Designing Customer Satisfaction Surveys that Work

Why should you bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although you should try and attract new customers good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and encourage repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.

A customer satisfaction survey will help by not only identifying problem areas but will also demonstrate to your customers that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

 

Where to start?

Objective - Before you start compiling your survey consider what the objectives of the survey are, in that way you will remain focused and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis - Having completed the survey consider how you will analyze the answers.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where a respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are much easier to analyze than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

A lot will depend on the expected volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analysing the results.

Opportunity – Keep in mind that as well as obtaining valuable market research data customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

Before you publish the survey confirm that the questions you have asked will provide you with market research data that when analyzed will help you make informed decisions.

Next, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

• Market research - provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
• Marketing - promote aspects of your business
• Information/Education - advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

By asking this question not only will the store receive good feedback on the facility they provide but they will also advertise their baby changing facilities and promote themselves as a family friendly store beyond those customers who have a specific need for the facility provided.

Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to dig deep and accept the worst.

A well designed customer satisfaction survey will enable you to identify problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and give you early warning on where you might be losing out to your competitors initiatives.

 

What to ask?

Although each business is likely to have specific and unique factors that are important in providing good customer services there are common areas that are relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online internet store or a service industry. The following are some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication - Do you do anything to help your customers communicate with you?

When customers telephone are their calls answered quickly; are their enquiries about products or services handled properly? Good businesses will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, politely, quickly and fairly.

If a problem is not resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to confirm that your customers find all your staff to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Do your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, is it conveniently located with good access?

Making it pleasant, making it easy - For an internet business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.

Physical store or online website, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide match your customers’ requirements.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.

Do your current customers consider your services as value for money, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Regardless of the type of business most customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid delays?

Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is appreciated but it needs to be followed up with a quick and satisfactory resolution to the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example their gender, age group and where they live?

The more you try to understand your customers the better you will be able to target your business.

Within the survey encourage customers to highlight any problems and provide contact details so that their concerns can be investigated and followed up.

 

What next?

Analyze the results once the survey has been completed.

Trends – Look for common and specific areas where the service is failing.

Ask yourself honestly if any criticism that you receive is valid and if there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?

Training – Are all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

Where employee training programmes have been implemented have they made a positive contribution to the business and improved the customer service?

Follow-up – If a customer has raised a specific issue through completing a survey ensure that they are contacted and that their complaint is properly addressed.

Do not squander the opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor - Make changes based on the survey results and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.

If you are concerned about customer satisfaction and what to view a sample survey for a store that will demonstrate some of the above advice please visit:- Sample Customer Survey