Who on earth is not using surveys for their subscription box business?
And if not, why not?
Have you ever wondered what your customers liked or didn’t like about your box
Who are your customers really? Do you know or are you guessing?
Wondering why people are really cancelling?
It’s time I told you about one of my favourite hacks for getting the information and market knowledge you need to know, without driving yourself crazy and doing tons of work.
Setting these up in our business has been critical in helping us understand our customers, grow our box to 10,000+ subscribers and almost $6 Million on sales in just the last few years
I am 100% certain every founder reading this will get unbelievably valuable information from implementing these tactics in this post.
Let’s talk about Surveys!
And not just surveys, Surveys paired with their best friend, Email automations!
In our business we’ve been running these side by side for years and gathering a treasure trove of opinions, thoughts and data on our customers and products completely on autopilot.
Combining surveys with email automation is the most powerful, effective and mind bogglingly easy way to increase your understanding of your customers, what they like and what they love about your business
So, here’s 3 examples of surveys you should set up in your sub box business right away…
1. New customer survey
Triggered when – new customer signs up to your box
Email sent after: 1 hour
Here’s what you should ask:
- Why did you sign up to this box?
- What are you hoping to receive in your delivery?
- Have you been thinking about signing up for a while?
- What is your age & gender?
- Where did you hear about us?
1. Knowing the answers to this question is going to be completely eye opening to figure out WHY people actually sign up to your box. When you know that, you can reflect this in your marketing to future customers. If you see some common themes appearing, this is the angles you should go after when creating emails/ads or any other communication about your box.
It is also very useful information if you ever want to raise finances or deal with an investor or bank, being able to clearly articulate the need you are meeting will allow you to be more believable and confident in your product when talking about it with anyone.
2. Knowing what people’s expectations are will allow you to meet them going forward, maybe there’s a simple perk or value-add that could make people fall in love with your box right away, and avoid nasty reviews from people not enjoying the first box.
3. This will reveal some objections and why they eventually overcame them to become a customer. Was it something you said or did that pushed them over the line? Do it again! These are great to answer in your abandoned cart or sales emails, as likely other people are having the same objections and need you to clear them up for them before they sign up.
4. Always useful to know exactly who is signing up, maybe you’re targeting the wrong market and a simple tweak could 3X your sales. Maybe you’re not selling to the homey lady, maybe her husband is buying for her instead?
5. Very useful to know which marketing channels are working so you can double down on them, and increase your sales. Tracking has become skewed recently so the best person to ask is the new customer you just got.
2. Current customer survey
Triggered when – new customer signs up to your box
Email sent after: 1-3 months
Questions:
- What do you love about my box?
- What do you hate about my box?
- If you could change ONE thing what would it be?
- Would you refer me to a friend? Why or why not?
- Anything you feel is missing from the product or service you receive?
These questions will give people plenty of opportunity to tell you what they do and don’t like about your box and your business.
Yes, I know we’re almost asking the same question in different ways but you want to avoid the 10 star and 1 star people. Some people will always love you and others will always be difficult to please.
The people in the middle that say yes I liked this but I didn’t like that usually have the most candid and useful feedback for you as a business owner to tweak things a little.
You also might come up with some new ideas to add value by knowing what people feel is missing. You could always charge more for adding these things by the way, doesn’t mean you tear up the current product, just add on other options for customers
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3. Cancelled customer survey
Questions:
- Why did you cancel your subscription?
- Would you ever come back?
- If not, why not?
Put simply, asking people why they cancelled allows you to solve that reason for cancelling for future customers. You may also set up a process to reach out directly to people that have cancelled via email to try and bring them back. This is gold because re-activating an old customer by solving their problem is always cheaper than paying to find a new customer.
We ask question 3 because it’s important to know how you are really burning people.
Unfortunately things happen that you can’t avoid like you get let down by suppliers or couriers, or your fulfilment or CS team drop the ball. This question gives you an idea on what you really need to avoid doing in order to at least have a chance of winning people back.
When doing this survey, be careful around the answer:, I cancelled because it’s too expensive – everyone says it is too expensive, but what they really mean is they don’t see the value in getting it anymore
You’re usually not selling a product they actually can’t afford…
People will tell you they can’t afford your $30 box by typing an email on their $1200 iPhone
It’s always an easy cop out, and people use it to avoid the real reason why they want to cancel. But can derail your plans for your business if you put too much weight on it – having you tearing your hair out to reduce the price of everything.
People have been saying our boxes are too expensive for 6 years, yet we’ve increased prices a couple of times since then and still have no trouble getting people signed up.
To avoid this answer in your sureys, you could have a pre-populated response something like ‘it’s not good value for money’ rather than ‘it’s too expensive’
3B Bonus – The ‘Why not?’ survey
Triggered – 30 days after someone joins your list on your website and has NOT become a customer yet
Question:
1. Why did you not sign up to my box?
Again, get the #1 objection people have to signing up to your box, and answer that objection on your website. The next person who comes to your website with that objection, that won’t stop them from signing up if their fears are addressed. Repeat.
So, by setting these up in automations with triggers, you can get hundreds or thousands of responses from different people all in the exact same place in their buyer journey
You can literally climb inside people’s heads and see what they think about your business form beginning, to middle to end.
Pro tip: Capture people’s emails in the last question to give you a lead to follow up with directly if needed 😉
This is invaluable information for you to fine tune your marketing, improve your product and reduce your churn, and it takes very little time to set up and requires 0 ongoing maintenance once done
Another note, take these responses based on weight of answer, if one person says they hate this or that then so be it, if 70 out of 100 say it then it’s time to take action, don’t get bogged down by one or two snotty people listen to the crowd and make informed business decisions
These tips will literally turn you into a customer focused genius and you’ll be well on your way to 100, 1000 or 10000 subscribers 🚀
OK Sub Box buddies – Get to work setting these up in your business and tell me what you find 😉