How to Embed Survey in Emails: A Step-by-Step Guide

Email is one of the most common and useful mediums of official communication with your clients. So when it comes to surveying your customers and seeking them for feedback, email is one of the best ways to do it. However, it is not necessary that your customers will respond to your email surveys. They may just open it and leave it like any other spam or survey email. 

Here arises the need for something for collecting feedback that can engage them directly in the survey and increase their chances of responding to it to a large extent. Embedded email surveys serve this purpose well by taking you a step ahead towards obtaining survey responses.

In this article, we will explore what embedded email surveys are, how you can embed them in your emails, the types of questions to add to your surveys, and some best practices to leverage them to get maximum survey responses from your customers. Let’s get started!

TL;DR

• Embedded email surveys are those in which the first question of the survey is embedded or displayed in the email body itself along with the invitation message to take the survey.

• These surveys have a higher chance of getting responded to than regular email surveys as they engage the customers at the first sight of the email.

• Creating and sharing embedded email surveys is easy. You can easily create & customize the surveys, choose the option to embed the first question of the survey in the email, add recipients, and send the survey.

• You can use various types of questions in your embedded email surveys - metric questions like NPS, CSAT & CES questions, rating scale, button choice, picture choice, and checkbox-type questions.

• You should follow some practices while using embedded email surveys - keep the first question as a rating question, create short surveys, use an engaging subject line, share surveys at the right time, specify the purpose and estimated take taken to complete the survey, avoid asking questions you already know, and make sure the surveys are optimized for mobile devices.

• Zonka Feedback is one of the most effective email survey software that you can use to embed survey in an email. It also offers a free trial for 7 days.

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What are Embedded Email Surveys?

Embedded email surveys refer to those surveys that are directly integrated into the email body displaying the first question of the survey to the recipients, and allowing them to answer that question without taking them to another webpage.

As the customers respond to the first question, it gets recorded and the next question or the entire survey questionnaire opens on the screen.

What’s the Issue with Regular Email Surveys?

Regular email surveys contain one quick introduction to the survey, inviting the customers to take the survey followed by a hyperlink to the survey. The chances are high that the customers do not click on the survey link, or abandon their idea of responding to the survey if the survey link takes time to load. Embedded form surpasses this probability and directly engages your customers in the survey by displaying the first question.

Let’s learn the steps to embed surveys in your emails.

Steps to Embed Survey in an Email

You can easily create embedded surveys in emails with the help of an effective email survey tool. Here are the steps to embed a survey in the emails with the help of Zonka Feedback.

1. Create your Email Survey

The first step to sending an embedded email survey is to of course create a survey. 

• Navigate to ‘Surveys’ and add a new survey by choosing the option ‘Add New Survey’.

• Choose the relevant template among 100+ survey templates available. You can also choose to start a new survey from scratch.

2. Customize the Email Survey

When you have chosen a template to create your surveys or have started creating a new survey from scratch, the next step is to customize the survey as per your survey requirements.

• Choose among various available question types like metric questions, Likert scale survey questions, radio buttons, multiple choice questions, and more.

• Use features like skip logic and question branching to make your surveys dynamic for the respondents.

• Whitelabel your survey and add your own branding, style, and colors you want to give the look and feel of your brand.

• If you have audiences with different origins and language backgrounds, choose among various languages with the multilingual survey feature.

• Choose the first question as a rating question that you want to embed in your survey email. You can also choose among metrics questions like NPS, CSAT, and CES questions to make it an embedded question.

• Add the subject line and email survey invitation message as per your requirements.

3. Choose the option to Embed a Survey

Select the option to ‘Distribute’  the survey. There you will find options to send email surveys the way you want. 

While making the changes, select the Embed option. This will help you embed survey in Outlook, Gmail or other email messenger that you use. The first question will be embedded in your email body.

4. Add Recipients

Once you are ready with the email body, signature, and other settings, you can send your question-embedded email survey to your recipients. You can add your recipients in three ways:

• Manually — Add your respondents manually by adding the email IDs of your recipients.

• By CSV — Import CSV with email addresses. The CSV can also have additional data about respondents. 

• By List — Create a list of contacts in Zonka Feedback with new email addresses or previous respondents and send survey emails to them.

5. Preview and Send the Surveys

Like everything else in life, you should always cross-check your surveys as well. Preview the entire survey and if everything seems fine, you can finally send the embedded survey email to your customers.

Let’s review the types of survey questions that you can use while you embed survey in an email.

Types of Questions You Can Embed in Your Surveys

Here are the different types of questions that you can use in your surveys and then embed survey in Gmail or Outlook or any other messenger.

1. NPS Question

Net Promoter Score or NPS Survey question is one of the most popular metric survey questions used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction in terms of their likeliness to recommend a business to their friends and known ones. You can embed this NPS question in your embedded survey.

Based on your experience with our products and services, how likely are you to recommend us to your friends and colleagues on a scale of 0 to 10?

Here 10 means Most Likely to Recommend and 0 means Not at all Likely to Recommend. The customers can easily select one rating from the options of embedded question and take the survey.

2. CSAT Question

Customer Satisfaction or CSAT survey question is used to measure customer satisfaction by asking customers to express their levels of satisfaction with a particular product, service, interaction, or any aspect of your business. Here is an example of CSAT survey questions.

How satisfied are you with our products and services?

OR

How would you rate your recent interaction with our customer service team?

A five-point rating scale is provided to the customers to answer the CSAT question where a rating of 5 represents the highest customer satisfaction, and 1 represents the lowest or no satisfaction. Options can be embedded in the form of points, stars, adjectives from Poor to Excellent, or self-explanatory emoticons.

