Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

How to Write Effective Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Why bother?

The life blood of any business is good customer service. Although new customers are very important good customer service will help generate customer loyalty and repeat business. With every satisfied customer your business is likely to go on and secure many more customers through recommendations and if you do not take proper care of your customers there is probably a competitor waiting in the wings that will.

Online customer satisfaction surveys will help by not only identifying problem areas but show that you care and are proactive in looking for ways to improve the service that you provide.

Where do you start?

Objective – As a first step decide what the main objectives of the survey are, in that way you will be able to retain focus and find it easier to decide what questions to ask.

Analysis – In addition to the objective consider also how you will analyse the answers having completed the survey.

Keep in mind that ‘closed’ questions (where a respondent is asked to choose from a limited number of responses) are much easier to analyze than ‘open’ questions (where the respondent can reply in anyway they want).

Much will depend on the predicted volume of respondents, the higher the volume the more important it is to have an easy method of analyzing the results.

Opportunity – As well as obtaining valuable market research data keep in mind that customer surveys are also a good way to publicise aspects of your service that your customers may not be aware of.

Before publishing the survey read through the survey from a market research view point to confirm that you are asking the right questions in the right way and that your chosen answer format will provide you with feedback that will allow you to make informed decisions.

Then, read through the survey from a marketing view point, check that you have phrased each question so that every opportunity has been taken to promote your business?

The ideal question will perform the following three functions:-

• Market research – provide valuable feedback to help you improve your customer satisfaction levels and in turn your business
• Marketing – promote aspects of your business
• Information/Education – advertise a service that you provide that your customers may not have been unaware of

For example:- Do you find the in-store baby changing facilities useful?

By asking this question not only will the store receive good market research feedback on the facility they provide but they will also promote their facilities and advertise themselves as a family friendly store, even beyond those customers who have a specific need for the baby changing facility that has been provided.

Warts and all – to benefit most from a customer survey you need to avoid the temptation, in any way, of attempting to sugar coat the survey.

A well designed customer satisfaction survey will enable you to identify problems so that they can be addressed; regular customer satisfaction will prevent complacency and give you early warning on where you might be losing out to your competitors initiatives.

What to ask?

Each business is likely to have unique factors in relation to providing good customer services however there are common areas that are going to be relevant to all businesses be they a physical store, online store or a service industry. The following are key areas to providing good customer service.

Communication – Are you proactive in making it easy for the customer to communicate with you?

When customers telephone are their calls answered quickly; are their enquiries about products or services handled properly? A good business will make every effort to ensure that whatever the customers query it is resolved by the right person, quickly, politely and fairly.

If a problem is not resolvable immediately do you promise to respond in a given time period and do you deliver on your promise?

Use a customer satisfaction survey to ensure that all your staff are considered by your customers to be helpful, courteous and knowledgeable.

Location – Are you doing everything you can to ensure that your customers find it easy to visit you, if a physical store, does it have good access and is it conveniently located?

Making it pleasant, making it easy – For an internet business it is important to ensure that your website is aesthetically pleasing and easy to use.

Regardless of the store being a bricks and mortar or purely an online internet store, is the store properly laid out, can your customers find what they need and is there sufficient information and help on hand to explain how a particular product works?

The right quality products – In addition to measuring the quality of the service that you provide you should ensure that the products and services that you provide do fully match your customers’ requirements.

Value for money – Cheap or expensive is not always a good measure, value for money is.

Do your current customers consider the products you sell or the services you provide as value for money, if not, why not?

Speed and attention – Customers want their enquiries or queries to be dealt with quickly but attentively.

Are you doing everything you can to avoid any delay?

Good businesses will try to treat each customer as an individual, does yours? Attention is one thing but this has to be hand- in-hand with a quick and satisfactory resolution of the query.

Demographics and Specific issues – Take the opportunity to profile your customers, for example where do they live and what is their age group?

The better you understand your customers the more you will be able to properly target your business.

For customers who have specific problems allow them to provide details and contact details.

What is next?

Having completed the survey analyse the results.

Trends – Look for specific and common areas where the customer service is found wanting.

Ask yourself if any criticism is valid, be honest to yourself, is there anything that can be done to properly resolve, or at the very least, minimise the problem?

Training – Are the staff properly trained and do they have sufficient knowledge?

Where employee training programmes have been implemented have they made a positive contribution to the business and improved the customer service?

Follow-up – If a customer who has completed a survey has raised a specific issue do all you can to ensure that their complaint is addressed.

Don’t squander the opportunity to resolve a problem and keep a customer.

Continuously Monitor – Based on the survey results make changes and then re-measure by issuing further surveys.

If you are interested in tracking customer satisfaction and would like to see a sample survey for a store that demonstrates some of the above advice please view the following example that can be used as a customer satisfaction survey template.

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Ten Reasons to Market to the Online Generation Using Surveys and Questionnaires

Customers are tough. They are extremely media aware and increasingly cynical and it is a clever marketeer who can get under their skin. Online surveys modernizes the traditional format and offer a unique way of interaction – all the benefits of the Internet without the programming. Here are ten reasons why they may be the silver bullet marketeers’ need, complete with examples supplied by Martin Day, managing director of Survey Galaxy – one of a new breed of websites making online surveys quicker and cheaper

1. It’s cheap as buttons
Select the right survey website and creating surveys can be free of any charge and the cost to publish very reasonable.
Useful information derived from survey analysis can be reused and repackaged in other marketing and PR for use in press outlets making it a very efficient form of information gathering.

