Surveys are a simple way to gain insight from customers without invading their privacy or taking up too much of their time.
By asking customers for assistance in identifying strengths and weaknesses, a company is able to objectively look at areas for improvement, as much as capitalize on their areas of strength.
How can a business know exactly what its customers think of its product or service? Simply by asking them.
By knowing what customers think, companies are able to retain satisfied customers, improve customer relations, generate repeat business and increase the chances for the greatest customer satisfaction bonus: referrals.
By asking customers for assistance in identifying strengths and weaknesses, a company is able to objectively look at areas for improvement, as much as capitalize on their areas of strength.
Key tips in customer surveys:
Decide what needs to be known.
Narrow the questions to what is essential to the intent of the survey. Determine the focus of the survey.
Assure anonymity.
Customers will be more likely to respond and respond truthfully if they are confident that their identity will not be known. Assure customers in a letter that the survey is anonymous and disclose how the survey results will be used.
Less is more.
Keep the survey as short as possible without sacrificing necessary questions. Respect the customer’s time. A shorter questionnaire is less overwhelming to complete, and will increase the number of responses.
Use simple language.
Take care in ensuring that every customer will understand the question the same. Use layman’s terms. Don’t complicate the questionnaire with extensive vocabulary.
Use close-ended questions.
By using open-ended questions, you are inviting more information than necessary. These types of questions are too broad and answers will vary too greatly. Close-ended questions allow only a limited number of choices.
Don’t use leading questions.
Leading questions are ones that will demand a specific response. It allows the bias of the company to sway the customer. Try to begin all questions with how, what, where, when or do.
Keep the list of choices short, but cover all bases.
If the answer options are too extensive, the customers will have difficulty evaluating them all. Additionally, make sure that answers allow a balance of extremes, such as “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.”
To increase the likelihood of response, make the survey easy for the customer to complete and return. If sending through the mail, send it with a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Give a prompt due date to spark reaction. Otherwise, it may get piled with other papers and forgotten. Another option is to have customers complete a survey online. This can be cost-effective for a company and time-efficient for the customer. Offer an incentive for completing the survey, such as promotional items, discounts or free services to increase responses.
Analyze the results and use your customers’ insight to your advantage.