Why should you bother?
The life blood of any business is good customer service. 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.
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 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 – Consider how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey.
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 predicted 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.
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 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 highlight problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and will also give early warning on where your competitors initiatives may be losing you business.
What should you 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 key areas to providing good customer service.
Communication – Is it easy for your customers 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, 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 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 do in fact match your customers’ requirements.
Value for money – Cheap or expensive is rarely a good measure, value for money is.
Do your customers equate your business with value for money, if not, why not?
Speed and attention – Customers want their enquiries or queries 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 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 where do they live and what is their age group?
The better you understand your customers the more you will be able to properly target your business.
Encourage customers to highlight their specific problems and provide contact details so that their concerns can be followed up.
What next?
Having completed the survey analyse the results.
Trends – Look for common and specific 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 all employees properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?
Where staff training programmes have been implemented have they had a positive impact on the business?
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.
Don’t waste an opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.
Continuously Monitor – Make changes and then 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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