How to Design a Customer Survey
A good customer survey will provide important information that can lead to productive changes. You want to implement changes to help your business grow, but you can only do that if you truly know what your customers want and need. Creating survey questions that elicit helpful responses for those who will interpret the information is critical. The best way to develop those questions is to dare to ask questions that invite criticism of how well customers are being served.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- List of key customer concerns
- List of questions on time issues
- List of questions on phone calls
- List of questions related to money issues
- List of questions on overall satisfaction
- List of sensitive customer issues
Instructions
-
-
1
Ask survey questions that help customers think through their experience in doing business with your company. Include questions that allow customers to provide compliments of what is working well, but invite them to point out the truth about any areas of concern. Make a list of key areas that affect each customer. Write down general topics such as customers' initial contact with your company and how phone calls were managed.
-
2
Ask about time issues, money issues and the choices that customers are given. Help customers document their feelings about their experience with your company. Ask if they were served in a timely manner, given enough information about how to do business with your company and whether they are satisfied with the cost.
-
-
3
Think like a customer. Write the survey questions to get to the heart of what any customer would notice while doing business with you. Don't overlook important irritations, criticisms or concerns, since a problem of any significance always grows larger over time. Address the issues that are very sensitive in the near term to help smooth out business problems before they escalate.
-
4
Choose answers that offer degrees of disgruntlement. Offer a choice that states the customer is extremely concerned about an issue, for example. Offer other choices that state the customer is very concerned, somewhat concerned or not at all concerned. Pay attention to those customers who are extremely concerned about any problem stated. Place those issues on your list that will receive fast attention when revamping how you do business in the coming months.
-
5
Soften extreme issues in how questions are worded. Ask if customers are pleased with how employees treat them by asking if they are receiving enough employee attention, for example. Don't ask if customers like your employees, since that makes the issue too personal and hurtful for those you employ. Treat problems as issues that are fixable, not issues caused by people. Protect employees' feelings by asking customers if the company should spend time addressing certain issues via proper training.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Leave room in the survey for text to be written, if a customer wants to spell out a complaint. Take these personal issues into account for how to improve business, since you may not be able to actually guess what bothers customers. Invite them to write a paragraph or two about what they would like to improve about your business.
Make your survey relatively short to ensure people will complete it. Most surveys should be kept to roughly 20 questions. Have the survey available online, so results can be easily analyzed and printed.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Businesswoman At Desk image by Monika 3 Steps Ahead from Fotolia.com
