MindComet

How to NOT Survey Your Subscribers

Now, I’m a big believer in leveraging email as a means to receive feedback from your customers.  All companies need feedback. All companies need to listen to what their customer wants.  Especially from those who care enough to opt in and have their inboxes filled with emails on a daily / weekly / monthly basis. 

This core base of customers should be nurtured and NOT taken for granted.  It pains me to receive surveys on a consistent basis that never offer an incentive. This incentive doesn’t have to be much. A little something goes a long way.

Take this survey email below for example.  It’s from Condé Nast, a publishing company that prints magazines from the likes of WIRED, GQ and Vanity Fair.  So since I’m a part of the “exclusive sample” of readers you’d think they’d offer me something.  I mean, I’m offering them my valuable time and opinion… so what am I getting in return?

Well, it turns out, NOTHING!  I actually took the time to fill out the stupid survey—first answering some demographical questions—then when I submitted my age, location and annual salary the following screen read “Thank you very much for your interest in our survey. Unfortunately you did not qualify for today’s survey. Because our research was targeted at individuals that match a particular profile, not everyone who receives an initial e-mail will qualify to take the survey. Please be assured that information is not recorded unless a survey is successfully completed.“

Wait, what?  Seriously?  First of all, there’s no dash in “e-mail” anymore. Get with the times, grandpa.  Secondly, you’re not going to remember that I’m a 26 year old in Florida making less than 75k a year?  Why not?  So you’re telling me that the next time you send out a survey, I’ll click through and start filling out my demographic info only to be denied again!?  I’m sorry, but that is lazy, short-sighted and for lack of a better term, bone-headed.  Why aren’t you capturing this information now, so you’re better prepared for future surveys?  This was a perfect opportunity to gain some insight into all of your “exclusive” members to send more effective messages in the future.  What a waste.

So my next (and final) course of action is to opt out.  They did it to themselves. Once I click and get to the unsubscribe page, it will only allow me to opt out from all WIRED-associated emails, not just Condé Nast emails.  So what do I do now?  I actually enjoying reading the WIRED newsletters, but I don’t want any more of these annoying time-wasting surveys.  Decisions, decisions. 

Well, I guess that’s why I have an actual subscription to the print magazine.  So long, WIRED!  Thank your publishing company for one less subscriber.

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Posted by MindComet on Dec. 02, 2008

How Well Do you Know Your Customers?

As an email marketer I try to contribute and give my feedback when possible to companies that I subscribe to receive communication from, not only for my own benefits of receiving more targeted communication (hopefully) but to also allow them to more effectively market their campaigns to everyone.  I made a purchase online recently and received a survey from the company today asking for my feedback on my latest visit. 

The survey was around their check out process.  Upon opening the survey, I was faced with a plain jane survey template.  They sent me from a nice branded html email to a generic survey tool with only one question that didn’t even pertain to me.  The question was asking me why I didn’t complete a purchase during my last visit.  There was an option I could have chosen that would have best fit my situation which was “I came back later to complete my purchase” which I don’t think I did however I can’t be too sure.  Regardless, I didn’t feel I could check that option because it didn’t allow me to explain my actual situation so I checked the option “I had trouble completing my purchase,“ which was the only option that allowed me to leave a comment.  So I left my comment explaining that although I may have come back at a later time to complete my purchase, they should know that I made the purchase since its in their system.  So why would I be receiving this survey especially if my answer was “I came back later to complete my purchase”.  Since they should already know this, I can’t see them benefiting if I had simply responded with that answer.

Moving on, upon submitting the survey, I wasn’t even redirected back to their site, it dropped me off on the survey tools home page.  I’m not sure this communication was carefully constructed but who knows, maybe my response will encourage them to do some more pre-planning around gathering customer data, ya think?

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Posted by MindComet on Jan. 24, 2008