Conversational Surveys: The Future of Feedback

The traditional survey method of gathering feedback and insights from customers, employees, and other stakeholders is rapidly becoming outdated. Survey response rates continue to decline year after year as people grow tired of the repetitive, robotic nature of surveys. Clearly, it's time for a new approach when it comes to collecting important insights. This is where conversational surveys and interactive chatbots enter the picture.

A conversational survey utilizes natural language interactions and AI technology to engage respondents in an intuitive, dialogue-based experience. Rather than simply answering a series of static multiple choice or scale-based questions, the conversational approach allows respondents to communicate feedback through text, voice, or touch in a seamless back-and-forth exchange. 

This conversational method comes with numerous advantages over traditional surveys:

- Higher response rates: When surveys are more engaging, people are far more likely to participate and provide thoughtful feedback. The conversational approach results in 3-5x higher response rates on average.

- Deeper insights: Dynamic questioning and smart AI analyze responses on the fly to prompt for clarification or dig deeper on key topics uncovered, revealing richer insights.

- Better experience: Conversational surveys are mobile-optimized and feel more like a text chat than a survey, reducing respondent burden.

- Broader applications: While still ideal for capturing critical feedback like NPS, CSAT, and CES, conversational AI can also support complex conversations for market research, customer onboarding, employee engagement, and more.

At its core, the conversational survey represents a major paradigm shift: away from extracting feedback through rigid surveys, and toward a model of engaging people in productive, enjoyable dialogue. It transforms survey-taking from a chore into an experience people actually appreciate and look forward to.

 

The conversational survey methodology is powered behind the scenes by artificial intelligence and natural language capabilities. Chatbot and conversational AI technology allows for free-flowing, interactive dialogue between human users and computer systems. With the right training, these AI systems can understand questions, detect sentiment and intent, ask clarifying follow-ups, and hold coherent conversations scalable to large volumes of users.

The past few years have marked significant leaps in the sophistication of AI chatbots and their ability to mimic human-level exchanges. Combined with the conversational survey approach, this provides the ideal customer experience: surveys that feel less like surveys, and more like helpful conversations with a trusted advisor.

Going beyond just surveys, conversational AI chatbots are being deployed across industries to enhance customer experiences:

- Messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp offer brands conversational interfaces to connect with customers.

- Voice assistants like Alexa allow hands-free interactions driven by speech conversations. 

- Customer service chatbots can handle common FAQs and simple interactions, freeing up humans for more complex issues.

- Personal assistant bots like Clara can schedule meetings, answer questions, take notes, and more.

The common thread is enhancing how humans and machines interact through conversation-focused interfaces. The conversational survey methodology represents a specialized application of this broader trend toward making technology interactions more natural and intuitive.

Now that we've explored what conversational surveys are and how they leverage AI, let's examine some of the benefits they offer compared to traditional survey methods:

- Better data quality. Conversational surveys promote elaborated, thoughtful responses unconstrained by rigid multiple choice options. The AI also detects inconsistent or conflicting responses and can request clarification.

- Reduced survey fatigue. Participants are more willing to engage in conversational interactions repeatedly over time than fill out traditional survey forms over and over.

- Optimized for mobile. With chat-like interfaces, conversational surveys are designed for mobile-first, recognizing the continued shift toward mobile responses. 

- Dynamic questions. Smart bots can personalize questions and change conversation flow based on individual responses, digging into key themes.

- Higher response rates. Conversational surveys using AI and natural language typically achieve 3-5x higher response rates across customer, employee, and other audiences.

- Automated analysis. AI conversational platforms can automatically analyze open-ended conversations to detect themes, extract insights, identify trends, and quantify sentiment.

- Ongoing feedback. Conversational surveys allow for back-and-forth dialogue over time to continually gather feedback versus one-off surveys.

The end result is richer qualitative and quantitative insights uncovered far more efficiently than traditional survey methods.

While conversational surveys are versatile enough to apply across many different scenarios, some of the highest-impact use cases include:

- Net Promoter Score (NPS) - Gauge customer loyalty and satisfaction through open-ended discussions.

- Customer Effort Score (CES) - Understand ease and simplicity of customer experiences. 

- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) - Evaluate overall satisfaction with customer service, products, or experiences.

- Employee engagement - Check in regularly with employees to monitor morale, satisfaction, and productivity.

- Customer onboarding - Welcome new customers and guide them through account setup and early platform usage. 

- Customer support - Facilitate issue reporting and feature requests through conversational ticketing.

- Churn surveys - Identify reasons for customer cancellations and attrition through conversational exit surveys.

- Concept feedback - Test and improve products or features by gathering early feedback through conversational prototypes.

Across each of these examples, conversational surveys unlock more context, detail, and actionable data to drive customer-centric decisions.

 

For organizations looking to implement conversational surveys, solutions like Trove provide turnkey platforms to build AI-powered chatbots for survey administration and analysis. With easy bot setup and training, you can create everything from basic NPS bots to advanced conversational assistants capable of fielding complex dialogues.

Here are some best practices to accelerate your success with conversational surveys:

- Start small. Build your first bot for a focused use case like NPS to prove out the value.

- Set objectives. Define the key questions and metrics your conversational surveys aim to address.

- Monitor conversations. Review full dialogue transcripts to understand conversation themes and improve bot performance. 

- Implement across channels. Meet customers where they are by deploying conversational bots across your website, app, messaging platforms, voice assistants, and more.

- Make it natural. Train bots to converse informally, without robotic survey language. Drive engagement through personality.

- Continuous improvement. Leverage AI analytics and feedback to constantly refine bot conversations and provide smarter insights over time.

With the right foundation, conversational surveys enable ongoing listening programs across all customer and employee touchpoints. This empowers regular feedback exchanges that build trust, engagement, and loyalty.

As AI technology continues to mature, we're moving swiftly into a world of conversational interfaces. Chatbots, voice assistants, and interactive avatars will reshape how we engage with technology and each other. Conversational surveys represent an early domain where this future is already emerging in practical, valuable ways today.

With lower response burden, higher response rates, and richer insights unlocked, conversational AI paves the way for better listening and a stronger understanding of your customers and employees. The result is customer experiences that are more personalized, contextual, and human-centric.

So consider starting small, piloting conversational surveys for targeted use cases in your organization. Empower people to provide feedback in flexible conversations rather than filling out endless survey forms. By embracing this conversational approach, you'll build trust, demonstrate you're listening, and gain access to insights that drive positive change. The future of feedback is a conversation.