Death of the Survey Link: The Future of Customer Feedback Is Conversational - Sprinklr

Are traditional survey links dead? With response rates at historic lows, the answer might be yes.

In this episode, Rob Scott sits down with Sprinklr’s Sonal Singhal, Direct of Product, and Valarie Grant, Director of Solutions Consulting, to explore why relying on static, post-interaction forms leaves CX leaders with delayed insights, blind spots, and a fractured view of the customer experience.

When you force a customer out of their natural channel just to leave feedback, you disrupt the journey and lose the context. The solution? Conversational listening. Sonal and Valarie break down how context-aware tools allow brands to capture sentiment natively within the channel the customer is already using - reducing friction and dramatically improving the richness of the data.

If you are struggling with survey fatigue or looking for a practical way to innovate your feedback strategy this quarter, this conversation is for you. Learn how to stop asking generic questions and start listening in the moment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome. I'm Rob Scott, and today we are taking a closer look at the death of the survey link and why the future of customer feedback is conversational. So if you are challenged with low response rates or exploring conversational listening as an opportunity to innovate, stay tuned for today's session where you're going to hear some practical takeaways you can use in your business. So today, joining me is Sonel Single, Director of Product, and Valerie Grant, Director of Solutions Consulting at Sprinkler, both experts in this space with a good view of the decisions, risks, and opportunities leaders are facing. So welcome everybody. Thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Hello, good to see you. Nice to see you all.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, thanks for joining me. Um and I suppose, you know, before we dive in, I suppose, Valerie, I wanted to kind of just dig into the kind of background on this topic and you know, why it matters right now and why we're declaring the survey link dead. You know, tell us more.

SPEAKER_02 1:11

Yeah, I mean that might be a bit of a dramatic headline, but um it it's you know, it is really relevant right now. Survey responses overall across all industries are at a historic low and they're only continuing to decline, right? And everyone's trying to figure out how to fix this problem because the reasons we started doing surveys in the first place um still exist, right? Companies still need to measure their customer experience. Um, they want to hear from more than just the vocal majority. They want to be soliciting feedback from you know their quieter or sorry, vocal minority, and hear from the silent majority. Um, they want to do root cause analysis to be able to create action plans, improve product, and fix the things that are causing uh friction points. And they want their customers to feel that they're listening to them, right? And traditionally they would do that through surveys, but with those declining survey uh response rates, uh companies are having to figure out new and innovative ways to still accomplish these goals.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Yeah, absolutely. Sono anything to add there before we jump on?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

No, I would say that yes, um those are definitely the um definitely the reasons why we see conversation, a shift towards conversational surveys and uh um challenging the decades' worth of practice around survey, so how we survey customers and how we measure customer experience and um how that's changing.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Yeah, absolutely. I mean surveys are hard, aren't they? I mean, they're hard on both ends of the uh of the survey. They're hard to set up, they're hard to execute if you're trying to get the results, and they're hard to fill out as well, aren't they, nowadays? You know, I received a form the other day from an air at an airline that I traveled on, and it was really, really long. It was tough. You know, it took me a good 10 minutes. I wasn't expecting it when I was filling it out. So, you know, I can I feel the pain here. So let's let's dive a little bit deeper into that. So, Sonna, where are the where are organizations feeling the pressure most directly when they rely on these static, you know, post-interaction forms?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Yeah. The the first most surfacial one we kind of already mentioned, um, but that Valerie already mentioned around response rates. Um, we have seen response rates drop across different channels. And where organizations now feel the pressure of it is now we have a tiny sliver of self-selected individuals, and we are representing it as the voice of the customer or voice of the base. Um, that picture is not true anymore. That's not a true picture of the customer experience across the brand anymore. Um, the second place where this pressure is felt the most is the speed at which organizations are acting on it. So by the time you've fielded that question, you've analyzed it, that customer, or in your case, Rob, from that airline experience, you have already moved on and you're on to the next thing. Um that is landing too late at this point in time. And then the last one, I'd say that's the most uh that's that's the one that hits hardest are the blind spots. When you're look when you're listening to a small base of customers, you're acting on it too late, what you find are blind spots. And that's where conversational surveys really help because you are asking a small base of customers what you already know that you want to ask them. So the problems that you don't see coming, they never show up at all. And underneath all of these three is the same issue that the survey was built to score a specific moment. And we have asked it to become the entire listening strategy. This is where organizations are feeling the pain around ROI, they are feeling the pain around richness of data, and then eventually being able to act on that data.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Yeah, you're absolutely right. That makes complete sense as well. This is all about getting that feedback in the moment, isn't it? Not uh not once the damage is done or whatever. So um, yeah, interesting. So, Valerie, uh, you know, let's talk about the customer in this. You know, how is this showing up for the customer day to day? I'm imagining that, you know, receiving a generic survey after a complex issue must feel you know quite disconnected, a bit cold nowadays. So, you know, how's this playing out?

