Benefit Consultants Blog

Why should you bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. Although new customers are important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With each satisfied customer your business is likely to win many more customers through recommendations and remember, if you are not taking care of your customers, your competition will.

Online customer satisfaction surveys 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 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 - When the survey is complete consider how you will analyze the answers.

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 lot will depend on the 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.

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.

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 market research feedback on the facility they provide but they will also promote their facilities and advertise themselves as a family friendly store, even beyond those customers who have a specific need for the baby changing facility that has been 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 customer satisfaction survey should be designed to identify any problem areas so that they can be fixed; conducting regular customer satisfaction will help prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where you may be losing business 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 some key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication - Do you make it easy for the customer to contact you?

When a customer telephones is the phone answered promptly; are enquiries about products or services properly handled? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, politely, quickly and fairly.

If there are 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 your customers find all your staff to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Are you doing everything you can to ensure that your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, does it have good access and is it conveniently located?

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.

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.

Is your business associated with value for money by your customers, 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? 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 where do they live and what is their age group?

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 their problems and provide contact details.

 

What next?

Once the survey has been completed analyse the results.

Trends – Look for specific and common areas where the service needs improving.

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 customer service training programs have been implemented have they had the desired effect and improved the customer experience?

Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue do all you can to ensure that their complaint is addressed.

Do not lose a customer by squandering an opportunity to resolve a problem.

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

How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Writing surveys is easy; isn’t it? The reality is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is a little bit more difficult. The following tips will help you write more effective surveys.

1. What is the survey’s purpose?

There are many reasons for conducting surveys and questionnaires. 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 its purpose.

2. Give the survey a good title

The survey title represents an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so encourage them that the investment they make will be worthwhile.

3. Keep the length of the survey as short as possible

Every question that is asked should be asked for a reason. Pay attention to the ‘need to know’ questions and minimise ‘nice to know’ information.

4. Use plain English, avoid jargon and acronyms, maintain consistency and don’t ask questions that may result in ambiguous answers

Be careful when wording the question. If a question is unclear then there is every chance that respondents may understand the question differently to that intended by the publisher making any analysis of the data worthless or at the very least suspect.

5. Avoid long questions

Where practical use concise sentences. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.

6. Ask one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and golf?’

7. Avoid influencing the answer

It is important to 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 answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Allow the respondent 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 “Can’t say”, “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

Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” - ‘less than 1 year’, ‘between 1 and 3 years’ and ‘more than 3′.

10. Ensure that the questionnaire flows

Group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.

11. Target your respondents carefully

You may want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents that don’t match your target profile.

12. Provide a channel for your respondents to expand on their answers or make comments

Allowing respondents to make additional comments 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 that for large sample collections it may prove difficult to analyze 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 not used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any contact information destroyed after the survey is complete.

14. Weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. However in some cases allowing respondents to remain anonymous will allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Give careful consideration to the best response format

Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data single selection radio buttons are easier to analyze than multiple selection check boxes. Do not use a check box format if a radio response format would do.

16. Give the respondent an idea of how much time the survey will take

Respondent drop out can become a problem 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 that the participants can determine the best time to complete the survey.

17. Inform respondents of the survey end date

Try and encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of 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 pilot survey to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to confirm that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey check the survey several times

Check and then check again that a survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.

20. Thank the respondent

To complete surveys respondents have to devote their time and should be thanked either in a covering letter, at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to consider incentives such as a prize draw or reward.

For further information please visit Survey Galaxy