Tag: feedback

Survey Design: Part 1

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Here are some quick, simple tips to use when evaluating your customer satisfaction survey design. This is Part 1 of 3 that covers ideas on What to Ask and How to Ask It.

 

WHAT TO ASK

You should seek information that you can act on. Think about what you will do with the information you receive, and then frame the question to get you that information. Try to avoid asking questions that make you say “that would be really interesting to know but I’m not sure what we’d do with it.” Your customers are busy so show them that you value their time by only asking what you plan to act on.

Make sure you’re only asking about one thing at a time. Your question shouldn’t tackle two issues at once. Be clear and concise, and only ask about one specific thing in a question. For example, if you ask “Was the representative knowledgeable and courteous?” you are really asking two questions: “Was the representative knowledgeable” and “Was the representative courteous?” They are different so decide which you want to measure.

Make sure there is only one interpretation of what you are asking. You don’t want one customer thinking you mean something totally different than another. Ask people around your office for their interpretation of your question if you think it might be too vague. Too many different answers mean you should consider rephrasing and testing again (unless it’s an open-ended question, of course).

Don’t ask anything you should be measuring internally through operational KPI’s. I see this on surveys time and time again. If there is something that you can specifically measure through your operational metrics, consider not asking the customer to provide you with that information. For example, “Did our service person arrive on time?” If you have the technology to measure that, then measure it! And hold your teams accountable to the standard. You should be able to match up your survey data to your operational data and check whether there is a correlation between being on time and customer satisfaction. However, the reality is that not everyone has the reporting capabilities and resources to do so. If that’s true for you, try to minimize the number of things you ask that you should already have access to.

 

HOW TO ASK IT

Walk the customer through the experience in an order that makes sense. Think about the experience that you’re evaluating with the survey. Try to recreate the experience in the customer’s mind with your questions. In other words, don’t ask about various aspects of the experience out of sequence.

Don’t ask leading questions. Make sure your questions are not directing customers to a particular answer. You are seeking honest, unbiased feedback, right?

Use appropriate lingo. This one is tough sometimes. When you’re an expert on how a process works internally, it’s hard to differentiate internal jargon from layman’s terms.  You want to avoid using internal terms and abbreviations that won’t make sense to the customer.The best test here is to grab a friend from outside your department or company to proof-read the survey. See if it makes sense to her. Now, sometimes it makes sense to use industry lingo. For example, if you’re surveying someone about a technical process, the recipient could be an engineer and he might think it’s silly for you to be using non-technical terminology. Ultimately, evaluate your recipients and make sure they’ll understand the words you use.

 

Next up in Survey Design Part 2: Standard Questions, Question Scale, and Survey Length

 

You Are Already Getting Feedback

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If your organization does not yet have a survey program in place, you are still receiving feedback from your customers on a daily basis. If your company isn’t interested in making the investment in a survey platform today, don’t let that hold you back. As long as you set up other systematic ways to take in and process customer feedback, you can tap into great insights. Here are some ideas on listening to the feedback you’re already getting.

 

THROUGH CALLS / ONLINE CHATS / EMAILS

Whether customers reach you through phone calls, online chats, or emails/web forms,  it is important that you classify each one of those contacts to understand the top drivers. The classifications are themselves are important here. If a customer calls or emails you and their reason is classified as a “billing question”, that doesn’t give you much to go on. Did their invoice not show up? Did it reflect the wrong amount? Try to be specific enough with your classifications that you can actually act on them, but not too specific that you dilute the results and end up with way too many one-offs.

If you don’t have historical data to look at as to why customers are contacting you or the classifications used in the past don’t give you enough insight, try going back and doing the research yourself. Document all the reasons that people call/chat/email for a week (or whatever the right amount of time is based on your volume). Set up a system to tag what you’re hearing or seeing. if you already have a system in place that does this, reevaluate it and make sure it is actionable information.

 

THROUGH YOUR FRONT LINE PEOPLE

Your front line people know the reasons that customers contact you. They might not be able to say the highest reason with absolute certainty, but they are going to have a pretty good idea of the main problems. Focus groups are a great way to probe the experience of front line employees; however, for this purpose, you might try sending a free survey through something like Survey Monkey to your employees. You can assure them that their responses are anonymous and that will give them the confidence to provide candid responses. If there’s something the company does that an employee thinks is really stupid, an anonymous survey is a great way to tap into that info.  It doesn’t even have to be that formal. Simply walk up to your staff and ask some of them, “What’s the biggest problem we have when it comes to our customer experience?” Whatever method you use to get the front line perspective, track that information.

 

THROUGH CUSTOMER ACTIONS

There are many customer actions that you can measure to give you clues about whether or not you’re meeting the mark on CX. Think about the systems with which your customers interact and what sort of data trail they are leaving. A few suggestions of areas to investigate: web bounce rate (to see if your pages are providing value); utilization rate of tools available (to see if tools are useful and/or functioning properly); repurchase/renewal rate; or attrition after certain occurrences.  The actions that customers perform while engaged with your company are where you want to look. When you’re not asking for direct feedback from customers, things like this can give you a piece of the puzzle.

 

COMPARE RESULTS ACROSS SOURCES

The last step is to compare results from the all the sources listed above. Most likely you will see a pattern emerging that warrants your attention. You can begin your customer experience improvements in that area. Start taking action and be sure to continue listening through the methods you have set up.

Too often I see organizations spending so much time trying to figure out the “right” thing to fix, the “one thing” that will transform their entire customer experience, and they end up frozen, not taking any action out of fear that it’s not the best possible use of their time and money. Stop waiting for the silver bullet, and get started. Customer experience is work! There’s not a switch to flip that will make it outstanding in an instant. Find some things to improve and chipping away at customer frustrations.