5 Survey email templates to engage your audience

Your customers are keeping secrets. The secret is their feelings and experiences with your brand, which you know nothing about. In fact, only 1 in 26 unhappy customers will tell you their concerns with your brand. However, 95% of customers will share about their bad experiences with others. 

Feedback, although at times hard to hear, propels businesses forward. It allows you to get direct insight into what your customers are experiencing and how to improve your product, brand, and interactions. 

If you care about what your customers have to say and want to incorporate feedback into your relationship with them, keep reading! 

What is a survey email?

A survey email is an email you send to customers to ask them about their thoughts and experiences with your business. 

These surveys could ask for feedback about their experience, a product they purchased, the content you share, or anything else in between. They can range from one or two broad questions to multi-question forms. 

Survey emails or campaigns are one of the most cost-effective ways to retain feedback and they bring several benefits including: 

• Show customers that you’re listening and are interested in their opinions. This makes them feel more valued and connected with your brand.
• Receive genuine feedback about how to better serve customers, which can improve your customer satisfaction and customer retention.

Types of survey emails

There are many different types of survey emails, each with its own use case and goal. 

• Customer satisfaction survey: for a broad understanding of how satisfied your customers are with your brand and offer.
• Product feedback survey: to get customers’ opinions about a specific product/or service.
• NPS (net promoter score) survey: to find out how likely a customer is to recommend your business or to tell others not to use your business.
• Event survey: to collect feedback from attendees about a recent event you hosted.
• Customer needs survey: to find out more about what your customers want from products like yours so you can serve them better.

5 Examples of successful survey emails

Looking for inspiration to see how other brands are using survey emails in action? Check out these examples of well-crafted survey emails and our insights on why they work.

Customer research survey from Popular Mechanics

In this survey email, Popular Mechanics wants to know what its readers are interested in so it can create content that appeals to them. 

What makes this successful: 

• The purpose of the survey is clear: “exploring the types of information you enjoy learning about”  
• Gratitude: Throughout the email, Popular Mechanics makes the reader feel appreciated using language like “your input is extremely important” and “thank you in advance.”
• Gratitude is incentivized: By entering people into a chance to win one of five $100 checks, they are more likely to respond and also feel appreciated for their time.  

Product feedback survey from Neil Patel

Neil Patel is a content marketing leader. In rolling out a new product, he sent out this survey invitation to ask users to try it out and provide feedback:

What makes this successful:

• The audience is clear: “If you send marketing emails, this message is just for you.”
• Insight into the product being reviewed is given: This ensures that customers have a clear idea of what the product is supposed to do and can compare it more accurately to their actual experience.
• Limitations are clearly stated: Neil states “desktop only, for now.” As a brand, being clear about what your product can and cannot do helps set clear expectations for your customers.

Content feedback survey from Morning Brew

Popular email newsletter Morning Brew is on a mission to continuously improve their content, so they’re asking readers for their feedback.

What makes this successful: 

• Brand personality shines through: The content is engaging and enjoyable, making references that are relatable to readers (like the New York Times Connections game and the legendary McRib). That style is also on-brand for the newsletter so it feels familiar and fosters their relationship with readers.
• Clear expectations are stated: Morning Brew specifies that this survey will only take 5 minutes and mentions some of the factors they’ll be asking the reader to review.

NPS survey from CVS

NPS surveys can help brands understand their customers’ opinions and experiences while gauging whether they’re generating positive or negative word of mouth.

What makes this successful:

• Personalization: By naming the specific store location that this customer visited makes it clear that this wasn’t just a random message, it was meant specifically for this customer regarding a particular experience.‍
• Simplicity: NPS surveys have one clear objective in mind and this survey follows this intent by only including one question within the email.

Product and experience survey from Cider

Clothing brand Cider sends out a prompt survey when a customer’s order is delivered to gather their feedback about the product and the experience.

Key elements of survey emails

Regardless of what kind of survey you are creating, there are some non-negotiable best practices to keep in mind  

Zero-fluff 

From the subject line to the content inside of the email, the purpose of your message should be clear. Try a subject line such as, “We want your feedback” or “Pennies [$10 credit] for your thoughts?”

The email copy should be concise enough to communicate the purpose of the email, the purpose of the survey, and how the survey benefits the customer. 

Express your gratitude

Your customers are helping your business by taking the time to complete your survey - be sure to thank them! A simple message of gratitude can help you strengthen the trust and relationship with your customers. You can go the extra mile too by offering them an incentive like a discount code for taking the survey.

Choose the right audience

Make your survey relevant to the customer who is receiving it. Create different surveys for customers at different stages in your customer lifecycle or for customers who are/have been engaged with your brand. According to Qualtrics, personalization can improve survey response rates by up to 48%.

Compliant

Just like any other email, be sure that you’re following all the email compliance requirements for your survey emails based on the laws that apply. This includes GDPR if you have customers in the EU and the CAN-SPAM Act if you have customers in the US.

Tips and tools for creating successful survey emails

There are many different tools and resources to make creating survey email campaigns easy and effective.

• Build your survey using a specialized survey platform: Platforms such as Qualtrics, SurveyMonkey, or Typeform make it easy to create a variety of different surveys and provide you with thorough reports of your results.

• Use AI: AI tools can help you write survey copy that is appealing to your target audience. You can use the prompt “Write a survey for (audience criteria) to identify how effective is/was (purpose of the survey.” You can also ask AI to draft a few questions if you’re feeling stuck. For instance “come up with 10 questions to identify how well email builder is in helping folks create emails faster.”

• A/B test: Use an email tool that lets you test different versions of your survey to see which ones perform better. Many email marketing platforms can offer this, like HubSpot and Campaign Monitor.

• Mobile-first Design: 75% of consumers say they most often check their email on their smartphone rather than other devices. No code email builders such as Beefree, offer a Mobile Design Mode feature so that you can create seamless email experiences for multiple screens.

5 Survey templates to engage your audience 

1. Customer satisfaction survey email template

This customer satisfaction survey email template can help you gauge your customers' satisfaction with a specific product or service.

2. Customer needs survey template

Want to know what features or products you can add that your customers will love? Just ask with this template!

3. Customer experience survey template

The perfect time to send out a customer experience survey is right after the service has been offered.

4. NPS Survey Template

This one-question net promoter score survey email template can be automated to be sent quarterly. 

5. Survey Results Email Template

If you really want to let customers know that you’re listening to them, share the results of some of your surveys. This survey results email template is an excellent way to use social confirmation and build trust with your audience by letting them know what you’re learning and how you’re improving.