Designing Customer Satisfaction Surveys that Work
May 28, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
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
How to Write Effective Surveys
May 2, 2009 by · Leave a Comment
Designing surveys is considered easy; but is it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following twenty tips will help you write more effective surveys.
1. What is the purpose of the survey?
Surveys are conducted for many reasons. By phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in a multitude of ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of the survey’s purpose.
2. Give the survey a good title
The survey title is a golden opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and grab the attention of invited respondents. Respondents are going to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.
3. Keep the survey as short as possible
Every question that is asked should be asked for a reason. Focus on ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.
4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid jargon, acronyms and asking questions that could result in ambiguous answers
Word the question carefully. There is every chance that if respondents can interpret any question that is not clearly written differently to that intended by the survey’s publisher then any analysis of the survey results may be worthless or at the very least misleading.
5. Avoid questions that are long
Where practical use short sentences. Long questions can lead to a higher level of incidents where respondents abandon a survey.
6. Ask only one question at a time
Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and athletics?’
7. Do not influence the answer
Avoid loading the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.
8. Make sure that the selected answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked
Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “Don’t know”, “No comment” or similar response option.
9. While you are compiling your survey consider how the survey results are going to be analysed when the survey is complete
When asking questions that allow for a free text open ended response appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping answers. For example “Indicate your length of service?” - ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 4 years’ and ‘more than 4′.
10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows
When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.
11. Target your respondents carefully
In some cases you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t control who responds to your survey consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents who don’t match your target profile.
12. Allow respondents to expand on their answers and/or make comments
By allowing respondents to make additional comments you will increase their satisfaction level and the comments will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember though for a large sample collection it may be difficult to analyse free text open ended responses.
13. If you are conducting a confidential survey ensure that your pledge for confidentiality is honoured
If you have guaranteed the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and the information is not going to be used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed once the survey has finished.
14. Weigh up the advantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable
If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up or match “pre” or “post” surveys. In some cases allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.
15. Give careful consideration to the best response format
It is good practice to maintain a consistency in the format used for responses. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analysing the data radio buttons are easier to analyse than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. If a radio response can be used do not use a check box.
16. Inform the respondent as to how much time the survey will take to complete
Respondent drop out can occur if the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions. It is good practice to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.
17. Inform respondents of the survey end date
Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.
18. Pilot the survey
Before publishing a live survey publish a small pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.
19. Before publishing the survey proof read the survey several times
Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get a colleague to check the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.
20. Remember to thank the respondent
To complete surveys respondents need to invest their time and they should be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider an incentive such as a reward or entry into a prize draw.
For more information please visit Survey Galaxy
