Guest experience surveys give your guests a platform to express how they feel about your attraction.
Considering that their satisfaction levels will determine whether or not they’ll purchase a ticket from you again, it’s important for you to check in with them regularly. If you’re not sure how to begin asking your guests for feedback, this guide will walk you through the process.
What is a guest experience survey?
Why are these surveys important?
How long should it take a customer to complete it?
3 different types of guest experience surveys
- Net Promoter Score (NPS) Surveys
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys
- Customer Effort Score (CES) Surveys
What is a guest experience survey?
A guest experience survey is a questionnaire that aims to capture guests’ feelings about your attraction. Specifically, the survey will ask guests to rate their satisfaction level about particular aspects of their experience. This can include every interaction from pre-visit customer service phone calls to the actual visit.
This kind of survey helps attractions gather feedback about significant touchpoints in their customer journey. Your attraction can then use the data collected from these surveys to decide where to focus your energy.
The first step in creating a guest experience survey is deciding what you want to measure.
If you want to know how your guests feel about your overall attraction, then you’d send them a survey following their visit asking them to rate the experience. But you can also survey them on more specific aspects, such as asking whether they enjoyed a new exhibit at your museum or the new restaurant options in your theme park.
Guest experience surveys are also commonly sent after a meaningful interaction with your team, such as following a customer service email.
These surveys always share the common goal of gathering as much feedback as possible so that you can continue to improve your guest experience.
Why are these surveys important?
If your guests are exiting your venue with a smile on their faces, you might assume they have no complaints. Yet you won’t be sure until you start a conversation with them.
That’s where a feedback survey comes in. It’s a casual way to start communicating with your guests about how they feel. When you ask guests to share their opinions with you, you’re showing them that you value their feedback.
Consider that registering a complaint through a survey can be less intimidating than doing so in person. Your guests might actually have a lot to say about your attraction, yet you may never hear from them unless you make the first move.
The data collected from your guest experience surveys will tell you how well you’re meeting expectations. Survey tools and customer experience software can help you track satisfaction over time. You’ll also be able to spot changes in real-time. If negative reviews start pouring in, you can quickly address the issues that are causing them.
How long should it take a customer to complete it?
Your surveying efforts will fall flat if you can’t get enough responses. There are many ways to boost your survey response rates — and keeping your survey as short as possible is a major one.
Most successful surveys take just a few minutes to complete. This is because people don’t typically view surveys as the most fun thing to do in their spare time. The word “survey” itself can already cause someone to run in the opposite direction, especially if you catch them at a busy time.
Yet if you present your survey as a quick, easy-to-get-through questionnaire, your guests are more likely to complete it.
Ideally, your survey should take anywhere from 3 to 5 minutes to complete. You’ll want to promote this figure in your survey introduction by saying something like, “If you could spare just five minutes of your time…” This helps set proper expectations for your guests.
If your survey takes longer than 12 minutes, they’re likely to abandon the survey before finishing it.
3 different types of guest experience surveys
Many times, a single-question survey can provide context on where you are exceeding guest expectations and where you can improve.
There are three proven customer experience survey types that can tell you a lot about how guests view your company: The Net Promoter Score, Customer Satisfaction Score, and Customer Effort Score.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) Surveys
NPS is a metric used to measure customer loyalty, which typically correlates with guest retention and more ticket sales. This is because loyal guests will return to your attraction for repeat visits as well as speak positively about their experience to others — therefore bringing you more bookings.
NPS surveys ask the following question to measure that loyalty:
- How likely are you to recommend this product or service to a friend or colleague?
Respondents are asked to answer with a rating of 0 (not at all likely) to 10 (extremely likely). The guests that answer with a 9 or 10 are considered your “promoters,” or your strongest brand advocates. Those that answer with a 6 or below are considered “detractors,” and they’re the ones you need to focus on. Detractors are likely to speak negatively about your attraction in public and even discourage others from visiting — unless you can change their mind beforehand.
When you subtract the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters, you’ll have your NPS score. The higher your score, the happier your guests.
NPS surveys are best used after your customers reach a big milestone with your company, such as after a first visit. They’ll take every interaction into account when responding, which will give you a sense of how well your overall guest experience is meeting expectations.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) Surveys
CSAT surveys are a more straightforward way of asking guests if they’re happy with a service or not. Your CSAT score can be derived from the responses. The metric can be used to track satisfaction over time, as well as see where you stand against your competitors.
CSAT surveys ask the following question to measure customer satisfaction:
- On a scale of 1 (very unsatisfied) to 5 (very satisfied), how do you feel about your experience?
To calculate your score, you’ll take the number of satisfied customers who responded with a 4 or 5 and divide it by the total number of responses. Then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
Unlike an NPS survey, a CSAT survey elicits an emotional response based on a recent interaction with your company. This is why CSAT surveys are best used to measure short-term customer satisfaction, such as after a support call, sales interaction, event, or online checkout.
Customer Effort Score (CES) Surveys
The Customer Effort Score measures the ease of interacting with your company. Businesses that make it easy for customers to resolve issues have positive customer satisfaction scores. Those that make customers exert too much effort, on the other hand, risk losing those customers.
CES surveys ask the following question to measure customer effort:
On a scale of “very easy” to “very difficult,” how easy was it to interact with [attraction name]?
CES surveys can be deployed immediately after any customer service interaction, such as after a guest calls in to request a refund. This way, you can identify and address any bottlenecks that are negatively impacting your guest experience.
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All three of the guest experience surveys discussed in this post can bring your company valuable insight into how your guests are feeling about your attraction.
Surveys make it easy for your guests to share their opinions with you, and the feedback you receive will help your attraction improve in the areas that matter most
