Stop Being Ignored: How to Write Survey Emails That Get Answered

Want to see your business reach new heights of success? Look no further than focusing on gathering data about your customers. A straightforward and economical way to gain these insights is by using a survey email commonly used by businesses in event-driven email sequences. These emails allow businesses to collect feedback from their customers after they made a purchase. These emails help improve the overall service experience. 

The beauty of a trusted email delivery service is that it ensures your survey emails land in as many inboxes as possible. However, to get the maximum number of responses, it is of utmost importance to know about the different types of surveys and the best practices for crafting conversion-driven survey emails.

Without further ado, let’s delve into the best survey email examples and how to make your survey invitation emails more interesting.

What is a Survey Email?

A survey email is an email that gathers feedback from the customer post-purchase rather than securing a sale. It includes a direct request and provides a way for customers to respond to a set of questions, either by answering them directly in the email body or by clicking a button that leads to a hosted survey. 

Here, the key is to learn something specific about the customer’s overall experience. How happy a customer is, what feature they want to see next, or why a recent experience went well or badly. 

Survey emails run in parallel with other lifecycle messages. Often following a transaction, an onboarding step, or a support interaction, these emails match naturally with follow-up emails. A follow-up email guides a person toward a specific action; a survey pays attention to it. When used together, they result in a feedback loop: act, ask, learn, enhance.

A Survey Email vs. a Promotional Email

Component	Survey Email	Promotional Email
Goal	Gather customer feedback or a rating.	Trigger a click or conversion.
Main CTA	Evaluate, respond, post.	Browse, schedule, explore.
Tone	Inquisitive, grateful	Convincing
Success analytic	Participation and submission rate	Engagement-to-action ratio

Why Does a Survey Email Play a Significant Role for Your Business?

For any business out there, survey emails hold importance because they build strategy on proof, not probability. Rather than going ahead with an assumption about why customers churn or what content should be published next, you ask the individuals who actually know the answers to drive informed decisions. 

Moreover, email is a highly cost-effective way to reach out to an audience that has already subscribed. Don’t think that you’re purchasing a panel but surveying a warm list. Hence, the feedback you receive is a reflection of genuine customers. 

The growth accelerates exponentially: greater retention from identifying unsatisfied customers at the early stage, more persuasive positioning from comprehending objections, and robust products from knowing which features people look forward to.

What Makes a Survey Email Get Opened and Answered?

A survey email gets opened and then clicked, which is how it earns a response in two different steps. Each of these steps depends on various things.

To get opened, a survey email needs:

Here’s what a survey email needs for a person to open it:

• A subject line is crucial to state, as it mentions the actual purpose of the email.
• The recipient already recognised the sender’s name. This phenomenon is because brand recognition prompts most open decisions before the subject line does so. 
• No hidden questions! Just a 30-second check-in on the purchase you recently made.

To get clicked and completed, the email body needs:

• One honest, transparent reason that the response will be used. Avoid using a generic line like “We sincerely value your feedback.”
• An evident call-to-action (CTA) button or link. Never consider adding social links in the survey, since they steal the spotlight from your primary business goal.
• As an option, the first question is integrated directly into the email. Lowering the steps between the email when it’s opened and the first question is answered substantially increases survey completion. This effect is because implanting an NPS (Net Promoter Score) or a question with a smiley rating in the invite eliminates a click. This effect occurs before the surveyee has given their commitment to anything.

Some Significant Advantages of Survey Emails

Let’s find out why using survey emails benefits your business every step of the way.

Affordable

Conventional methods of conducting customer research are slow and expensive (Isn’t that what telemarketers usually do?). Survey emails are comparatively low-priced, and they require effortless implementation. A business can send these emails in bulk or automate them to go to individual recipients. Needless to say, these emails will be based on their specific actions, such as buying a product or starting your membership.

With a leading email service provider like TrueSend, you can create a survey email without any charges. You can also send them every month, being part of your quota. To collect survey data, you don’t need to configure a second device.

Improve Your Offering

Enhancing your product and service consistently will help you not only develop but also grow your business. You can find a countless number of ways to approach the issue; however, nothing proves more valuable than gathering customer feedback. 