2. It’s very easy
Anyone can create and publish an online survey. Survey sites allow people who are interested in the benefits of surveys, rather than technicalities, to side-step the required programming skills and create relevant up-to-the-minute surveys, instantly – surveys that are even easier to complete than they are to make.

3. Multiple deployment options
Promoting an online survey can be via email (with a link enclosed), through a link from a website or as a referenced by other forms of advertising. Once advised of the survey’s URL anyone can link can to the survey at a time that is convenient to them, 24×7.

4. We’ve all got an opinion – and we like to give it
Customers do not often view surveys as spam and the majority welcome the opportunity to make their voice heard and a chance to have an impact on a brand. They provide a good method for broaching sensitive subjects with concerned employees; a survey asking a workforce on their opinion of change allows the key issues to be raised in a positive manner and encourages employee participation. Online surveys ensures that the message reaches each individual and the feedback is compiled in a manageable form.

5. Get inside their heads
With traditional advertising you can lead a customer to an advertisement but you can’t make them think. Surveys actively engage the respondent, who think about the question before giving their response.

6. Building relationships
It needn’t all end at the end of the survey – while you have their attention and are in the mood you can ask if they want to sign up for more information or a regular newsletter – making the most of the window when you have their interest.

7. Have you also seen….
Take the opportunity to maximise the interest of those responding to your survey by referencing related information. By including links within the survey to websites that offer detailed information you are able to reinforce the marketing message.

8. Subtly rules
Surveys can be used to associate a product with positive attributes. By listing the many features of a product and asking the respondent how important they are, regardless of their response, the product will be associated with the features; if they are rated as important the positive impact is endorsed by the customer.

9. Market, educate and gather market research
A survey is an effective, easy and quick method to promote and gain acceptance for a difficult proposal; for example a public body trying to gain acceptance and support for a particular scheme.
For example take a city trying to gain support from the general public for their bid to host a future Olympic Games. Being able to explain each benefit will put a respondent in a much better position to appreciate your argument and that may be enough to combat any negative aspects. Unlike other forms of marketing as well as promoting a cause, useful feedback can be gained that can then be used to fine tune the overall marketing strategy.

10. Engage interest
Think laterally and a lively and imaginative approach to surveys can provide a ‘hook’ to engage respondents. The survey subject can be aimed at a particular group on a subject close to theirs hearts. The survey’s marketing message can take the form of a simple brand awareness message by stating that ‘this survey was sponsored by brand name’, or by finding a link from the subject matter to the product – something that is surprisingly easy and highly effective.

Attract more people to your website by providing a Public Survey section as many people who enjoy completing crosswords and doing word puzzles enjoy completing questionnaires. Having a public survey notice board as part of a website is a low cost and automated method that helps to increase traffic and establish a loyal and returning following. No need for moderators as unlike discussion boards there is no opportunity for people to disrupt the site by inappropriate remarks as the survey results can be displayed in summary form.

Customers do not associate surveys as spam and most welcome the opportunity to make their voice heard and a chance to have an impact on a brand.

Many of the techniques and a few more are contained in the following Sample Marketing Survey.

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20 Top Tips to Writing Effective Surveys

Designing surveys is easy; or is it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following tips will help you with your survey questionnaire design so you can write more effective surveys.

1. What is the survey’s purpose?

There are many reasons for conducting questionnaires. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don’t lose sight of its purpose.

2. Give the survey a good title

The survey title is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey’s objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents need to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.

3. The length of the survey needs to be as short as possible

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize the questions providing you with ‘nice to know’ information and concentrate instead on the ‘need to know’ questions.

4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid jargon, acronyms and asking questions that could result in ambiguous answers

Word the question carefully. If a question can be interpreted in more ways than one then there is a risk that any analysis of the survey results will be worthless or at the very least misleading.

5. Don’t have long questions

Use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions tend to cause respondents discomfort and can lead to respondents abandoning a survey.

6. Ask one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like ‘Do you like football and tennis?’

7. Don’t influence the answer

Do not load the question. ‘Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell tobacco to children be prosecuted?’ is likely to have no value.

8. Make sure that the answer format used allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Ensure that the respondent is able to answer how they really feel or they may be less inclined to complete the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a “No comment”, “Don’t know” or similar response option.

9. When you are compiling your survey consider how you will analyse the results once the survey has been published

Appreciate that questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider how the answers could be grouped. For example “How long have you worked here?” – ‘less than 2 year’, ‘between 2 and 4 years’ and ‘more than 4′.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.

11. Target your respondents carefully

In some cases you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can’t easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents that don’t match your target profile.

12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer or make comments

Allowing respondents to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections that free text open ended responses may be difficult to analyse.

13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that your pledge is upheld

If you have guaranteed the respondents that the survey is confidential ensure that the individual data is not to be shared with anyone and not used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained and any identifying information deleted after the survey is complete.

14. Weigh up the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up specific complaints or match “pre” or “post” surveys. However in some cases allowing respondents to remain anonymous will allow respondents to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Carefully consider the best response format

It is good practice to maintain a consistency in the format used for responses. When designing your survey keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. If a radio response format can be used do not use a check box format.

16. Inform the respondent as to the approximate time it will take to complete the survey

If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop out can occur. It is good practice to indicate how long the survey is likely to take so that the participants can choose the best time to complete the survey.

17. Provide respondents with the survey end date

Encourage respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise respondents as to the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Pilot the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish the survey as a trial to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey check the survey carefully

Check more than once that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If practical get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if no one else is available then take a break before checking again.

20. Thank your respondents

Respondents invest their time when completing surveys and should therefore be thanked at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to provide an incentive such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.

To get started there are numerous survey software websites to choose from.

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