Transactional survey

A transaction, in survey language, is any single interaction: opening an account, checking into a hotel, collecting a prescription, calling the helpdesk. A transactional survey measures how that one interaction went. It is the opposite of a relational survey, which asks about the overall relationship at regular intervals, independent of any particular event.

Transactional surveys are also called “touchpoint surveys” or “event-triggered surveys”, because they are launched by the event itself — a checkout, a closed ticket, a completed appointment — rather than by a calendar.

Immediacy is the whole design. Memory of a single interaction fades within days, and so does the chance to recover a bad one. Match the channel to the touchpoint:

Interaction	Channel	Timing
Branch, store or clinic visit	Kiosk or tablet at the exit; QR code at the desk	At the moment the visit ends
Phone or remote service	SMS or email	Within an hour or two
Delivery or installation	SMS with a short link	Same day
Online purchase or booking	Web widget or email	After the action completes
Support ticket resolved	Email	When the ticket closes

Keep it under a minute — typically one rating, one optional open question and, at most, one or two attribute questions:

• CSAT: “How satisfied were you with your visit today?” (five smileys or 1–5)
• CES: “How easy was it to get your issue resolved?” (1–7)
• Transactional NPS: “Based on today’s visit, how likely are you to recommend us?” (0–10)
• Attribute: “How would you rate the waiting time?”
• Open: “What is the main reason for your score?”

Reference the interaction explicitly (“today’s visit”, “your call on Monday”) so the customer answers about that event, not their general opinion. More question ideas are in our list of customer feedback survey questions.

• Score per branch, service, team and hour — transactional data is valuable precisely because it is this granular.
• Bottom-box share — the percentage of clearly negative answers that need follow-up.
• Response rate per channel — to spot fatigue or broken devices early.
• Time to follow-up on negative answers — the transactional survey is only half the loop.

In Qmeter, each transactional channel (kiosk, QR, web link, SMS or email campaign) is tied to a branch and a survey template, and ticket rules can turn negative ratings into tickets with SLAs automatically. Kiosks work offline and sync when the connection returns. For the concept in more depth, see what is transactional feedback.

Example: a telecom operator sends an SMS survey one hour after every store visit and every closed support ticket. Over a month it collects 3,000 responses (example figure). Store CSAT is stable, but the CES score for “SIM replacement” is far below other services, and comments mention repeated identity checks. The process is shortened, and the next month’s CES for that service rises while the others stay flat.

Because a transactional survey is launched by an event, the trigger design decides who answers and when:

• Event — choose a clear, recorded moment: visit completed, ticket closed, order delivered. Avoid triggers that fire before the experience is over.
• Delay — immediate at physical locations (kiosk, QR), within an hour or two for remote service, after delivery for orders.
• Suppression — skip customers surveyed recently, especially frequent visitors, so the same person is not asked every week.
• Sampling — at very high volumes, a random share of transactions is enough for reliable scores and keeps fatigue down.
• Tagging — attach branch, service, team and channel to every response so results can be broken down without asking the customer.

• Sending it days later, when the memory and the recovery window are gone.
• Making it long. A transactional survey with fifteen questions becomes a relationship survey nobody finishes.
• Surveying every transaction of frequent customers. Use suppression rules to avoid survey fatigue.
• Collecting without follow-up. Negative transactional feedback that nobody acts on teaches customers not to answer.