Surveys and Review Requests
Surveys and review requests ask customers for feedback. A survey asks your own questions and records the answers in the CRM. A review request asks the customer to leave a review on a review site of your choice, and tracks the request on their account.
Both are sent by email or SMS, by hand or automatically after a CRM interaction, and both respect the same feedback opt-out.
What you need: the Platform Pack, which includes the CRM Customer Surveys and CRM Review Requests modules, and the Sales, Customer Services or Credit Control section. Each of those sections has Surveys and Review Requests in its menu. Permissions come from CRM Customer Feedback:
| Permission | What it allows |
|---|---|
| See and View Details | Open surveys and review requests |
| Add and Edit | Build, publish and archive surveys, and manage triggers and review request settings |
| Send Survey Invitations | Send a survey to one customer |
| Send Bulk Survey Invitations | Send a survey to an audience |
| View Summaries | See survey results and export responses |
| Send Review Requests | Ask one customer for a review |
| Send Bulk Review Requests | Ask a chosen group of customers for reviews |
Build a survey
Section titled “Build a survey”- Open Surveys and choose New survey.
- Enter an Internal name for staff, and choose a Dealer if only that dealer’s customers should receive it. The dealer is fixed once the survey is published.
- Enter the Customer-facing title, an optional Introduction and a Completion message.
- Add questions. Each has a label, a type and whether it is required.
- Under Invitation messages, write the Email subject, Email message and SMS message.
- Save the survey, then choose Publish on the survey page to start sending.
Question types are Rating (1–10), Stars (0–5), Thumbs up/down, Free-form text, Single choice and Multiple choice. A choice option labelled Other asks the customer to write in their answer.
In the messages, %(surveyURL)s places the response link, %(surveyTitle)s the title and %(salutation)s the greeting. Every email and SMS invitation carries an opt-out link; use %(surveyPreferencesURL)s to place it yourself.
Editing a published survey saves a draft. Choose Publish changes to use it: new invitations get the new version, and invitations already sent keep the questions they were sent with. Archive stops a survey being sent or edited, cancels invitations not yet sent and keeps the responses.
Fields
Section titled “Fields”| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| ID | Unique identifier of this survey. |
| Revision | Internal revision used to track changes to the record. |
| Survey | Internal name used by CRM staff when selecting and reporting on the survey. |
| Dealer | Dealer code restricting the survey audience; blank permits customers from any dealer accessible to the operator. |
| Status | Draft surveys cannot send invitations; active surveys can; archiving stops new and pending sends. |
| Draft Definition | Manager-only draft containing title, introHTML, outroHTML, emailSubject, emailBodyHTML, smsBody and ordered questions. Each question has key, label, type and required. Choice types singleChoice and multipleChoice also have ordered options with key and label; a label of Other enables a required write-in. |
| Published Version ID | Immutable version used for new invitations; existing invitations retain their original version. |
| Created By User ID | Operator who created the survey. |
| Created | Time the survey was first created. |
Send a survey
Section titled “Send a survey”To one customer
Section titled “To one customer”Choose Send Survey on a customer, Case, proposal or deal. Choose the survey and the recipients, then choose Send Survey.
Each person gets their own response link, shared by their email and SMS. Leave the delay at zero to send straight away; a delayed invitation goes out with the hourly processing once the delay has passed. Opt-outs and the minimum days between surveys still apply, and the page shows each recipient’s delivery status.
To an audience
Section titled “To an audience”What you need: Send Bulk Survey Invitations.
- Open the published survey and choose Send to customers.
- Choose the audience by Customer statuses, Customer groups, Dealer and Account manager.
- Choose Send by (Email, SMS or both), the CRM section, any delay, the Minimum days between surveys and the Link validity (days).
- Choose Preview recipients, check who will receive it, then choose Queue invitations.
If more than 2,000 people match, narrow the filters before sending. Audience surveys count as marketing: email needs marketing consent, and sending follows the marketing sending hours and hourly limits.
Automatically, with triggers
Section titled “Automatically, with triggers”On the survey page, choose Add trigger to send it after an interaction:
- Customer case resolved or closed
- Customer-linked Sales case created
- Proposal accepted or declined
- Deal won or lost
A trigger can be limited to a dealer, a CRM section and a Case category, and to interactions from the last so many days. Tick Send automatically to send after each matching interaction, after any delay you set. The delay is measured from the interaction, and earlier interactions are not sent to when you switch automatic sending on.
Important: once a survey has triggers, it can only be sent, by hand or automatically, to customers with a matching recent interaction. Without automatic sending, a trigger only limits who the survey can be sent to and suggests it on matching records. Remove every trigger to send the survey to anyone. Removing a trigger cancels the invitations it had not yet sent.
Survey results
Section titled “Survey results”The survey page shows the results with filters for section, date range, version, trigger and audience send. Export responses downloads them, and needs View Summaries.
Below the results, Invitations and responses lists each invitation. Open one to see the customer’s answers, the interaction it came from and its delivery history. Resend invitation and Cancel invitation are offered on invitations still awaiting a response.
A customer’s own survey history is on their page, in the Feedback requests panel on the Overview, and on the Case, proposal or deal that started it through Survey Results.
Request a review
Section titled “Request a review”Review requests send the customer to your review page, such as a review site profile, through a link from the platform.
Set up review requests
Section titled “Set up review requests”What you need: Add and Edit on CRM Customer Feedback.
Open Review Requests and choose Settings. Settings can be made for all dealers, or for one dealer.
- Review page web address: where the link leads. Because links lead through the platform, changing it also changes where links already sent lead. If you leave it blank, put your own review links in the message.
- Minimum days between review requests to a customer: 90 by default.
- Maximum review requests to a customer: 3 by default.
- Minimum days between a survey and a review request to the same person: 7 by default.
- Email subject and Email message. Use
%(reviewURL)sfor the review link,%(salutation)sfor the greeting and%(providerName)sfor your name.
Use 0 to remove a limit. The SMS message is edited with the Review Request SMS type. Every email and SMS carries an opt-out link.
Triggers on the settings page send review requests automatically after the same interactions as surveys.
Send review requests
Section titled “Send review requests”- To ask one customer, choose Request Review on the customer, a Case or a deal.
- To ask several, open Review Requests, choose Choose customers, and select them by review status and request history: never sent a review request, not sent one in the last so many days, or sent fewer than a set number. Add status, group, dealer and account manager filters as for surveys, choose Preview customers, then Send review requests.
Review requests count as marketing, and count against your Platform Pack campaign allowance.
The Review Requests page shows how many current customers are at each review status, and the recent requests with their channel, dates and status. Cancel is offered on requests not yet sent, and Resend on requests that could not be delivered.
The Customer Review status
Section titled “The Customer Review status”Sending a review request sets the customer’s Customer Review status to Requested. Only customers with a blank or Requested status are sent review requests. Staff record Completed once the customer has left a review; Completed, Declined and Do Not Request stop further requests. See Customer Review.
Feedback opt-ins and opt-outs
Section titled “Feedback opt-ins and opt-outs”- SMS opt-in: surveys and review requests go by SMS only to accounts and contacts with the Feedback Requests SMS preference switched on. It is off by default. See SMS preferences.
- Opt-out: one feedback opt-out stops both surveys and review requests, without affecting other email or SMS. It is recorded as Feedback Requests Opt-out on the email address. Customers can also opt out through the link in every feedback email and SMS, which opens a MyAccount page asking, with Yes and No buttons, whether they are happy to keep being asked.