Customer Retention Surveys: Benefits, Questions, and Tips

We may have heard this phrase countless times that “customers are the backbone of a company” and one common problem many businesses face is losing existing customers.

According to BIA Advisory, existing customers are likely to spend 67% more than new customers. Harvard Business Review states that it’s going to cost 5 to 25 times more for companies to acquire new customers compared to retaining existing customers.

From these stats, it is clear that customer retention is essential for a company’s growth and profitability. The present market is relatively competitive where good-quality products and services are no longer enough to retain customers. Companies should understand what the customer needs, their pain points, and know if the products or services are up to their expectations. And for that, customer retention surveys are the key.

In this blog, we will talk about customer retention survey, its benefits, example questions, and a few tips.

What are Customer Retention Surveys

A customer retention survey is a great tool to know how the customers feel about the products or services of a company. Companies use these surveys to determine if they have met customers’ expectations or if there is room for improvement.

These surveys are often centered around factors impacting customer retention, such as the quality of the products or services, customer service, and other aspects. Customer retention surveys also measure customer loyalty and overall satisfaction with the business.

These surveys highlight the pain points of the customers, the things they like about the company or the service, reasons for customer churn, and areas for improvement. Customer retention surveys are often conducted:

• After the customer purchases a product or service

• Once the customer reaches out to the support team

• When the customer cancels the subscription (in case of a service)

• Occasionally (monthly, quarterly, etc.)

7 Benefits of Customer Retention Surveys

Now that you know what customer retention surveys are, let’s see their primary benefits:

Collect Data

Customer retention surveys are one of the best ways to gather valuable data from customers. You can ask different types of questions that impact customer retention and collect both qualitative and quantitative data.

Find Pain Points

Pain points are the problems encountered by customers when interacting with a business, product, or service. With the help of a customer retention survey, they can easily find pain points.

Some of the common pain points of customers include poor customer service, lack of proper communication, difficulty navigating the website, lack of personalization, complex buying process, and more.

Decrease Customer Churn

In simple terms, losing the existing customers is customer churn. If the churn rate is high, it means that more customers are leaving your business, which can adversely impact the company.

If you understand why customers are leaving and take proper measures to tackle the issues, there is a high chance of reducing customer churn rate and enhancing customer retention.

Enhance Loyalty

When you hear the opinions of the customers and implement changes, they are likely to feel appreciated. When customers feel heard and appreciated, they will remain loyal to the brand for a long time.

According to Salesforce, 66% of customers will leave if their opinions are not appreciated. In addition, for 74% of people, customer loyalty means understanding their issues and making changes rather than giving special offers, discounts, or rewards.

Measure Customer Satisfaction

By asking customer retention survey questions, it is relatively easy for companies to measure customer satisfaction. Use NPS questions and measure the score to understand your customers better. From their level of satisfaction to the level of agreement, you can ask different types of NPS questions to gather score and determine customer satisfaction.

Personalized Recommendations

You can use customer retention surveys to send personalized recommendations to your customers. In a survey, it was revealed that 64% of customers are likely to spend more on a company that offers personalized experience.

As a result, with the help of these surveys and purchase history, it is best to send personalized recommendations and emails to your customers to retain them.

Cost Savings

Another benefit of customer retention surveys is that they can help companies save money. Wondering how that is possible? According to CallMiner, if businesses in the US prioritize keeping their existing customers happy and satisfied, they can save around USD 35 billion annually.

Thus, by gathering customer feedback from the surveys and following their recommendations, the customer retention rate can be increased, which helps with cost savings.

Effective Customer Retention Survey Questions

We have listed some of the most effective customer retention survey template questions below:

1. What made you choose and buy our product or service?
2. What feature/s do you like the best about our product or service?
3. On a scale of 1 to 10, can you please rate your level of satisfaction with our product or service?
4. Have you faced any issues while using our product or service?
5. How was the overall buying experience?
6. How often do you use our product or service?
7. How likely are you to recommend our product or service to others?
8. How was your experience with our customer support?
9. Which company did you use before buying from us?
10. Do you want to share anything else regarding your experience?

Tips for Conducting Effective Customer Retention Surveys

Now that you know the benefits of customer retention surveys and the most effective questions, let’s check out some of the best tips that will help you conduct effective customer retention surveys:

• Keep the customer retention survey short and neat. Do not make it too lengthy. Lengthy surveys tire out your customers and they are likely to abandon the survey all together.

• Make sure the questions are crisp and on point. Avoid asking repetitive and irrelevant questions. Keep the questions unbiased to gather genuine feedback.

• Add different types of questions, such as open-ended, likert scale, and more in the survey. This will keep your customers more engaged and eager to complete the survey.

• Categorize your customers into different categories, such as short-term, long-term, etc. Send different surveys to customers in different segments and make sure the questions are relatable to them.

• Use a professional and neat survey design. Do not clutter the design template with unnecessary elements. Ensure the design does not obstruct the questions and choices.

• Choose a proper time to send surveys. It is recommended to send surveys after a customer purchased the service or product, interacted with customer support, etc.

• Send a follow-up reminder. If a customer hasn’t completed the survey, wait a few days, and send a follow-up reminder once. Do not spam their inbox.

• Never ignore the feedback. Analyze the responses and try to implement changes as per the customer recommendations as soon as possible.

• Offer incentives for customers after they complete the survey, which can include discounts, offers, vouchers, gift cards, and more.

Use piHappiness to Conduct Customer Retention Surveys

To sum it up, customer retention is relatively important for businesses to grow and get profits. To improve customer retention, customer retention surveys are essential as they help companies understand their customers better, know their opinions, pinpoint their pain points, and see if there is room for improvement.

Do you want to conduct a customer retention survey? If yes, try piHappiness, a top-tier survey platform that offers free survey templates for different industries. From multilingual surveys to 6 different feedback channels and real-time reports to customization, there are so many advanced features. Curious about this feature-rich survey platform? Sign up and try it yourself without any delay