Gaining an accurate assessment of your credit union members' experience can help you discover what's working well and identify areas for improvement or expansion. As such, it's imperative to devote time, resources, and energy to maximize the responses you receive from your members. To do so, you must understand the most effective ways of inviting members to share their valuable feedback and learn how to analyze relevant data after the fact.

5 Mistakes That Can Create Survey Fatigue

Most consumers in the digital age are tired of taking surveys. Survey responses often come only from very upset or absolutely elated customers, leaving little room for balanced membership analysis. To make good decisions, you need to find the middle ground where most people reside. But doing so can be tricky. Here are some common mistakes you can avoid to reduce survey fatigue and increase your response rates:

• Waiting too long: Surveys are often not timely enough. You should survey members within 24 hours of interacting with them for the best likelihood of getting a response. As time goes on, their memory becomes less reliable, and they are less likely to respond at all.

• Attempting surveys at the wrong time: There's a direct relationship between the amount of investment someone has made and their willingness to provide feedback. The lowest response rates to surveys are during the onboarding stage, as members aren't yet invested. However, if they've just taken out a mortgage, for example, they've experienced a significant event in their lives and might feel willing to answer a survey. That's not to say you shouldn't try, but expect fewer responses from less invested customers.

• Asking too many questions: The general rule for a survey is fewer than 10 questions. If you can, and depending on the experience you are measuring, it's ideal to stay under five. For more extensive processes with longer engagement periods, such as mortgages, you can usually include up to 20.

• Asking irrelevant questions: Too often, it's the tendency to ask questions that benefit the business but have nothing to do with members. If you're not getting the response rates you want, think about the questions you're asking. Are they questions that connect emotionally to your members?

• Not following up: The only thing worse than not asking somebody how they felt is ignoring their answer. Being unresponsive challenges your credibility and can even make members lose confidence in your organization. For a successful credit union member experience, it's important to effectively build on what you learned from survey response data and follow up with relevant member communication.

How to Increase Survey Response Rates

Not only do you need to be wary of survey fatigue, but you must also consider how to increase survey responses as a whole. Fortunately, this is a service that our team at MemberXP can help your credit union manage more effectively. We help boost your member experience by avoiding fatiguing survey questions, keeping good response rates, and optimizing feedback.

Consider the three following steps our team will navigate with you to increase user feedback and boost your survey responses:

1. Map your journeys.

Begin by identifying the moments when you can potentially lose a member in the purchasing journey. These moments of truth often involve key member service touchpoints for credit unions. Then, focus on changing or simplifying these roadblocks to help members move smoothly throughout the whole process.

Some people prefer email, some text, and some social media. Others prefer to physically enter a branch. Regardless of where your members are, it's essential to communicate with them through their channel of choice. Then, ask yourself follow-up questions to ensure members are receiving effective survey requests:

• Is a particular subject line getting more customers to open the email?
• Have you included imagery, or is it a wall of text?

It's important to optimize the communication itself before your members can begin answering questions.

2. Collect feedback.

Today, financial institutions collect feedback using quantitative data (such as surveys) and qualitative data (such as secret shoppers). In the future, artificial intelligence will extrapolate the information from the tone of customers' voices, the time they called, and the words they used during the call. Regardless of the method used, it is imperative to collect feedback in a way that can be analyzed and understood.

As survey technology continues to evolve, available tools for analysis will offer more value and create better results. For instance, the technology used to recognize distinct voices or accents is becoming increasingly accessible. With new technology, you can annotate an entire discussion or dialogue and then extrapolate the moments of truth. This means that feedback collection is easier than ever before. It's just a matter of getting started.

3. Optimize feedback.

A powerful optimization tool is like a navigation app. A good GPS can give you the best possible journey with few roadblocks. Likewise, a good optimization tool will analyze your successes and pain points and help you determine what to do next.

The No. 1 reason people say they don't respond to surveys is that they don't think it will make any difference. They think nobody's paying attention and it's a waste of their time. Therefore, you must convince them that their voice matters. Here's a sample message:

Thank you for giving us this feedback. My name is Mike, and I'm going to be meeting with my team next week. I'm going to reference your feedback, and I want you to know how much we appreciate it. We look forward to showing you how things will improve in that area in the future.

Maximizing the effectiveness of your surveys through careful analysis of your survey results can help you make informed decisions about improving your credit union's offerings and better meet your members' needs. By focusing on providing an outstanding member experience, you can ensure your credit union continues to thrive long into the future.

If you're ready to optimize your member experience, contact us today. Our team would be happy to work with you to find what's working well and what has room to grow.