A simple and powerful customer exit email and survey to measure loyalty, improve social reviews, change your offering and reward your team.

If you have a business where you have an opportunity to email customers after they have purchased from you, consider implementing this simple and powerful exit email and three minute survey. 

A few years ago I suggested we implement this for one of the businesses I sit on the Boards of. They provide accommodation and have a golf course on-site. The property management software the business uses allows you to automatically send an email to your customer once they are checked out. 

We have seen some wonderful results internally and externally for the business, and have been surprised by how many guests complete it. The email serves these nine purposes:

1. Thank the guest for staying
2. Garner feedback for what needs to improve to change in the business
3. Provide positive feedback to the team, by sharing in the weekly team meeting the glowing words from customers
4. Measure customer loyalty with one simple question
5. Improve and increase reviews on booking and social media sites
6. Increase referrals
7. Add more people to our email list
8. Measure our marketing efforts, so we know what is working
9. Gather more testimonials we can use in marketing

We keep the email short so there is a better chance it will get read, and therefore the survey completed and other actions taken we are looking for.

• Thank them for stay, we hope they had a great time
• Ask them to complete the survey – “The team at XYZ are very open to feedback and hearing how we can improve not only the property but the experience our guests receive. If you have three minutes to complete this anonymous online survey, we would appreciate it – it helps us improve future guest’s experience.”
• Ask for a review – link through to each social site, make it easy for them
• Tell them they can call the owner if they are really upset – “Or, feel free to call or email us any feedback, comments and suggestions. We really appreciate hearing how we can improve. ABC is the owner of the business and you can call them on 123456789 or email ABC@XYZ.”
• Ask if they would like to join our emailing list
• Ask for a referral – “We hope the rest of your journey is fun and memorable, see you back at XYZ soon. If you know anyone looking for an event venue (e.g. wedding, corporates, golf etc) then please do recommend us.”
• Ask for a testimonial – “If you would be comfortable with penning a few words we could use on our testimonial page, please email them through.”

Giving them the contact details of the owner stops a lot of people venting a bad experience online, and hardly anyone calls the owner (they usually reply to the email, which the Manager sees). It is important to let the customer know the survey will take less than three minutes, as everyone is so busy these days. Sharing with them why their feedback is important also helps – they can see we genuinely want to improve. Finally, giving the guest the option of anonymity allows them to write more freely, though most people leave their name. 

Here are the questions we ask:

1. Who was your primary host
2. Date of your stay
3. How did you hear about us
4. What was the nature of your stay
5. How likely are you to recommend XYZ to friends or family? (between 0 and 10 – with 0 extremely unlikely, and 10 extremely likely)
6. What is ONE thing you WOULD change at XYZ or the experience we provide?
7. What is ONE thing you WOULDN’T change at XYZ or the experience we provide?
8. Any other feedback or comments for us?
9. First name and City/Country (if we can use some words as a testimonial on our social media – if so, please write some words in ‘Other comments’)

Questions one and two help us provide feedback (positive or negative) to the Manager on duty, and even track their personal score. Question three and four help us understand our marketing and target markets. 

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is question five, one simple and very powerful question to measure customer loyalty.

Questions six, seven and eight gather the feedback for the business and team to improve. Asking for one thing only, to change and not change, really focuses their feedback. If they have a lot more to say then the open question of ‘Any other feedback’ let’s them expand.

The final question allows us to map the feedback to a specific customer. If the Manager can recall whether the person was generally unreasonable, or if their negative feedback was justified. It also generates a lot of testimonials for social media once a week. Simply copy their positive words, put their first name, city or country they were from, and date of stay.

The results have been dramatic – a lot of reviews (almost all positive) and the business’ Facebook score is 5 out of 5 (from 96 reviews), TripAdvisor 4.5 out of 5 (from 176 reviews) and on Booking.com 9.0 out of 10 (from 189 reviews). The latter is very difficult to sustain for accommodation. 

Do you have an effective customer exit email and survey? If so, what have been some of your experiences?

This is an article for Business Blindspots Tasmania. To ensure you receive regular updates from expert business advisers across a range of areas follow our LinkedIn Group