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Running a successful business requires more than just a great product — it also means that you need to please your customers and ensure their satisfaction.
However, knowing whether or not you are delivering service that meets their expectations can be difficult if you don’t reach out to them. Many businesses assume they know what their customers want, when those assumptions can be very different from their customer’s experiences. That is why you need to consider ways of getting feedback from your customers through effective customer satisfaction surveys.
Your customers’ take on the quality of your products and the service you provide can go a long way in helping you improve, and can also help you grow your business through positive word of mouth.
This article is focused on giving you some sample questions that you can use in your surveys and through your chat tools to obtain that feedback, but before we get to that, let’s talk a bit about why this process is so useful.
Businesses have a lot to gain from relevant customer feedback. Here are some of the top reasons why this feedback is essential to your business:
The first thing you will know from the feedback you get from your customers is the level of their satisfaction. It is crucial to note that satisfaction and loyalty go hand in hand, and the latter will come only if the former is ensured!
But that will hopefully not be the only benefit you will realize. As you continue focusing on addressing issues raised and building improved satisfaction and loyalty, you can expect to reap rewards in increased sales and market reputation! The best way to gauge satisfaction would be to use rating-based questions (NPS model) in your surveys and ensure that the information is as unbiased as possible.
While you may think that you have done enough during your service rollout and delivery process in terms of ensuring your customers have easy access to you, the service and products you provide, your customers can help you pinpoint where you are not meeting their expectations.
Also, you can use the customer feedback to find out how a new product or brand is perceived in the market. With this information, you will know what you have to do to improve the product or service delivery to serve your clients better with a focus satisfaction.
The fact that you are seeking feedback from your customers is a clear indication that you value their opinion, a gesture they won’t fail to recognize. The engagement of your customers in decision making can go a long way in assuring them that they are valued, especially if you make the necessary changes.
The effect of such a move would be to retain customers and improve your reputation in the market. They are also likely to recommend your services and products to their friends and family.
If you’re requesting feedback publicly, for example through a review site, the reviews left by other customers can play a big part in attracting new customers. Reviews from third parties are often trusted more than claims made by the business themselves, so a good bank of public customer feedback can help to drive sales and service uptake by new customers.
The focus of many businesses is to ensure that their customers have the best experience possible using their products or services. As such, getting feedback from them can help you know what you need to do differently to ensure that they have the best experience. This is a very efficient way of creating a loyal clientele on which you can count as a reliable market.
Before you start planning what questions to ask, think about the following pointers. This will shape the process you follow for gathering customer feedback.
Your goals for collecting customer feedback will affect the type of questions you ask in your surveys. For example, if you’re aiming to improve processes, asking a question relating to processes specifically allows you to gauge what improvement needs to be made. If you’re looking to gauge and improve NPS, you’ll need an NPS-type question in there.
Once you’ve figured out your goals, you’ll need to craft questions that return the data you need to assess these areas. The wording of your questions needs to be clear and easy to interpret by your entire customer base. Confusingly-worded questions will only return confusing and unreliable data.
Questions worded in a biased way will return biased data. While all of us would love the feedback on our customer service functions to be nothing short of glowing, wording questions in a leading way that produces great scores isn’t an accurate or true reflection of your service provision. To truly drive service improvement, check that your questions are worded in a neutral way.
Most businesses choose to run surveys on a regular basis, so that they can track the change in scores over time. Consider how often is right for you, and for your customers. None of your customers should be made to feel annoyed by constant requests for feedback, so consider what frequency suits them best.
Would it be most helpful for you to get data from your entire customer base? Or is there a section of customers who you’re most interested in hearing from? Consider which of your customer segments is best positioned to give you the most useful data, and survey them accordingly.
Would it be most helpful for you to get data from your entire customer base? Or is there a section of customers who you’re most interested in hearing from? Consider which of your customer segments is best positioned to give you the most useful data, and survey them accordingly.
Many say that feedback given straight after a customer interaction is preferable to feedback received some time after it. The details of the interaction will be fresh in your customer’s mind and because of this, the information you receive will be more specific and useful. Consider how quickly you can get your surveys sent to your customers. It may be that you can take advantage of the survey tool in your live chat platform, for example, to get up-to-the-minute feedback on your service as it occurs.
Think about how you will administer the survey and collate the information received from your customers. Remember that the outcome is for you to be able to spot trends in the data and easily identify gaps and areas for improvement — the tool you use should support this. Asking for feedback via letter or email can be an easy way to get surveys sent, but collating the data afterwards and looking for trends can be time consuming. Using a survey tool online can help you to do this more easily, allowing you to create your question set and sending a link to customers for them to complete the survey online. Or, as mentioned before, you could take advantage of survey functionality in your live chat or telephony platform to collect data.
Feedback given publicly by customers — for example, through review sites online – can help to boost business if it’s good. Bad reviews, however, can be incredibly damaging. Consider whether your feedback should be viewable by future potential customers, or whether you want to keep the results of the survey internal for now.
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Learn moreFeedback given publicly by customers — for example, through review sites online – can help to boost business if it’s good. Bad reviews, however, can be incredibly damaging. Consider whether your feedback should be viewable by future potential customers, or whether you want to keep the results of the survey internal for now.
This template is designed to allow you to collect several different types of data from your customer base. The quantitative questions cover customer feedback on quality of service, knowledge and processes. There’s questions to allow you to gauge the quality of your service in comparison to competitors, as well as a general satisfaction rating you can use to benchmark your service overall. A NPS rating at the end complements this.
There’s also a section for qualitative feedback which can help provide a richer picture of the service your customer has received, allowing you to pinpoint more precise areas for improvement.
As the Customer Service Leader of [COMPANY], I would like to thank you for doing business with us. We know that the choices in the market are plentiful and we really appreciate the trust that you have placed in us in servicing your business.
In an effort to further improve our service, we would like to ask you for your feedback so that we are better able to meet your needs in the future. Thank you in advance for taking the time.
Sincerely,
[Leader Name]
[Company Name]
In thinking about your most recent experience, how would you rate the quality of the service you received?
Once again, thinking about your most recent experience, how would rate the knowledge level of the person that helped you?
How would you rate the process for getting your issues raised and addressed with us?
Overall how satisfied were you with our [Product/Service]?
In thinking about your most recent experience, how would you rate the quality of the service you received?
Based on your most recent experience with us, how likely would you be to recommend us to your friends and/or colleagues?
The eBook contains tips and techniques to help you get your survey off the ground, whether you’re creating a generic customer satisfaction survey or are looking for something more specialized. Each section ends with a template that you can adapt for your use.
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