Customer Satisfaction Surveys Work
Why should you 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 each satisfied customer your business will secure many more customers through word of mouth and you should always keep in mind that if you are not taking proper care of your customers there is always a competitor 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.
Where do you start?
Objective – As a first step decide what the main objectives of the survey are, in that way you will be able to retain focus and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.
Analysis – When the survey is complete consider how you will analyze the answers.
Bare in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where the respondents are asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are easier to analyse than questions that are ‘open’ (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).
A great deal 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 – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to advertise areas of your service that your customers may not be aware of.
After you have drafted your survey read through the survey from a market research view point and check that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that with the feedback information you will be able to make informed decisions.
Then, 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 avoid the temptation, in any way, of attempting to sugar coat the survey.
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 questions should you ask?
Each business is likely to have unique factors in relation to providing good customer services however there are common areas that are going to be relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online store or a service industry. The following are key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication – Do you make it easy for the customer to contact you?
When a customer telephones is their call answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.
If customers reported problems that 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 all your staff are perceived by your customers as being 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 easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.
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 customers consider that the products you sell or the services you provide are value for money, if not, why not?
Speed and attention – No matter what the business, the majority of customers will want to be dealt with quickly but attentively.
Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?
Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is one thing but only if it leads to a quick and satisfactory resolution to 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?
Understanding your customers more will allow you to properly 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.
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 if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?
Training – Are all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
If customer service training programs have been implemented have they improved the customer experience?
Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue ensure that they are contacted and their complaint addressed.
Do not waste an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.
Continuously Monitor – Based on the survey results make changes 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.
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