UFVenture.com

Why should you bother?

Good customer service is the life blood of any business. 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 you not only identify 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 to start?

Objective – Before you start compiling your survey you should first 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 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 expected 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.

Before publishing the survey read through the survey from a market research view point to confirm that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that your chosen answer format will provide you with feedback that will allow you to make informed decisions.

Then, from a marketing view point read through the survey, confirm 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?

In asking this question the store will hopefully not only receive useful feedback on the baby changing facility but they will also promote the store as being child-friendly even beyond the customers who actually require the facility.

Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to be prepared to dig deep and accept the worst.

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 to 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 – Do you make it easy for the customer to contact you?

When customers telephone are their calls answered quickly; are their 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, politely, quickly 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 check that your customers find 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 easy to use and aesthetically pleasing.

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 hardly ever a good measure, value for money is.

Are the products you sell or the services you provide considered by your customers to be 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?

A good business will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is important but so is 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?

By understanding your customers more, the better your chances of correctly targeting your business.

For customers who have specific problems allow them to provide details and contact details.

 

What is next?

Having completed the survey analyze the results.

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

Ask yourself honestly if any criticism that you receive is valid and if 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 who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue do all you can to ensure that their complaint is addressed.

Do not lose the 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.