My journey from survey maker to survey taker

My husband and I were planning two family vacations for 2020. This year, we finally took them. We visited Seattle and Spokane in the summer and introduced the kids to New York City over a long weekend in the fall. We came home from both trips with lots of photos, memories, laundry, and surveys.

Many of the places that we visited – from hotels to tourist attractions – followed up with surveys about our experience. As a marketer who wants people to take the surveys that I design, I always try to take those sent to me by others. It’s just good karma. Sometimes I find inspiration, and from time to time, I get a lesson in what not to do.

Here’s what I learned from the recent bevy of questionnaires I’ve been sent.

Because we packed a lot into our vacations, there were many organizations who could have emailed me for feedback. Not all did. I noticed which ones did and which did not. I was surprised to find that receiving a survey made me feel appreciated and valued, and as a result, my perception of those organizations is now higher.

Well, except for one.

One survey asked exclusively about my experience buying the tickets. Lots of questions about the purchase path, not a single one about the experience that I was buying the tickets for. Trust me, as a marketer, I completely understand how important it is to identify anything that can stop someone from finishing their order. But as a patron, it left me feeling like nothing more than a transaction. I learned that a good survey should provide an opportunity for your patrons to express their opinion about all aspects of their journey with you – even if you think you only want to know about one aspect of it.

I also noticed how long after attending a site that I received these surveys. Most were the next day, though there were outliers – some were received before we had even left the attraction, some a full week or more later. Personally, I liked the ones that were 1-2 days later. Enough time had passed that I was able to think about the experience as a whole and not just the last thing we did there (which was frequently the gift shop strategically located at the exit), but not so much time passed that the details had already slipped my mind.

Other things that worked well for me included not having too many questions and not having too many questions that were required. I don’t mind answering demographic questions but keep them limited to what you really need to know. My eye color isn’t going to impact your programming (OK, no one actually asked that.)

My mini-experiment in filling out a bunch of post-visit surveys over a couple of weeks is far from a scientific study and my preferences can’t possibly reflect everyone else’s. But for me, it provided an excellent opportunity to flip the script – becoming the respondent instead of the survey designer.

You may not be able to visit a slew of tourist attractions before drafting your next patron survey, but I urge you to think about how your survey is going to make your patrons feel, not just what you might learn from them.

Surveys are a two-way street; they don’t just capture information about an experience that already happened. They are a part of the total journey that your patrons go on with you. In the same way that the experience begins long before your customers walk in your front door, it continues after they leave. It is up to you to make sure that every step along the path is designed to meet your audience engagement goals.

If you need help crafting surveys that get the information you need while building on the relationship you have with your patrons, let’s talk. I can help.