With survey emails, you can collect distinct insights about your customers’ pain points, user experience, product flaws, demographics, etc. This valuable information will work to your business’s advantage and will help you boost your product development. 

Increase Brand Trust

As a business owner, you show your customers that you value their experience and opinions by asking them to take part in a survey. It indicates that you are an action-orientated individual who’s always concerned about improving their products and services. This is what makes customers feel seen and heard. This approach contributes to enhanced brand loyalty and trust and improved customer relationships.

Can be Personalised

Using personalisation variables, you can effortlessly customise a survey email template with customer data. Doing so enables you to conduct surveys without hassles based on the individual experience of the customer. It also enables you to deliver a customised and interesting brand narrative.

Get Better Open Rates

While some emails have an open rate as high as 80-85%, transactional emails maintain an open rate of approximately 40-50% on average. Greater engagement rates signify transactional emails provide innumerable opportunities to fuel not only your marketing but also sales efforts. In fact, they are an ideal way to gather feedback from customers.

Useful Tips For Designing Emails For Survey Emails

Designing an email for a survey? Consider many things to craft a compelling survey email.

Subject Line

What’s the first thing your recipients see upon receiving your email? It’s the subject line. Focus on keeping the subject line short and brief. It must also include a clear call to action (CTA). To create a compelling subject line, brainstorm ways with your copywriting team to work together. They can help you better here.

Email Body

The email body is where you will include the survey link. It’s important to keep the body of the email short and to the point. You should also include a clear call to action, such as “Take our survey now!”

Include a link to taking the survey in the body of your email. Make sure you keep the body short and concise. Moreover, including a clear CTA is a smart move; for example, it could be “Got 60 seconds?”

Include Your Branding

Don’t forget to include your branding in the email. It could be your logo, font, and the colour scheme. It will help create a constant experience for the survey answerer and boost their chances of its completion.

Categorise Your Recipient List

Categorising your recipient list when delivering surveys via an email carries weight. This enables you to deliver a more personalised email to a specific group of individuals. It can lead to an increased response rate.

Include an Incentive

When you include an incentive, including a discount or a giveaway, it can boost the possibility of people taking your survey. However, you must make sure that the incentive you’re offering seems appropriate to the target audience.

Include a CTA in the Email Signature

Your email signature must include a CTA for your business survey. It is the last thing people will see before they finish the survey and close your email. To boost your survey’s response rate, don’t forget to include a call to action in your email signature.

How You Can Leverage Email Survey Response Rate

Having customers respond to your surveys is the main goal of conducting an email survey. It might seem useless if the customers avoid sharing their feedback with your firm or simply overlook the request.

Despite the many challenges that email surveys and customer responses face, you can take some useful steps. They will help you increase and optimise the survey invitation email significantly.

1. First Impression is the Last Impression

The first impression you create through a survey email is essential. If the subject and content don’t capture audience attention, they may simply ignore your request. Instead, you must focus on crafting a captivating subject line and to-the-point content. This will encourage the reader to take the desired action.

2. Set Clear Expectations Regarding Time

Many people don’t complete their surveys, which may affect the response rate. To prevent this from happening in your situation, make sure you communicate the expected time to your target audience. Set clear expectations as well. This will help them complete the survey within the stipulated time frame. The estimated time, like 3 or 6 minutes, helps users assign the required time. It also motivates them to complete the survey. 

3. Use Simple Language

Use a simple language for the respondents so they can understand the questions in the survey. Avoid using jargon, complicated words, acronyms, or even technical terms. The respondents might not understand or be aware of the jargon already used in the industry. It might leave the survey incomplete by the respondents, as they were unable to understand the questions.

4. Follow-Up Regularly

Due to scarcity of time or other commitments, many individuals usually overlook the first survey email request. However, if a business sends them a reminder or a follow-up email, there’s a possibility that they note your request or remember to get back to the email to take the desired action when they have time. 

Thus, following up with the customer is mandatory, as it will improve the chances of getting responses on your survey email. Moreover, you can use some of the most popular survey email tools. This helps automate delivering follow-up emails, hence leading to higher response rates.

