Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Why bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. Although new customers are very important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and 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.
Online customer satisfaction surveys will help by not only identifying problem areas but show that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.
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Where do you start?
Objective – Before you start creating your survey clarify the objectives of the survey, in that way you will find it easier to decide what are the right questions to ask.
Analysis – In addition to the objectives consider how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey.
Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).
A great deal will depend on the predicted 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 advertise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
It is important that before you publish the survey that you check 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 maximise the benefit from a customer survey you must be prepared to take criticism.
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.
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What should you ask?
Although it is a given that 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 a customer telephones is the phone answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services properly handled? Good businesses will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.
If a problem cannot be 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 bricks and mortar store, is it conveniently located with good access?
Making it pleasant, making it easy – For a virtual business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.
Regardless of the store being a bricks and mortar or purely online web based store, is the store properly laid out and can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient detailed information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?
The right quality products – You should not only measure the quality of the service that you provide but you should also monitor that the products and services that you market are what the customer wants and closely match their expectations.
Value for money – Cheap or expensive is not always a good measure, value for money is.
Do your current customers consider the products you sell or the services you provide 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 any delay?
Customers like to be treated as individuals, how do you treat your customers? Customers appreciate attention but only if it leads to a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.
Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example what is their age group and where do they live?
The more knowledge you have of your customers the better you will be able to target your business.
As part of the survey allow your customers the opportunity to highlight any problems that they may have and provide you with contact details so that their problems might be later addressed and their concerns followed up.
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What next?
Having completed the survey analyze the results.
Trends – Look for specific and common areas where the customer service is found wanting.
Ask yourself if any criticism is valid and is there anything that can be done to resolve or minimise the problem?
Training – Are the staff 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 lose 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 interested in tracking customer satisfaction and would like to see a sample survey for a store that demonstrates some of the above advice please view the following example that can be used as a customer satisfaction survey template.
Filed Under: Marketing
