So How Did We Do?

With the closing of another year just around the corner, many companies are turning their attention to analyzing their performance in 2008. For most companies this goes well beyond financial analysis to measuring customer satisfaction. I’m a strong believer that customer satisfaction needs to be measured on an ongoing basis to be useful, but some companies still rely on conducting just one annual survey to capture their customers’ feedback. The most common means for gathering customer feedback is still surveys. Whether you conduct an annual survey or solicit customer feedback throughout the course of the year, there are some important things to consider before conducting your survey. I’ve listed a few of them here: 

Gain the support of upper management
- Get buy in from upper management to conduct your survey. It doesn’t do any good to survey your customers if management is unwilling or unable to address any concerns that may be raised.

Set clear, quantifiable goals for your survey
- Clearly identify what information you’re hoping to gather. What questions are you hoping to answer?
- What is going to be done with the information after it’s received?
- Plan how the results will be communicated and used to facilitate change.

Identify your survey sample group
- Without going into all the statistical aspects of conducting a survey, identify who should receive your survey. This could include more than one group and may include more than one version of your survey.

Write a survey that contains only the information necessary to accomplish your goals
- Keep it short. Typically, your response rate for a short survey will be higher than a long one.
- Be sure to distinguish between transactional and relational surveys and do not combine them if possible.
- If it truly is a customer satisfaction survey, resist the temptation to include marketing questions.

Encourage survey participation
- Send a pre-survey message letting them know a survey is coming and when you hope to have their responses by. It is also advised that you summarize why you’re collecting the data and how their feedback will be used.
- Under some circumstances a reward or gift can be offered for their participation. This is especially true if you need to conduct a lengthy survey.
- If the survey has not been completed as your deadline approaches, a reminder email is a friendly way of asking them to reconsider taking time to complete it.
- If the survey is not anonymous, personalize your message to each customer to acknowledge their specific feedback

Review data internally and develop your message to internal teams as well as to your customers
- It’s not uncommon for your survey responses to be on either end of the spectrum...either from customers who are extremely pleased with your service or customers who are not. Careful analysis of your results should determine what changes need to be made that will have the greatest positive impact. 
- Assuming the survey is not conducted anonymously, personal follow up with your customers for further detail and clarification will add further value to their feedback and help target follow up activities good and bad.

Implement your action plan
- With the data collected, mobilize internal teams to address any concerns raised and promote company strengths.
- Close the loop. Communicate to your customers what you heard and let them know what changes will be implemented to address any concerns.

Measure progress
- Ongoing collection of customer feedback will allow you to measure your success at addressing any customer concerns in a timely fashion and is imperative to improving your customer satisfaction.

There are countless theories on how and when customer satisfaction surveys should be conducted. My purpose here is to introduce you to a core list of things to consider when conducting your next survey.