Customer satisfaction surveys are used to evaluate how well a company is performing.
Customer satisfaction surveys are used to evaluate how well a company is serving its patrons. Surveys are used to measure opinion, satisfaction, attitude and interaction between customers and employees, according to the National Business Research Institute (NBRI). Business owners hope to use these surveys as a tool to help make improvements and to keep current customers faithful while also gaining new ones. Asking the right questions is crucial in getting answers that will be useful.
Interview
Conducting interviews with customers and employees can help you understand the questions you should ask in your survey. By interviewing a random sampling of customers, you can be sure you are not overlooking important details. Employees can also inform you of the concerns they hear the most from customers.
Company Questions
Customer satisfaction surveys should include questions about the company as a whole. These questions are typically at the beginning of the survey and include broad questions to get an overall consumer view of your business.
Specific Questions
The majority of your survey should be concerning the specific services rendered. For example, KeySurvey suggests asking about wait times, the courtesy and knowledge of your staff, the ease with which the problem was solved and accuracy. This information is used to evaluate the exact areas where customers are satisfied or dissatisfied.
Loyalty Questions
The goal of the customer satisfaction survey is to ensure the company is performing well enough to hold on to its current customers. This is why it is important to ask questions that pertain to loyalty, not just satisfaction. You should include questions about how likely the person is to use your services again, or how likely they would be to recommend using the service to a friend.
Competitor Questions
Ask questions about how you compare to your competitors. You can ask general questions about how you relate to others in your field, or you can ask them to rate your company along with other specifically-named companies.
Branching Questions
Branching questions are used in reply to specific questions earlier in the survey. If you would like to know the specific reason a customer was dissatisfied, you can ask for further explanation.
Survey Tips
In order to have an accurate evaluation, you must also have historical data. There is no way to analyze your current data for improvements if you have no historical information with which to compare it.
Customers are much more likely to complete surveys that are fifteen minutes or shorter, according to KeySurvey.
Offering an incentives, such as a percentage off the next order, is a good way to ensure that the customer will complete the survey.
Make sure that those surveyed know their answers are important and will be used for improvements where necessary.
