How to Design Customer Satisfaction Surveys
A customer satisfaction survey can be an effective tool for understanding a company's strengths and identifying areas that require improvement. A consumer's appraisal of your customer service may reflect an overall experience while doing business with you, but it also might hinge on a single element of the experience. A balanced survey will help you use your customer's evaluation — good or bad — in a constructive manner.
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Inquire about customer expectations and how they differ from what was experienced. Customers often base their satisfaction on their expectations. Asking about expectations may help to understand other responses. For example, a customer could give you a very poor rating not because the services or employees were inadequate but because they simply didn't get what they wanted. Asking about expectations may also give you an idea of how to improve your business to meet the expressed expectations of customers.
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Ask questions about products/services and employees. Customer satisfaction is usually determined by two key factors: the products and/or services and the employees. In order to get a comprehensive review, it is necessary to include questions about both. Using this strategy, you are better positioned to understand the source of any negative ratings that you might receive.
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Include both closed-end questions and open-end questions. Closed-end questions are those for which there is a predetermined or short answer. "Were you happy with the service you received today?" is an example of a close-end question because the answer can only be "yes" or "no" — unless it is a verbal survey and people elaborate more without prompting. "How would you describe our customer service today" is an open-end question. The customer is not limited to a yes or no answer.
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Anchor the customer satisfaction survey to a time, place, or other relevant factor. In some instances, it may be important to assess customer satisfaction or customer service during a designated time of the day or at a particular location (for multi-site companies). In this way, you may assess whether customer satisfaction varies based on these parameters. If you find, for example, that customer satisfaction is always poor during the morning hours, then you may investigate and resolve the problem.
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