The survey URLs in this article are just examples. Your survey URLs will differ. You can find your exact survey URL in the View your URLs screen of the Portal.
Survey invitations
You control who you survey, how often and what you say in the survey invitation by configuring your customer support software to send survey invitation emails.
These survey invitation emails should be sent once you have resolved a customer's issue or fulfilled their request. The invitation email should make it clear which issue or request you are asking about.
Ideally, you will not send a survey every time a ticket is closed because you want to avoid spamming people with survey invitations. To do this you have three options, listed here from best to worst:
- If it is possible to do this with your software, we recommend never sending a survey invitation to the same person more than once in a given period (e.g. no more than once every four weeks). This means that customers who rarely interact with your support groups will always be surveyed, but more frequent customers will only be surveyed occasionally.
- If your software cannot be configured to do this, the next best thing is to only issue a survey once every 'x' closed tickets.You will need to choose a suitable 'x' based on the typical number of tickets that your support teams resolve each day. Although this will help prevent you from spamming customers who frequently interact with your support teams, this approach may result in you not surveying less frequent customers.
- If your software can only issue survey invitations for every ticket closed (e.g. where the survey invitation has to be included in the closure notification email), we recommend that you let all your customers know that this will be happening and encourage them to complete a survey every now and then.
Don't forget to include a description of the ticket in the body of the survey invitation email so that your customer knows which interaction they are being asked to provide feedback on!
Survey invitation email subject
The following short and to-the-point email subjects are examples of email subjects that are more likely to get the email opened rather than deleted:
- 2 minute survey on your recent interaction with IT
- Tell us what you think – 2 minute survey
- How was our service? 2 minute survey
- Your recent interaction with IT – tell us what you think
Here's an example of the body of a survey invitation email. We encourage you to experiment with different copy and to make sure the language suits your corporate style:
Hi (first name)
We want to provide you with fantastic IT support. Please take just 2 minutes to tell us what you think about your recent support experience.
(survey link)
We read every response and your feedback will help us improve our service in ways that are important to you.
Here's a reminder of what your ticket was about:
(ticket summary).Within the survey invitation email you can include either a hyperlink to the survey, or you can embed Q1 of the survey within the email itself.
If you wish to include a survey hyperlink in the email, read Method 1 below. If you prefer to embed Q1 of the survey, read Method 1 to understand the format of the survey URL and then read Method 2 to understand how to setup the embed.
If a survey is completed more than once for the same ticket, the more recent survey replaces the older survey. This prevents customers from accidentally or deliberately submitting multiple surveys for the same ticket.
This logic only applies if the second survey is completed within 30 days of the first survey. After 30 days, the second survey will be treated as separate feedback rather than as a replacement for the earlier feedback.
If you wish to allow multiple surveys to be completed for the same ticket, you must make the ticket number unique for each response, e.g. by appending -1, -2, -3 etc to the end of the ticket id.
Method 1 - Including a hyperlink to the survey
The survey URL can be found in the Portal under View your URLs.
Your customer support software will need to dynamically construct the URL so that CIOPulse can tag the survey with information about the ticket, e.g the ticket number and agent.
Here's an example of a survey URL. Yours will look similar (but not exactly like) this:
https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv
&tid=INC123456&rgid=ServiceDesk&[email protected]
&[email protected]&sgid1=AUS&sgid2=SALES
Let's breakdown that URL so that you can understand how to form it correctly. The survey URL start with a hardcoded prefix followed by a number of parameters that pass ticket-specific information through to CIOPulse.
In the example above, https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv is the hardcoded prefix. And these are the parameter names and values:
&tid=INC123456
&rgid=ServiceDesk
&sgid1=AUS
&sgid2=SALES
As you can see, each parameter name begins with a & and is followed by = and the parameter value. For example, &tid=INC123456 tells CIOPulse that the ticket ID for this survey is INC123456.
These two parameters are mandatory:
-
tidTicket ID. The ticket ID of the ticket for which a survey was issued. -
rgidSupport Group Code. The unique ID for the support group that resolved the ticket. Support Group Codes must contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), hyphens and underscores. Spaces are not allowed. You setup the list of your Support Groups, and the unique Support Group Code for each, in the Portal. This is described here: Setup Your Customer Support Groups.
These four parameters are optional but recommended. If you do not wish to use any of these parameters, do not include them in the survey URL.
-
agidAgent ID. A unique identifier for the agent who resolved the ticket. Many of our clients use the agent's email address for this parameter. Some use an employee ID. The agent's full name (including spaces, apostrophes and hyphens) is also acceptable provided their full name is unique. Spaces and apostrophes have to be URL-encoded in the URL (spaces replaced with %20 and apostrophes with %27). -
cidCustomer ID. An identifier for the customer whose ticket it was. This does not have to be unique. A first name, full name (including spaces, apostrophes and hyphens), email address or employee ID is acceptable. Spaces and apostrophes have to be URL-encoded in the URL (spaces replaced with %20 and apostrophes with %27). -
sgid1Segment Code 1. The unique code representing a Customer Segment - a meaningful grouping of customers for your organisation, e.g. location. Segment Codes must contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), hyphens and underscores. Spaces are not allowed. You set up the list of Customer Segments, and the unique Segment Code for each, in the Portal. This is described here: Manage Customer Segments. -
sgid2Segment Code 2. The unique code representing a Customer Segment - a meaningful grouping of customers for your organisation, e.g. business unit. Segment Codes must contain only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), hyphens and underscores. Spaces are not allowed. You set up the list of Customer Segments, and the unique Segment Code for each, in the Portal. This is described here: Manage Customer Segments.
