Cause Marketing Customer Satisfaction Surveys

The other day I bought a paper icon at a chain drugstore. The icon has a bar code and the clerk scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom of the receipt was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and I’m entered into a drawing for $10,000.

I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. The satisfaction survey at a regional seafood restaurant gives me a code that garners a free dessert when I complete their survey. Finish Home Depot’s survey and you’re entered to win a $5,000 gift card good at the retailer.

As I left the store I thought, ‘they know I just bought a paper icon. Instead of offering me and other people who buy the icon the chance to win $10,000, why wouldn’t they offer to donate $2 (or more!) to the cause in question whenever someone completes the survey?’

Why haven’t I ever seen this kind of cause marketing?

Cause marketing all about encouraging certain human behaviors in exchange for helping a cause that people care about. Framed that way customer satisfaction surveys qualify as natural fit for cause marketing.

My purchase of the paper icon demonstrates that I have some affinity for the cause in question. It’s not a big sweaty ordeal to write a couple of lines of code in order to change the pitch at the bottom of the receipt when I've purchased an icon.

Time is off the essence with these surveys. But since (according to the Cellular Telecommunications International Association) about 302 million Americans are wireless subscribers, retailers could even offer some sort of sliding scale whereby the sooner you call, the greater the donation, e.g.:

Answer the survey within 12 hours and the donation is $5.
Answer the survey within 24 hours and the donation is $3.
Answer the survey within 36 hours and the donation is $2.

The only real challenge would be explaining it simply enough in 30 words or less.

Most of these surveys can also be completed online, too. The retailer could probably even run the survey through Facebook and garner all the data it gathers. Online customer satisfaction surveys represent another chance to do some cause marketing and, perhaps, some marketing for the cause.

What do you think? Would you respond to a campaign like this? What would make it more appealing to you?

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