Want more responses to your driver surveys? Offer rewards points!

Tenstreet’s new study showing the impact of offering rewards points to drivers who complete satisfaction surveys

To tackle driver retention, many carriers use feedback surveys to learn directly from drivers about their pain points with the company. The surveys, naturally, become more valuable as more individuals complete them, providing additional data to analyze. Sometimes though, sending another reminder to complete a survey just isn’t enough to convince a driver to take the time to fill it out. Drivers are busy so an added incentive can make a big difference. But what type of incentive can be given that isn’t a resource drain on your organization?

This is where rewards offerings from Stay Metrics, now owned by Tenstreet, can come into play. Stay Metrics’ rewards programs can award points to drivers for any number of reasons; time spent with a carrier, accident-free miles, and training are just a few. Due to this flexibility, there is an opportunity to tie rewards and surveys together. If you are sending satisfaction surveys to your drivers, you want to receive as many responses as possible so you gain an accurate understanding of your fleet, and rewards points can provide extra motivation. Stay Metrics’ rewards programs offer thousands of items for drivers to claim with their points, catering to a variety of tastes.

But does rewarding drivers have the intended effect of increasing response rates?

To figure this out, we looked at data from 2020. We reviewed 69 clients who use our First Impressions survey (given to drivers shortly after they start with a carrier) and 70 clients using our Early Experience survey (given to new drivers several weeks later). We found that clients who offered rewards for completing the First Impressions survey showed, on average, a completion rate 10.6 percentage points higher than clients who did not offer rewards. Similarly, clients who offered rewards for completing the Early Experience survey had, on average, a completion rate 18.7 percentage points higher compared to those clients who did not offer rewards. This showcases the fact that offering some immediate benefit for filling out the survey paid dividends when reaching out to new drivers.

We also looked at results for our Ongoing Experience Survey (provided to a carrier’s entire fleet) for 36 carriers. Here we had some interesting findings as we learned that it took more than just a nominal amount of rewards to increase the completion rate. We discovered that when comparing clients who offered no reward points or a small amount (less than 4,000 points), to clients who offered a significant amount of points (4,000+), there was a jump in survey completion of 11.8 points. What does 4,000 points get a driver? To give some perspective, many DVDs can be received by redeeming 2,000-6,000 points.

Using Rewards To Build A Smart Survey Strategy

When building a survey program to gauge driver satisfaction and commitment, think about driver motivations for filling out the survey. There will always be some drivers who will complete the survey no matter what due to their own intrinsic motivation, and others who will never fill it out. Building in a reward for survey completion helps you capture those drivers on the fringe who may think their time is best spent elsewhere and need that extra nudge.

For surveys given to new drivers, a smaller amount of points rewarded may be sufficient, as these drivers have not built up a significant amount of rewards points in their accounts yet and are likely looking for ways to earn enough points for their first rewards shopping experience. For recurring surveys, like our Ongoing Experience survey, a larger number of points will be necessary to entice drivers to share their feedback since they may already have a significant number of accrued points and may have taken your survey in the past, making them less motivated to take it again.

“This data shows how important it is to have a strategy in place for not just distributing your driver satisfaction surveys, but also for encouraging completion as well,” stated Brad Fulton, Director of Research & Analytics for Stay Metrics. “By utilizing our survey and rewards programs together, carriers can optimize survey completion while providing additional recognition to drivers.”

To learn more about how our rewards are structured and the variety of items available, contact Tenstreet for a demo today.

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