Customer Satisfaction Survey Tips

When you survey your customers, you are sending a message not only to customers, but also to your employees. Both customers and employees know that you are focused on the quality of your services and/or products when they see that you are paying attention to customer satisfaction. In fact, you can even improve customer satisfaction before the survey results are tabulated. If employees know you are monitoring customer satisfaction, they will pay closer attention to the customer service they provide. Customers will also see that you are listening to their concerns, which can give them an outlet for any frustrations they might have. There are 3 very important keys to getting the most out of this process and making sure it does not backfire on you:

1. Planning - Take time to think about what you want to learn from the results and construct questions that will gather these data. Broad questions like "How satisfied are you with our customer service" are of little use by themselves since they do not tell you what you might be doing right or wrong. Be as specific as possible when constructing questions. You should also include a couple "write-in" questions that allow respondents to provide comments. Even though qualitative data are more time-consuming to analyze, they can reveal invaluable information.
2. Communication, communication, communication - You must communicate to both your customers and your employees that you are interested in customer feedback. Get the message out and make sure both customers and employees know that customer service is a priority in your organization. This is your chance to match words with actions!
3. Follow-up is critical - You must manage the customer satisfaction assessment process through to completion. If you fail to do this, customer frustration can increase. Once a customer has told you what you are doing wrong, he or she has an increased expectation that you will do something about it. If employees do not see any outcomes from the survey, they will quickly note that you are not "walking your talk" and realize that customer satisfaction is not a priority in your organization.
4. Involve your people - Ask employees in your organization if they see any customer service issues and ask them what they would do to resolve the issues that are raised. If you involve them in the process, it will be easier to get their buy-in when you implement changes.
5. Close the loop - Once you have made changes, let your customers and employees know. Briefly remind them of the survey and explain what changes you made as a result. You might invite additional feedback at this time as well.
6. Re-assess - Take a look at how your changes are working after 6, 9, or 12 months. A quick survey of your customers will tell you if the changes you made are working or if perhaps you still need to tweak things a bit. Better yet, make customer feedback an ongoing part of your business so you can continuously track and improve upon your level of customer satisfaction.