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah, I mean, customers want to speak to companies the way they speak to a friend, right? Um, they want it to be able to respond the way a human would. The the example I always give is if uh, you know, after this rob, your, you know, your friend texts you how'd that interview go and you respond terrible, they wouldn't then ask you if the bathrooms were clean, right? They would say, well, why was it terrible? What happened? Was it where they give bad answers? What you know, they would dig in intuitively um to try to get to the true issue and maybe how they could even help, or maybe even take action based off of that feedback, right? And customers are starting to expect that more and more. Um, and so a couple things create that blockage. One is when you have to do several clicks to even give that feedback, right? Um, and when you're taking them out of that channel of choice where they're already engaging with you. So, an example of that airline, a lot of them are in Apple Business Chat now. So imagine you're getting support through that mechanism. And then two hours later, you get a link in your email that then you have a click to open to web to then give that feedback, right? It's not natural, it's not continuing on the way uh you want to engage with that business and the way you've chosen to engage with that business. So all of that starts creating that disconnect of really feeling that like closer personal relationship with the brand.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Yeah, it all feels very lumpy nowadays, you know, and and old, you know, it's starting to feel a little bit old, all this type kind of technology, I suppose. So, you know, let's talk about the technology then, Sonel. You know, what are we doing today? You know, when we're talking about this conversational feedback and you know, these context-aware tools, what does that actually look like in practice? How's it work?

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Yeah. So in practice, these conversational tools, um, they feel like as if um as if you're not walking into a room, um, into a cold conversation, but like you've always been in the room. Um, so not having not walking in cold, but walking in warm. And as a technology, as technology, as brand, you already know what has been happening. You know about the context of the conversation, how it started as a company that translates into I know what you which flight you took, Rob. I know um, I know what time you landed, I know how what did you call the call center about right before you took that flight. And so when I'm in that context, I am not asking you all of those repeat questions, like Rob, tell me what which flight did you take. I'm asking you one short relevant question to say, hey, you had this experience. Tell me more, tell me more about what could have made it better, or maybe not even ask that question at all. I've already read that sentiment and I know what Rob's experience through all of that was. Um, in my opinion, the best feedback question is often the one that you don't have to ask, and all of that becomes possible in this kind of contextual conversational experience where you are now looking at everything customers are talking about in reviews, in support tickets on social media, and then bringing it to the team that can act on it, because um, none of it would matter if there are insights about all of this unified context, but you don't bring it together into an action because then it's just a better-looking dashboard. So the conversational aspect in my mind doesn't exist to just understand more of the customer, but also to understand what kind of action you want to take on it.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, I think that's particularly important because that's often what misses is missing in truly, you know, when we look at CX programs and we talk to a company and they they've got their number, right? They got their MPS, they have their CSAT, but there's no actions being taken off of it, right? They're there's not passing this to product management or or responding, closing the loop with the customer directly, right? It's just for measurement sake and not for action sake.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, it's really interesting. Let me ask you a question though. So um you're listening to the conversation, so you don't need to send anything. So the survey effectively is dead, but if you know, I suppose that age-old thing about feedback is that and and filling out surveys, it, you know, you're gonna invest five or ten minutes of your time filling out all these questions, but you know, it does feel like it goes into a bit of a black hole sometimes, and you know, you never really get anything out the other side. But this way, it feels like something could be done a little bit faster, um, you know, and uh and that that feedback could be acted on a little bit quicker. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_01 10:57

I wouldn't say the surveys are dead. Um, I would say the way we use surveys is definitely changing, and that's why the idea of conversational surveys come in. Um it's very important to kind of uh anchor us that surveys were always designed to score a specific moment so that we there are a lot of business objectives that stand behind it. There is coaching, there is um making sure that that uh employees or anybody else are not gaming the system. Um so that aspect of it and why surveys were put in place to measure a specific moment still stay. Um what has changed, I think Rob, what you mentioned is right, that there is an easier way to get to it now. There is a more personalized, hyper-personalized way to get to it now, because um now I if I can understand everything that happened before, and if I have very rich contextual knowledge, I'm not gonna ask you to fill out a 20 far 20 question long form. Uh the form for the form the form form of surveys is what I would say is dead, but the idea that I still want to understand how you felt, but I'm gonna only ask you the questions that to Valerie's point feel like feels like talking to a friend. I'm still gonna go and put those aspects out there and um make sure that the surveys are relevant and only fired when they're when they're gonna capture the the need of the moment.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Yeah. And there's always things that people will not say in the conversation itself, that I think there's still a real place for that survey feedback in this different form, um, play an important role. And an example I like to give is depending on your your culture and maybe where you were raised and how you were raised, if you had a trouble understanding someone's accent, let's say on a phone support conversation, some people might say that directly to the agent. Some people might not feel comfortable. They would find that route. That's still important feedback we'd want to get to that agent and that manager to help coach them and train them. Um, but they might feel more comfortable giving that in a private forum via a survey after the fact instead of, you know, maybe inadvertently saying that rudely right on the phone call itself, right? So there's always a time and place for certain feedback, and you want to make sure you're giving those options to your customers.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I can see the limitations on both sides. So that you know, I but I I think the the conversational piece is so much richer. I mean, Valerie, does that potentially give you better data? Because it's the conversational data, you know. I I if I can't be bothered to type in, you know, 10 words into a box, you know, but I can I can afford 30 to 60 seconds, you get a lot more quality of data, I would imagine. Is that is that right?

