After a recent visit to a big online retailers' website, I was invited to take a customer survey when I tried to exit without making a purchase. When given the chance, I'll sometimes take these — not because I love taking surveys, but because the questions brand retailers ask say a lot about what they can't answer through analytics alone. Want to know why your customer are abandoning their shopping carts? So do big-brand retailers, and they get their answers through surveys like these.

But surveys on their own are not always great sources for customer data. While it's great to ask a customer why they abandonned a cart visit , it's pointless to waste a customer's time by asking him questions that are better and more accurately answered through site analytics.