ecommerce survey

[Spoiler]

Plan C has lift off ! Well, sort of. An ecommerce site i built recently has just had it's first order

I was thinking of adding in some kind of survey for customers - Did you find the website easy to navigate, Rate your buying experience, How was delivery, etc.

It will probably need to be sent out a few days after ordering/delivery, as we're delivering a physical product to customers, rather than having something pop up on the site straight after they've confirmed the order.

The customers register their email address, so I could email them something afterwards.

Any suggestions on the best way to deliver this? Email a link to survey monkey or similar ? Promise 10% off next order if they complete the survey ?

Ta.

[Ticktock]

Plan C has lift off ! Well, sort of. An ecommerce site i built recently has just had it's first order

I was thinking of adding in some kind of survey for customers - Did you find the website easy to navigate, Rate your buying experience, How was delivery, etc.

It will probably need to be sent out a few days after ordering/delivery, as we're delivering a physical product to customers, rather than having something pop up on the site straight after they've confirmed the order.

The customers register their email address, so I could email them something afterwards.

Any suggestions on the best way to deliver this? Email a link to survey monkey or similar ? Promise 10% off next order if they complete the survey ?

Ta.

I don't have a technical solution at all, so can't help with that I'm afraid.

All I would say, is think about what is the most important area for you to receive feedback on - is it the buying process (using the website, etc), or post-sales (delivery, etc)?
If you want feedback on the buying process and wait until a few days later before sending a request for feedback you're likely to get a fairly low response rate, and users are more likely to misremember. You'd probably be better off having a link to a survey on the order confirmation screen instead. If you're willing to give a discount for survey completion then make it prominent to drive responses.
If the customer has a problem with the delivery they're more likely to let you know about it - if you hear nothing then it's unlikely there have been major problems (beyond usual delivery company problems!).

[Spoiler]

I don't have a technical solution at all, so can't help with that I'm afraid.

All I would say, is think about what is the most important area for you to receive feedback on - is it the buying process (using the website, etc), or post-sales (delivery, etc)?
If you want feedback on the buying process and wait until a few days later before sending a request for feedback you're likely to get a fairly low response rate, and users are more likely to misremember. You'd probably be better off having a link to a survey on the order confirmation screen instead. If you're willing to give a discount for survey completion then make it prominent to drive responses.
If the customer has a problem with the delivery they're more likely to let you know about it - if you hear nothing then it's unlikely there have been major problems (beyond usual delivery company problems!).

Fair point. Think I'm more interested in the website buying experience, so will look to see how to integrate it into the website after the checkout.

[woohoo]

Fair point. Think I'm more interested in the website buying experience, so will look to see how to integrate it into the website after the checkout.

For instant feedback there are a few products out there.

I've used Olark live chat, any issues they feedback straightaway. You can also have offline help. If you can be available to answer queries this is great.

I've used Surveywizz: Free online survey and widget software. for more involved questions, you get a nice looking popup with as many questions on there as you want. Also has some good stats etc. Also has surveys you can email to customers. Bit rough around the edges but works well.

I looked at this from https://qualaroo.com/?utm_source=Goo...gn=GGUnbounce1 Kissinsights. Its got a nice looking popup but was limited to two questions, not sure if this has changed now, they have been taken over. Had some issues with different browsers, but this was in the day that IE6/7 was used.

[BigRed]

I find the increasing number of feedback questionnaires very annoying. I want my online experience to be simple and quick, I don't want to spend all my time explaining what I think of my shopping experience.

I find Microsoft particularly annoying, every time I raise a case with them they get in touch to get my feedback on how they dealt with my issue, If I don't like their service I will complain to them, otherwise leave me alone.

[eek]

I find the increasing number of feedback questionnaires very annoying. I want my online experience to be simple and quick, I don't want to spend all my time explaining what I think of my shopping experience.

I find Microsoft particularly annoying, every time I raise a case with them they get in touch to get my feedback on how they dealt with my issue, If I don't like their service I will complain to them, otherwise leave me alone.

+1. A survey won't tell you anything. I would be looking at stuff like clicktale to tell you whats going on.

[woohoo]

+1. A survey won't tell you anything. I would be looking at stuff like clicktale to tell you whats going on.

In my experience a survey, feedback form, or a chat client do tell you something. A chat client on a customers site was useful for answering queries and making sales or at least not losing a sale. We did get people asking about opening times for Tesco's but mostly it was people with valid questions.

A feedback survey popup was useful for understanding any barriers to a sale. We did this before a redesign of a site and wanted to understand what stopped people wanting to signup and pay for the product. We did get a lot of crap to be honest but a small percentage of the feedback was really useful.

I've used surveys in a number of different ways (email, facebook), often offering an upgrade on a product if they would become a "select" customer. This worked really well and we often used them again for opinions on new features etc.

You need to give your customer an easy way to tell you if they have problem or even just a query.

I agree with the other poster about Microsoft survey forms, however that's a really intrusive popup, the examples I gave can all be configured to take a softer approach.

[BigRed]

^ I was referring to the telephone calls following a support call actually, the old 'on a rating of 1 to 5 how would you score our keeping you informed on the progress on your issue' type of thing, around 20 questions and most of them irrelevant to the issue you raised, but you are right, the popups are really annoying as well.

[DimPrawn]

Fair point. Think I'm more interested in the website buying experience, so will look to see how to integrate it into the website after the checkout.

For this, your best bet is a webmaster analytics tool.

Top 14 Free Web Statistics Tools

Find out how many visitors, how many got to the checkout pages, how long they stay on your webtulipe, most popular pages etc.

For the post delivery survey, use a tool that sends an email with a link to a rating/review site.

Customer Ratings and Reviews | Website Rating Tool | Review Software

Worst thing is popup review thingies on your webtulipe.

[woohoo]

For this, your best bet is a webmaster analytics tool.

Top 14 Free Web Statistics Tools

Find out how many visitors, how many got to the checkout pages, how long they stay on your webtulipe, most popular pages etc.

For the post delivery survey, use a tool that sends an email with a link to a rating/review site.

Customer Ratings and Reviews | Website Rating Tool | Review Software

Worst thing is popup review thingies on your webtulipe.

I've worked with companies that do this full time, they look at how you can increase your conversions. Popups, often sit in the corner of the page and are unobtrusive. You can also add them to say the completion page and then request an opinion. You can also run with them for a short time.

Your approach of looking at what they are clicking etc is ok but it doesn't tell you what is stopping the customer from signing up or buying your product. You will often find that people may not understand what your selling or the terminology. Especially if your selling some kind of subscription service.

I've had feedback about the general site design not inspiring confidence, people worried about security, lack of prominent contact details, credit card client validation not allowing some credit cards, people having problems in various browsers etc. These have all been passed on by allowing the customer to get in touch easily.

I'm not a great fan of intrusive popups but done right they can be a big help in understanding your customer. Anyway, that's my two pence from my experience of actually trying to improve an ecommerce site conversion rate. I won't go into a/b testing etc because that's not been asked but there are a few methods for doing this right and not just relying on your personal opinion.