SPEAKER_02 13:48

100%. That was the first area we saw huge improvements with when we launched this capability was just the richness and actionability of the open-ended feedback and having this conversational format getting it. Um, I started off my career uh doing consulting for CX programs, and it would be so frustrating because a lot of the data we would take to provide recommendations was survey data, but sometimes it'd be just so generic, right? And you can't go back to this person and ask for more, right? Um they would just say, like, poor service, you know, don't like the prices. And you're like, we can't, we can't do much with that, right? You you can't put a pretty bow or or really figure out how to change the pricing or coach the service agents or whatever with something generic. And so this really helps kind of probe and get to a level of actionability that you can go do something off of.

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Well, this is very actionable. So uh looking ahead, if you could offer one piece of advice to our audience this, you know, in this video, what would it be for those looking to move away from traditional surveys? Both of you. Valerie, do you want to go first?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Yeah, a couple things. I would say start small. You know, we we wouldn't recommend ripping out all of your traditional measurement programs for conversational, but I would always start someplace where folks are already engaging in a conversational way, right? Maybe post-chat interaction, post-social media interaction, right? Where they're already engaging in that natural back and forth, maybe on Reddit. Um, because then it it just continues how natural it feels because they're already engaging with you in that way. I also always like to think of a uh project or objective that we've been having a hard time kind of even knowing what to ask. So oftentimes when Sonola and I have consulted with customers, um, we are talking to a big retailer that's always launching like creative in-store uh experiences, but they said, you know, the marketing team comes up with them, we hear about it last. So we don't even know what to ask because we don't know all the details, but we do want to get feedback on how it went. And we're like, this is a great opportunity to use that because the LLM and the the, you know, intelligence asking the questions is gonna intuitively go where the customer is taking it. So you don't need to know ahead of time all of the different experiences maybe this in-store marketing activation had because it's gonna just figure it out and go where the customer wants to go and give feedback for. So I always think that's a great place to start with. You don't even know like what questions you would ask. This is a great place to try it out.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

That's some great advice. Yeah, start with those stubborn surveys or find, you know, find a problem or in in the business. Yeah, I think that I think that's great advice. Sonal.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Um I'll build up on what what Valerie said. I'm absolutely aligned that start small, start in places uh where you can see most impact. And I think there's a good news and um in terms of where to get started and uh what you can do this week to get started. Um swim in the feedback river is what I would call it. Like start swimming in the feedback river, go open and read through maybe hundred verbatims from your most recent survey and closed loop feedbacks, um, wherever your store managers or your field teams had to ask follow-up questions. Umce you've seen what's missing, um, and that's sitting in plain sight for you, wherever you had to ask more questions, or wherever you read a comment where you wish, oh, I wish I could have asked something more here. That's where your roadmap to conversational surveys will pretty much write itself out. So that data is already sitting inside the organizations, and um, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

That's great. Yeah, well, thank you so much for joining me today. I mean, I'm afraid that we've that's all we've got time for, but I think this is a really important uh conversation, and I love the fact that surveys are getting an upgrade, even if they're not quite dead. But um, Sonel, Valerie, thank you so much for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Thank you for having us. Thank you. Great conversation.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

And before we wrap things up, for anyone watching this and wanting to explore this subject in more detail, what's the best way to find out more or get in touch with uh Sprinkler? Valerie.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, you can head on over to sprinkler.com. We have tons of other interviews, case studies, and of course, seems believing. So you can put in a request for a demo, and someone from my team will uh happily show you what what the world of conversational surveys could look like for you.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Fantastic. And we're also gonna be publishing a two-part series uh with Sonno and Valerie diving deeper into the operational side of conversational feedback very soon. So keep your eyes out for that, and we're gonna drop a link down below once that's available. I'm Rob Scott from CX Today. Thanks for watching.