The parameter values for rgid, sgid and sgid2 must be the codes for your Support Groups and Customer Segments (as set up in the Portal). These codes must only contain alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0-9), hyphens and underscores. However, if your customer support software cannot provide a code for these parameters, you can use a name instead. In the survey URL, these names must include %20 instead of a space. In the Portal, the corresponding Support Group and Customer Segment Codes must have no spaces. For example, &sgid1=South%20America in the survey URL will match the Segment with the Segment Code of SouthAmerica in the Portal.
The case of the hardcoded prefix, and of the parameter names must be exactly as shown in the View your URLs screen.
When a survey invitation is created by your customer support software it must generate the URL dynamically, providing the values for the query string parameters described above. Most enterprise customer support software includes this capability and can be configured to do this relatively easily.
Here are three examples of what the survey hyperlink might look like in your survey invitation email. One from Zendesk, one from ServiceNow and one from Marval. The HTML in these examples is broken down over several lines to make it easier to understand.
These URLs are just examples. Do not copy them!
Zendesk example:
<a href="https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv
&tid={{ticket.id}}
&rgid={{ticket.group.id}}
&agid={{ticket.assignee.email}}
&sgid1={{ticket.requester.locale}}
&cid={{ticket.requester.email}}
">Click here to complete the survey</a>ServiceNow example:
<a href="https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv
&tid=${number}
&rgid=${assignment_group.sys_id}
&agid=${assigned_to.email}
&sgid1=${caller_id.location.city}
&sgid2=${caller_id.cost_centre}
&cid=${caller_id.email}
">Click here to complete the survey</a>Marval example:
<a href="https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv
&tid=[REQUEST_NO]
&rgid=[ASSIGNEE_GROUP]
&agid=[ASSIGNEE_MAIL]
&sgid1=[CUSTOMER]
&cid=[CUSTOMER_ID]
">Click here to complete the survey</a>Only Support Groups (for the rgid parameter) and Segments (if you use the sgid1 and sgid2 parameters) need to be setup in the Portal. CIOPulse does not need any information about individual Agents (agid) or Customers (cid).
If your CIOPulse subscription includes multi-language capability (you have an Enterprise license), the hardcoded prefix of your survey URL (specifically the &sc= parameter value) will vary for each language. Your customer support software will have to determine which language survey to issue to each customer and use the correct prefix accordingly. We will provide you with the correct URL prefix to use for each language.
If you want to view/test the survey itself without the survey being saved to the database, add &discard to the end of your survey URL.
If you would like to minimise the number of email addresses that CIOPulse stores in its database (e.g. for security and privacy purposes), you could use the following in the survey URL instead of an email address:
For the agent (agid): Personnel ID, OR full name, OR the local part of their email address (to the left of the @).
For the customer (cid): Personnel ID, OR first name, OR full name, OR the local part of their email address (to the left of the @).
Use of Personnel IDs, or an equivalent unique code, would provide you with a high level of security while still enabling you to associate feedback with specific people. No-one who was able to gain unauthorised access to CIOPulse would be able to identify your agents or customers (unless they also had access to your HR data).
If you like the idea of using the local part of the email address for agents and/or customers (e.g. alan.agent instead of [email protected]), you have the option of passing the full email address through in the agid and cid parameters and telling CIOPulse to strip out the domain name (@democorp.com) for you. This is done via the 'Remove Email Domain' setting in the Portal. See here for more information.
Method 2 - Embedding Q1 of the survey in the survey invitation email
Before choosing to embed Q1 in your survey invitation emails, test that it works on the email software/devices used by your customers. There are hundreds of different email clients on various device types and operating systems, and they each have different levels of support for HTML and CSS.
Instead of including a hyperlink to the survey within the survey invitation email, you can embed Q1 of the survey directly within the email. This will enable customers to provide a rating by clicking on the scale within the email. Your customer will then be taken to Q2 of the survey within their browser, with Q1 already completed.
To embed Q1 of the survey, you will need to include some HTML within your email template. This HTML can be found in the Portal under View your URLs.
The embed code is provided for three different size embeds - small, medium and large. Click on the size you prefer and the HTML for the embed will be displayed.
If you look at the HTML, you will see that it includes eleven survey URLs - one for each satisfaction rating (0 to 10). Each of these eleven URLs is identical except for a &rating= parameter at the end, which varies from 0 to 10. When your customer support software produces the survey invitation email, it will have to append all the parameters that pass ticket-specific information through to CIOPulse. These are described in detail in Method 1 above.
For example, the HTML will end up with eleven URLs that look like this:
https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv&rating=0&tid=INC123456&rgid=ServiceDesk&[email protected]
&[email protected]&sgid1=AUS&sgid2=SALES
through to:
https://survey.cio-pulse.com/?tc=ts&sc=ABCXYZ&cpc=QRStuv&rating=10&tid=INC123456&rgid=ServiceDesk&[email protected]
&[email protected]&sgid1=AUS&sgid2=SALES
If you have access to an HTML developer, you can create your own embed HTML if you wish. The only mandatory component within the HTML is the eleven survey URLs.