3. CES Question

Customer Effort Score or CES survey question is aimed at gauging people’s effort in doing business with you. A CES survey question is usually sent after customer support interactions or a ticket closure to understand if they were able to get the accurate resolution quickly without putting in much effort. The survey responses help in measuring agent performance and improving customer service in businesses. Here is the CES question you can embed in your email survey.

To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? “The company helped me enough to handle my issues and get my work done.”

A 7-point rating scale is provided to the customers to ask the extent of their agreement with the statement. The options are: Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Somewhat Disagree, Neutral, Somewhat Agree, Agree, and Strongly Agree.

4. Rating Question

A Rating Question is a closed-ended question that allows assigning numerical values or a graphical icon to answer choices that the survey respondent can select from. Each value on the rating scale is associated with an answer which helps businesses understand the perception and satisfaction levels of the customers. The idea behind these questions is to make it easier for the respondents to express their satisfaction without needing to write anything.

Rating questions can be 5-point rating scale questions, 4-point rating scale questions, 3-point rating scale questions, 2-point rating scale questions, or 1 to 10 rating questions.

5. Star Rating Questions

Star rating questions are those in which customers are asked to express their perceptions and satisfaction levels in the form of stars like 1 star, 2 stars, 5 stars etc. The higher the star rating, the happier are the customers with their experience.

The most commonly used star surveys are 5-star surveys that businesses use to measure customer satisfaction with a product, service, or business on a 5-point rating scale where 5 points is the highest rating, and point is the lowest rating.

6. Smiley Questions

Smiley face survey questions are also a good option to use in your email-embedded surveys. In these questions, self-explanatory emoticons or smileys are used as the answer options for the customers to respond where a smiley like a crying or angry face can be used to express dissatisfaction and a laughing or lovable face can be used to express high satisfaction and likewise.

7. Thumbs Up/Down Questions

Thumbs up/ thumbs down Survey question is another type of question that you can use in your embedded email surveys where you want to provide simple by-optional answer choices to the customers to express their feelings like Yes or No, Like or Dislike, Happy or Sad and likewise.

These survey questions are super fast, simple and easy to answer for the respondents and can considerably increase the response rate of your surveys.

8. Checkbox Questions

When you want to enable your customers to choose two answers for responding to certain questions, checkbox questions can be useful to include in your email-embedded surveys. In these questions, customers can check more than one box to choose multiple answers to respond to a question.

9. Button Choice (Radio Button) Questions

A Button Choice Question is a single-choice question that allows respondents to choose one of the answers to a multiple-choice question. Radio buttons are used with the answer choices of these questions. Using this in your email-embedded surveys can help you increase the likeliness of the customers to take the survey.

10. Picture Choice Questions

Picture choice questions allow you to give a pictorial representation of the options you add as answer choices in your survey questions. These questions are ideal to use in a survey where you want to explain options with the help of visual images. 

For instance, if you want to collect feedback regarding some product designs and ask the customers which design they like the most, you can use the pictures of those designs as answer choices so that the respondents can better understand and give accurate responses to the survey questions.

Let’s explore some best practices to embed a survey in emails and use the power of embedded email surveys.

Some Best Practices to Use Embedded Email Surveys

• Always use a Rating Question as the first question - your first question should be a rating question so that customers can click the option to answer that question. Starting with a rating question provides an immediate way for respondents to engage with the survey, making them more likely to continue and share their feedback.

• Use an Engaging Subject Line - The subject line is the first thing which a reader views when he receives an email. It would be fair to say that the reader's decision to open the email majorly depends on the subject line. So Craft a subject line that captures customers’ attention. A compelling subject line like ‘help us to serve you better’ or a question in the subject line can significantly increase the email's open rate and survey response rate.

• Create Short and Focussed Surveys - Embed a survey that is short and concise. Short, focused surveys are more likely to be completed by recipients. Avoid overwhelming them with an excessive number of questions and prioritize those that yield the most valuable feedback and insights.

• Send it at the Right Moment or as a Regular Survey - Timing matters when deploying embedded email surveys. Transactional surveys, sent after a specific customer interaction, can yield immediate and accurate feedback. On the other hand, relationship surveys, sent periodically, help maintain ongoing engagement and measure overall satisfaction.

• Specify Purpose and Time for Completion - Clearly communicate the purpose of the survey in the email, and explain to the customers how it can help you to serve them better. Also, provide an estimate of the time required to complete it like 2 minutes or 5 minutes. This transparency helps recipients understand the value of their participation and sets the right expectations about the timings, and they are less likely to leave the survey in between.

• Don’t Ask Questions You Already Know - Avoid asking questions for which you already have information like which product customers bought or which branch they visited. Focus on collecting new, relevant insights that can drive improvements in your products and services.

• Send Mobile-Responsive Surveys - Ensure that your email surveys are designed to be mobile-responsive. This way, respondents can easily complete the survey on their smartphones and tablets, leading to a higher response rate.

  
  

• Use an Effective Email Survey Software - Always use an effective and robust email survey software that streamlines the process of survey creation and sharing, and lets you embed survey in newsletter, and emails on all popular email platforms. Moreover, the tool you choose should offer valuable analytics and assist you in the complete process of customer experience management.

Zonka Feedback is one of the best email survey software tools that can serve all the purposes. It not only helps you create and share embedded email surveys and get a high response rate but also enables you to analyze and take action on the feedback data received to close the feedback loop effectively and improve customer experience.

It also offers a free trial. You can try it for free for 7 days and harness the power of embedded email surveys.