5. Motivate your Participants

Rewarding the surveyees is the best way of making the most of survey responses. It helps complete the survey. It does not mean that rewards have to be huge; however, they can be redeemable credit points, loyalty benefits, or gift vouchers for your product or service. Being highly effective, it allows you to capitalise on the responses of your target audience.

How to Send a Survey Email

You must send a survey email around moments focusing on what matters most. Make sure you don’t send these emails around an unsystematic timeline. You get the finest feedback from the customer when their experience is fresh, i.e., right after the purchase or once a customer completes a pivotal onboarding step. Timing is the primary contributor to whether someone cares to answer the questions in your survey.

If you are looking to turn low response rates into executable insights, you must consider four crucial rules that will help deliver survey emails with the highest conversion rates.

1. Create a Compelling Subject Line

Include a direct line, such as “Got a minute to spare?” or “Help us improve & save 20%.” It will help you provide clear directions to customers as to what they need to do.

2. Timing & Significance

A meaningful moment could be a customer completing an onboarding task or receiving an order. At this very moment, their experience is fresh. 

3. Specify the Duration

Tell respondents how quick the survey is. Lowering the effort barrier dramatically boosts completion rates.

Clearly specify to respondents how quick the survey will be. Reducing the effort obstacle they might face in completing the survey increases completion rates.

4. Offer a Value Incentive

Who doesn’t like their effort being rewarded? Small perks, such as discount vouchers, loyalty points, or an entry into a giveaway, serve as the main engine for getting high responses.

3 Survey Email Templates You Can Use

Here are three email survey examples that have been customised to achieve higher engagement. Each of them highlights a primary goal and makes use of a call to action instead of incorporating a lengthy list of questions in the email body.

Example 1: Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSAT)

Hello [Customer Name],

Your support ticket regarding [Issue Topic] has recently been marked as resolved.  

Did we meet or exceed your expectations?

We’d be glad if you could rate the expert support you received.

[Excellent, Satisfactory, Poor]

(This will not take more than 10 seconds. We value your feedback, and it helps improve our service.)

Best, 

The [Company Name] Support Team

Example 2: Product Feedback Survey

Hey [Customer Name],

It came to our attention that you’ve been using our [New Feature/Product] for the past few weeks. We are consistently working on improving it, and your input is valuable for us.

We’d like you to answer three quick questions, as it will help us understand what’s working and what isn’t.

[Share My Feedback]

Please note that we read every email we receive and use this data to focus on new updates.

Thanks for your help.

[Name] from Product Team

Example 3: Post-Event Feedback Survey

Hi [Customer Name],

We’re glad to make acquaintance with you at [Event Name] yesterday and hope you found the session [Topic] insightful.

We’re organising our upcoming event and want to make it even more successful than the last one. Please help us understand your favourite part of the experience. 

[Rate the Event]

PS: Missed an important detail? 

Watch the full recording here: [Link to Recording].

Cheers, 

[Company Name] Events Team

Final Thoughts

Incorporating survey emails into your communication strategy allows you to align your product roadmap with diverse customer needs. It also boosts customer satisfaction levels. 

However, these campaigns’ success depends on how well they’re executed. When you value your audience’s time with direct copy, using receptive survey email templates, and timing your invitations properly, you can always reshape a request for assistance into a smooth part of the customer experience.

At TrueSend, our dedicated infrastructure is designed in a way that doesn’t prove detrimental to your sender reputation. It ensures your crucial customer feedback messages remain uninterrupted.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is the suitable length for a subject line in a survey email?

Keep it under 50 characters to ensure it displays fully on mobile screens.

2. How long should a survey email message actually be?

Keep your email around 50 to 100. This way, respondents find it easy to read.

3. What rewards can I offer participants to increase survey responses?

Offer a gift card, a giveaway entry, or a discount code.

4. How can I reduce friction and increase completion rates?

Clearly mention the minimal time needed right in the main message.

5. When should I send a survey request?

Make sure you send it immediately after the customer milestone or interaction while the experience is still fresh.