers citing frequency as a cancellation reason can be saved with an offer to pause or skip.
#5 Don’t be tempted to include “other” as an option
Researchers believe that surveys offering an “other” option drastically reduce the accuracy of any insights.
When presented with a nondescript, noncommittal option, a considerable portion of customers will select that option (regardless of the other options), believing it to be the quickest path to complete their task.